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Bottleneck Finder
Find the one step that holds a slow process up, confirm it with three signs, and plan the Five Focusing Steps of the Theory of Constraints for it.
This tool also runs as a stage in a playbook, which takes you through several tools in order:
- Speed up a slow business process Stage 2 of 4: which step holds everything up? Start at stage 1
Not following the playbook?
Already know which step holds everything up? The playbook can start here: list the steps below, with the queue in front of each if you know it.
The steps, in order
Where someone works on the item. The queue is how long items usually wait in front of the step; leave it empty if you don't know.
Which step holds everything up?
- Every process has one step that limits how much gets through: the constraint.
- It usually has the longest queue in front of it. Speeding up any other step changes nothing.
What limits it?
Sometimes the constraint isn't a lack of people at all, but a rule: a committee that meets once a week, a batch run overnight, a sign-off nobody remembers the reason for.
Check it: three signs
Check it with numbers (optional)
A step that finishes fewer items than arrive builds a queue that never clears. Count a normal week.
Your notes never leave your browser
The steps and your plan stay on your computer and in your progress file. To write the diagnosis, only the queues, your answers and which boxes are filled are sent to our server, by place in your list. How it works
Plan the Five Focusing Steps
What changes, so items stop waiting for it.
Once this one moves, another step becomes the limit. Usually the next longest queue.
The constraint
The plan
Queues in front of each step
Save your progress
Download your progress file to continue from this point any time, on any computer: choose it under "Coming back?" at the start of the tool. Each new file includes everything so far, including the earlier stages when they are connected, so keep the latest one. Your work stays in this browser only until you close it.
Not saved yet.
Take your results with you
A PDF of the constraint, the three signs, the plan for each focusing step, and the diagnosis.
About the tool
Why it exists
Fix the step that limits everything, and only that one
The Theory of Constraints says every process has one step that limits how much gets through, the constraint, and that speeding up any other step changes nothing: work simply waits longer in front of the constraint. So find it, confirm it, and focus there.
This tool works on its own, and as stage 2 of our playbook for speeding up a slow business process, where it picks up the value stream map of stage 1. For the method, see our guide to the Theory of Constraints.
The method
How the tool works
Three signs, seen together. The longest queue in front of it, the steps after it waiting for work, and always busy, even on quiet days. A step with a long queue that is not always busy is usually waiting on something else.
Work or a rule. When the limit is a rule, such as a committee that meets once a week, the fix is to change the rule. No improvement event is needed.
The Five Focusing Steps, in order. Identify the constraint, exploit it (get the most from it without spending money), subordinate the other steps to it, elevate it (add capacity) only after that, and repeat when the constraint moves. The tool flags a plan that adds capacity before trying the free steps.
Suggestions. "Suggest for the empty boxes" writes common first moves, worded for your steps, only into empty boxes. They are starting points to edit.
What leaves your computer. The steps and your plan stay in your browser and your progress file. To write the diagnosis, the page sends our server only the queues, your answers and which boxes are filled, by place in your list, and the server keeps nothing.