Bottleneck

A bottleneck is a stage whose limited capacity constrains the throughput of an entire process. Increasing capacity elsewhere does not raise overall throughput while that constraint remains.

Throughput: The rate at which a system completes or processes units over time. Overall throughput cannot exceed the effective capacity of its limiting stage.
Production planning: The process of deciding what, when, and how much to produce with available resources. Plans must account for the capacity-limiting operation rather than assume every stage can keep pace.
Starvation (computer science): A condition in which a process waits indefinitely because resources are repeatedly allocated to others. A stage may sit idle from lack of input, unlike a bottleneck that limits downstream flow through insufficient capacity.
Theory of Constraints: A management approach that improves a system by identifying and managing its limiting constraint. Its improvement cycle prioritizes the bottleneck and warns that constraints can move after intervention.
Queueing theory: The mathematical study of waiting lines, service processes, and congestion. It predicts how queues grow when work arrives faster than a constrained stage can serve it.
Assembly line: A production system in which products move through successive, specialized workstations. Unequal workstation capacities make the slowest operation a direct limit on line output.
Deadlock: A condition in which processes wait permanently for resources held by one another. Deadlock halts progress through circular waiting rather than merely restricting a process's maximum rate.
Economies of scale: Declines in average production cost as output increases over a relevant range. Expanding nonconstrained stages may add cost without increasing system output.
Little's law: A relationship stating that average items in a stable system equal throughput multiplied by average time in the system. It connects bottleneck-driven throughput and waiting time to the amount of work in a process.
Critical path method: A project-scheduling technique that identifies the longest dependency path determining minimum completion time. A duration-limiting activity can constrain the completion time of the entire project.

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