Find the bottleneck. Most operations questions are that question wearing a costume
Process analysis, capacity planning, queueing, inventory: the underlying question is usually where the constraint is and what happens if you move it. Recognizing that turns a long list of models into a small number of ideas.
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Improving anything except the constraint changes nothing
In a process, throughput is set by the slowest stage. Adding capacity anywhere else produces inventory in front of the bottleneck and no additional output. Students who calculate correctly and then recommend improving the wrong stage lose the points that matter, and it is a very common answer.
Inventory models are the other cluster. The economic order quantity and its variants all trade ordering cost against holding cost, and the exam interest is usually in what happens when an assumption breaks: demand is not constant, lead time is not certain, or there is a quantity discount.
Then there is variability, which is what makes queueing counterintuitive. A system running at 95% utilization has dramatically longer waits than one at 80%, and nothing in the average capacity figure predicts that. Rubrics reward students who can explain why.
- The bottleneck identified before anything is recommended
- Inventory models applied with their assumptions stated
- Variability and utilization treated as related, not separate
- Recommendations that name the constraint they relieve
What we work on
Your own assignment and your own rubric
- Process mapping, cycle time, throughput and capacity
- Bottleneck analysis and what to do about one
- EOQ, reorder points, safety stock and service levels
- Queueing intuition and why utilization matters so much
- Lean, six sigma and quality improvement write-ups
We teach the method. You do the assignment
- We do not complete your calculations or case analyses.
- We do not run your simulations for you.
- We do not sit or assist during any exam or timed quiz.
- We do not supply completed work to adapt.
- We teach the models on worked examples, then review your own work.
Where an assignment uses a simulation platform, we teach the reasoning and leave the operating of it to you, since the decisions you make in it are what is being assessed. Read the full policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Compare the capacity of each stage in the same units, usually units per hour. The lowest is the bottleneck and it sets throughput for the whole process. The common error is comparing processing times without adjusting for parallel resources at a stage.
Because variability compounds. With variable arrivals and service times, a system at very high utilization has no slack to recover from a busy patch, so waits rise sharply rather than smoothly. This is why real operations rarely target full utilization and why exams ask about it.
When its assumptions break: constant demand, known lead time, no quantity discounts, no stockouts. Most questions are interested in exactly those cases, so knowing the model matters less than knowing which assumption the scenario has broken.
It follows from your target service level and the variability of demand and lead time. The judgment is in choosing the service level, because moving from 95% to 99% costs considerably more inventory. Assignments usually want that trade-off discussed.
With the reasoning and the analysis, yes. Running the simulation is yours, because the decisions you make in it are what the assignment is assessing, and results someone else produced tell you nothing about your own decisions.
Send the assignment and the data
We will work through the analysis with you and check whether the recommendation actually addresses the constraint.
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