Scheduling the Bottlenecks

Are you faced with an arrears situation and a growing order book?

Do you find that your teams work on the wrong production orders just when it causes you the most problems?

I witness these kinds of problems a lot and I thought I would share with you how I start to go about solving the problem. The starting point is often to find the bottlenecks in the process. This solution isn’t about line balancing and introducing kanbans, this is about getting results today. After getting some immediate results I agree that you need to think bigger about the whole production system.

Getting a grip of the schedule running through your bottlenecks and ‘micro managing’ the situation immediately before the bottleneck is vital. Sucking in the right work at the right time to keep your bottlenecks primed and working is essential to try and keep on top of your overall schedules.

If you have read the book ‘The Goal’ then you will be familiar with the Theory of Constraints approach. This blog post is about a practical initial application of that theory. There are too many people getting caught up about the one right way to design your production system that sometimes we all get caught up in not delivering right here right now.

If you are getting behind then please take the time to understand what parts of your process need special care and attention. A short term spell of micro managing specific work centres / cells in order to buy you time to create a proper fix is well worth it.

Giles Johnston
Author, Consultant and Chartered Engineer

P.S. If you are looking for some ideas on how to overhaul your business processes then check out my book on 'Business Process Re-Engineering', available at Amazon for the Kindle device / app.

Comments

The Kaizen Checklist is here!

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it...

How to get started with continuous improvement

We all know that continuous improvement is a strategy that is essential for business. It involves constantly seeking ways to improve processes, products, or services in order to achieve better results and outcomes. However, for many people, the thought of starting on the path of continuous improvement can be daunting. The fear of doing it incorrectly or not knowing where to start can be overwhelming. The key to successful continuous improvement is to start small and gradually build upon your successes. Here are some tips to help you get started if you are unsure of how to begin: 1. Identify areas for improvement: The first step in continuous improvement is to identify the areas that need improvement. This can be done by looking at the processes, products, or services that are not performing as well as they could be. It is important to involve all stakeholders in this process to gain a comprehensive understanding of the areas that need attention. 2. Set specifi...

Nail the number one improvement project

Over the past few weeks I have intervened in my client's continuous improvement programmes . I did this for one good reason: They weren't getting results. They caught the improvement bug, like so many organisations do. They got caught in the trap of wanting to change everything now! As I said, this happens to most of us from time to time. You start with some small improvements and you then identify more improvements you could get your teeth into. The next thing you know, you are trying to run ten improvement projects as well as deliver your day job. I know from bitter experience that this usually leads to having lots of loose ends rather than tangible increases in performance. So, what can you do about this? I know that with careful experimenting and resource management, you could find your sweet spot and figure out how many projects you can handle at once. Or, you can take the quick route and pare back your list until you have one priority. The one project that will give you t...

The Smartspeed Performance Improvement Blog