Line balancing and bottleneck capacity: work from the constraint
Estimate serial-line capacity, distinguish parallel lanes from stations, and use a small observation study before adding automation.
Bottleneck
The operation or shared resource that limits effective throughput under the actual production conditions.
A bottleneck is a capacity constraint at a defined system boundary. Compare effective rates after downtime, yield, shared resources and product mix. A queue alone is evidence to investigate, not proof: downstream blocking and upstream starvation can change the apparent constraint. See the line-balancing guide and capacity calculator.
See also: Cycle time · Takt time
Use the concept: Downtime log template · SMED changeover observation template · Takt time calculator
In depth
Collaborative robots: selecting and deploying cobots that pay back
Select and deploy collaborative robots with realistic payback — risk assessment, end-effectors, application fit, and integration costs beyond the arm.
Takt time vs cycle time vs lead time: calculate the right clock
A worked shift example separates customer pace, observed process speed and end-to-end delivery time, with practical checks before changing the line.