Rule 12: Find the Bottleneck

The job of an Ops Manager

Is to manage three things:

1. Time: how long does it take you to deliver something?
2. Cost: how much money did you spend getting it there?
3. Quality: how good was it when it arrived?

We get hung up on cost

“Make it cheaper, hit the budget”. Making things cheaper is easy, you just take something expensive away.  It is called salami slicing.  But it doesn’t do much for quality.

We get hung up on quality

“The customer is king”. Give the customer what they want.  More bells and more whistles.  But those bells and whistles don’t do much for cost.

We get caught in an endless debate

So then we get into a perpetual conversation about the cost and quality continuum. I’m sure you have all sat in that meeting once or twice.

We rarely get hung up on speed

How could we deliver the same product but faster?

• If you optimise around speed you will get cheaper.  There is less “stuff” in the system to go wrong and get expensive. Time is money.
• If you optimise around speed you will get better.  Errors and defects slow you down, you have to stop them and consign them to the past.

Optimising around speed will improve both cost and quality. 

How do you get faster?

Find your bottleneck,  open it up, keep it working.

Don’t believe me?

Think of the last time you stood in a hotel check out queue then answer these questions:

1. Why does it take the receptionist 5 minutes to take £100 off your credit card?
2. How long does it take a supermarket to relieve you of the same amount?
3. Could you make the whole thing faster?
4. What would that do for quality and cost?

Rule 12. Find the bottleneck

Then manage it. 

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Image by Beverley Goodwin