Do you know where your bottleneck is in your production? In your project portfolio?

4 min read1 day ago

In modern factories and R&D departments, companies frequently make mistakes when identifying their bottlenecks. This insight comes from our 20 years of implementing the Theory of Constraints (TOC) in production and project environments.

Why Are Bottlenecks incorrectly identified?

Several factors contribute to this growing issue:

Rapidly Changing Environments
With technological advancements and new product launches occurring faster than ever, companies often rely on outdated analyses. A constraint that was critical two or three years ago may no longer be relevant today. Too often, businesses continue managing their operations based on obsolete assumptions.
The Rise of “Indirect” Operations
Many modern production systems include numerous “indirect” tasks — such as quality control and compliance documentation — that aren’t treated as traditional production operations. Unlike direct processes, these don’t have predefined cycle times or clearly measured capacities. Industries like aerospace, pharmaceuticals, food, and steel now have significant workloads in these areas. However, these hidden constraints often go unnoticed because they are not reflected in ERP data or traditional performance metrics.
Challenges in New Product Development (NPD)
Estimating workloads and task durations in project-based environments like NPD is inherently difficult. Many organisations don’t even attempt to calculate precise workloads, relying instead on broad annual budgets. The increasing complexity of NPD portfolios has disrupted the historical balance between resources and demand. Often, growing functions such as electronics, regulatory compliance, software development, and quality management are severely understaffed, creating bottlenecks that remain unrecognised.

The Impact of not identifying constraints properly

In our experience implementing over 300 TOC assignments in production and R&D over the past decade, we have observed the same pattern:

Companies focus on the wrong resources.
Non-bottleneck resources become over-utilised, leading to increased Work In Progress (WIP) and longer lead times.
Bottlenecks remain under-exploited, limiting Throughput and making it difficult to meet delivery commitments.

Real-World Cases of Hidden Constraints

Several case studies illustrate how companies misjudge their real bottlenecks:

Aeronautical OEM Production
A company’s biggest constraint was actually quality control, but it was not managed as such, leading to major inefficiencies.
Pharmaceutical Industry Bottleneck
An animal health pharmaceutical company subcontracted 50% of its production three years earlier. However, they failed to realise the impact this decision had on their New Product Development. As a result, new products were stalled just before market entry.
Steel Manufacturing’s Invisible Bottleneck
One of the “secondary” operations of a major steel producer was manual quality control. Over the years the average order required more and more such controls. This became the invisible and regrettable bottleneck.
Automotive Supply Chain Disruption
A leading automotive equipment manufacturer disrupted an entire division by making a purchasing decision on rare earth metals, inadvertently creating a constraint that impacted its entire supply chain of 14 factories.

The Opportunity to Improve

The good news is that organisations can dramatically improve their performance by correctly applying the first three steps of TOC’s 5 Focusing Steps:

Identify the real constraint — Look beyond outdated assumptions and examine where work truly accumulates.
Exploit the constraint — Ensure the constraint is utilised effectively before investing in additional resources.
Subordinate everything else — Align all processes to support the constraint’s maximum throughput.

By following these steps, companies can unlock substantial improvements in both production efficiency and New Product Development performance — quickly and with minimal investment.

The bottleneck determines the output (© Registered trademark of Marris Consulting)

Learn More

For a deeper understanding of this issue, watch the conference video below. This presentation was delivered in Cape Town, South Africa, during an annual TOCICO (Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization) Congress.

Conference Overview

In this session, I explain why most organisations misunderstand their capacity constraints in both production and projects. I illustrate how companies frequently misidentify bottlenecks, leading to inefficiencies. Examples include:

Steel production
Pharmaceutical product development
Aeronautical manufacturing
Ball bearing production
Automotive supply chain management

Key takeaways from the presentation include:

The common mistake of assuming the bottleneck is where it “should be” rather than where it actually is.
Why ERP data is unreliable for identifying real constraints.
How outdated analyses prevent companies from seeing the true state of their operations.
The impact of evolving quality requirements in creating new capacity constraints.
How cost-cutting decisions can introduce hidden, damaging bottlenecks.
The growing challenge of developing tomorrow’s products with yesterday’s resource capabilities.

By recognising and addressing these issues, organisations can significantly enhance their efficiency, reduce delays, and improve overall business performance.

Philip Marris — Biography

Philip Marris is CEO of Marris Consulting, a management consultancy focused on industrial operations founded in 2004. Nearly all of the firm’s projects are based on the Theory of Constraints generally associated with “Lean”. Half of the assignments are in production, the other half involve projects mostly New Product Development. He has designed, sold and executed over 300 transformation projects throughout the world. He hosts with his colleagues over 20 training sessions and seminars every year. He started his TOC journey in 1986 when he joined Creative Output France and had the honour and pleasure of working with Eli Goldratt and his brother Issi Pazgal. Philip Marris was in charge of manufacturing operations in large consulting firms of over 1000 people. He has over 35 years of experience in industry and in consulting. He started his career as a production engineer in the steel industry. He is English and lives in Paris, France and is bilingual and bi-cultural.