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Application
Published in Benny Raphael, Construction and Building Automation, 2023
All these activities require information gathering and communication. A computerized management information system (MIS) helps in taking decisions and implementing them. Performance of the system can be monitored regularly, and corrective actions could be taken quickly when faults are detected. Management decisions need to be communicated efficiently to people in charge of operations. This is best done by automating the work-flow. Workflow refers to the flow of information in an organization. In an ideal situation, information should flow seamlessly from one person or department to the next without any physical exchange of papers. The flow of information can be tracked, and bottlenecks can be identified.
Steps 6, 7, and 8
Published in Min Basadur, Michael Goldsby, Rob Mathews, Design-Centered Entrepreneurship, 2022
Min Basadur, Michael Goldsby, Rob Mathews
Entrepreneurs face many sticking points, but one of the biggest roadblocks to overcome in any organization are bottlenecks. Bottlenecks are points or activities that create inefficiencies in the overall system or process flow. We also call these sticking points or setbacks. There might be a manufacturing or other operational issue that is slowing the product’s delivery to market. Creative problem-solving can help uncover the underlying issues causing the bottleneck, just as we saw in the example of Dan. However, one type of bottleneck can be particularly debilitating to entrepreneurial success. We call these bottlenecks “battlenecks” because they incur extra emotional costs on the entrepreneur. Battlenecks are people-centered interference or obstructions blocking new ideas. Investors, suppliers, and distributors can be gatekeepers who dig in their heels to protect the status quo. Because your business idea must go through them in order to be implemented, their voices can sway or otherwise influence decisions regarding your company’s future. Overcoming battlenecks requires time and energy planning and marshaling forces to defeat resistance efforts.
Lean Six Sigma Basics
Published in James William Martin, Lean Six Sigma for the Office, 2021
Figure 3.6 shows how the bottleneck concept applies in an office. In the first scenario, a bottleneck feeds a non-bottleneck. In the second scenario the sequence is reversed. In either scenario, the production rate of all resources or operations must be subordinated to the bottleneck’s demand and is 10 units per day. Another important concept is that a bottleneck must be activated and utilized to meet the takt time. In situations where a bottleneck cannot meet its demand, then process improvements should first focus on increasing the bottleneck’s capacity as opposed to other operations. Increasing capacity elsewhere does increase the process throughput rate. If process improvements cannot provide sufficient capacity for the bottleneck to meet the takt time, then it could be utilized over multiple shifts or additional workers, and equipment could be added to support it. If a bottleneck gains capacity than another operation called a capacity-constrained resource may become the new bottleneck. A VFM is very useful to help understand operational capacity and locate the bottle neck and capacity-constrained operations.
A resource-constrained, multi-unit hospital model for operational strategies evaluation under routine and surge demand scenarios
Published in IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering, 2019
Mersedeh TariVerdi, Elise Miller-Hooks, Thomas Kirsch, Scott Levin
Section 2.1 takes a demand-perspective. This section describes the queueing network model from the perspective of services offered. The nodes of the queueing network include, by design, locations of potential bottlenecks in critical services and their supporting units. For example, bottlenecks commonly arise in the ED, ORs and IGWs (Lakshmi and Appa Iyer, 2013). These bottlenecks can be due to excess demand in relation to unit capacity in terms of service rates. Backups due to bottlenecks in one unit can also cascade to other units, as a backup in one service can affect the ability to start another service. For example, backups arising in IGWs can slow down the transfer rates of patients out of the ED, preventing new patients from entering the ED. Links of the queueing network tie these services together to replicate typical or anticipated patient care paths. A comprehensive model of hospital operations across its many units, thus, is required to adequately capture these backups or bottlenecks as is necessary for understanding hospital performance.
Bottleneck identification and ranking model for mine operations
Published in Production Planning & Control, 2020
M. Mustafa Kahraman, W. Pratt Rogers, Sean Dessureault
Li (2011) lists system demand input variations, system throughput variations, uncertainty, and perception errors as travel bottleneck reasons. Demand fluctuations caused by the market and facility issues (failure, material shortage, etc.) are considered by Shen and Chen (2010) to be the main reasons for bottlenecks. In a production system, equipment, human, process design, planning and scheduling, buffer, market conditions, and interruptions can also be causes of bottlenecks (Kahraman and Dessureault 2013).