Question

The smooth flow of activities in an operations system is of primary concern to managers. However, these activities are often slowed down by bottlenecks.

     (i) With the aid of a diagram, explain how a bottleneck may reduce the flow of activities in an operations system.                                                                      

(ii) Describe how each of the following may act as a bottleneck in an organization and suggest one way of removing each one of them:

• Electricity supply
• Shortage of raw materials
• Management   

Answer 1

Question # i. Smooth flow to activities helps in the optimization of the production process as well as any other process. It is extremely important to understand the bottleneck activities in the process flow and we should make an attempt to remove or correct the bottleneck process.

To understand the importance of the removal of bottleneck we will take the illustration of the one of the food manufacturing process where the flow to activities and their respective time consumption in completion of the activities are as below:

Here, we can clearly see that the most of the time is being consumed in the packing and it is creating the real bottleneck in increasing the production levels. If we introduce the two packing machines to remove the bottleneck at the packing station then the whole production can be doubled.

Question # 2. Now let us understand how the below factors of production can become a bottleneck if not managed properly.

• Electricity supply: Let us understand that electricity is the critical factor of production and it helps in operating of many machines and equipment. The number of hours a proper electricity supply will decide the production level. Let us assume that the factory is operation 24 hours but there are always 4-6 hours of a breakdown in electricity supply, then it will become a bottleneck in production, therefore alternate electricity like DG set of solar supply will help in removing this bottleneck.
• Shortage of raw materials: If the raw material is not available as per production plan then the raw material will become the bottleneck, therefore in order to remove this bottleneck we must have a proper inventory management system in place like, MRP, EOQ model or JIT model of inventory management must be established.
• Management: Let us assume that there is always a delay in completing the process of release of job orders from the management then the time in approval of work orders will become the bottleneck, and to remove this bottleneck we must have proper approval system and creation of digital work order process should be adopted.