Solution for Example of Bottleneck resource in notes

5. Bottleneck Resource
In practice, it is likely that a product will have to be worked on by several machines – one after the
other.
The rate of production will be restricted by the slowest of the machines, and this machine is known
as the bottleneck resource.
The calculations that we have been through in the earlier examples will be performed using the
hours per unit in this bottleneck resource.
Example 3
Yam Co is involved in the processing of sheet metal into products A, B and C using three processes,
pressing, stretching and rolling.
The factory has 50 production lines each of which contain the three processes: Raw material for the
sheet metal is first pressed then stretched and finally rolled. The processing capacity varies for each
process and the factory manager has provided the following data:
Processing time per metre in hours
Product A Product B Product C
Pressing 0.50 0.50 0.40
Stretching 0.25 0.40 0.25
Rolling 0.40 0.25 0.25
The factory operates for 225,000 hours.
Identify the bottleneck process and explain why this process is described as a ‘bottleneck’.