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Operations

Bottleneck

The single slowest step that limits how fast the whole process can go. Speeding up anything else changes nothing until you fix it.

Example

If packing takes 10 minutes per order and everything else takes 1, packing is the bottleneck.

Related terms

Supply Chain
Everything it takes to get a product from raw material to your customer’s hands — suppliers, manufacturing, storage and delivery.
Throughput
How much work actually gets completed in a period — orders shipped per day, tickets closed per hour.
Capacity
The maximum your team or setup can handle before quality drops or things break.

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