International Journal of Production Research

Vol. 50, No. 15, 1 August 2012, 41584174

Detecting bottlenecks in serial production lines a focus on interdeparture time variance

C.E. Betterton* and S.J. Silver
School of Business Administration, The Citadel, Charleston SC, United States of America
(Received 16 January 2011; final version received 10 June 2011)
This work addresses an important problem in industry locating the bottleneck in a production
line and suggests a practical approach to accomplish that end. We describe and validate, using discrete
event simulation, a novel method of bottleneck detection in open, asynchronous serial production lines
with finite buffers. The technique uses a single measure station interdeparture time variance to locate
the system bottleneck. The proposed method is compared to other bottleneck detection approaches and it
is shown that the proposed method performs as well and sometimes better than other methods.
We conclude that the proposed approach has a number of significant advantages. It is easy to use and
implement, not requiring data about failure and repair times, raw process times, buffer sizes, etc., but
instead uses a single piece of easily obtained real-time production line data station work-in-process
(WIP) interdeparture time. The proposed method can identify production constraints without the need to
build an analytical or simulation model, is well suited for use in industry, and can be readily implemented
in standard simulation tools.
Keywords: production
interdeparture time

improvement;

bottleneck

detection;

discrete

event

simulation;

throughput;

1. Introduction
This study considers a novel method of detecting bottlenecks in open, asynchronous serial production lines with
finite buffers. Because in practice bottlenecks are almost certain to exist (Payne et al. 1972), and because the
existence of bottlenecks is a major factor in line performance and management (Liu and Lin 1994, Chiang et al.
2001), it is important to improve the bottleneck. By improvement, we mean increasing the effective throughput
capacity of the current bottleneck, which in turn permits greater throughput for the entire production line. However,
before the bottleneck can be improved, it must be located. The practitioner must also know when to stop improving,
that is, must know at what point, because of the improvement, the bottleneck has shifted to a different location.
Improvement at non-bottleneck resources does not increase system capacity. Bottleneck analysis is of high interest
in manufacturing operations and in recent years a great deal of research has focused on the area of bottleneck
detection (Li et al. 2009a).
Several definitions exist for the term bottleneck, and a number of different methods for bottleneck detection in
serial lines have been proposed. None of these methods has been based on station interdeparture times. This study
considers serial lines of various lengths (number of stations), with both constant and random process times, having
random failure and repair times, and with equally and unequally buffered stations. We describe and test a simple
bottleneck detection approach that relies on a single measurement, the time between successive work items leaving
each station in the line.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. First, we present an overview of the related literature on
bottleneck definition and bottleneck detection methods. Second, we introduce and explain the proposed bottleneck
detection method based on station interdeparture time (IT). Third, we describe results of simulation experiments
and related models that were used to test the proposed method and to compare it with other detection methods.
Finally, we offer conclusions based on the simulation experiments, discuss the proposed interdeparture time
methods applicability, and comment on possible future work.

*Corresponding author. Email: carl.betterton@citadel.edu

ISSN 00207543 print/ISSN 1366588X online
2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2011.596847
http://www.tandfonline.com

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2. Literature review
2.1 Bottleneck definition
Lawrence and Buss (1994) found that there existed no clear consensus on the definition of a bottleneck resource.
They summarised three principal definitions then in use. These and other definitions found in the literature include:
(1) a resource for which demand temporarily exceeds capacity (Lawrence and Buss 1994);
(2) a resource at which work-in-process (WIP) inventory waiting in queue is maximum (Lawrence and Buss
1994);
(3) a resource at which the long-run utilisation is maximum (Lawrence and Buss 1994);
(4) the resource whose isolated production rate is the smallest among those in the system (Kuo et al. 1996);
(5) the resource with the longest average active period (Roser et al. 2001);
(6) the resource with minimum combined total time spent in inactive (blocked and starved) states (Sengupta
et al. 2008);
(7) a resource whose capacity is less than the demand placed upon it (Blackstone 2008);
(8) the resource that runs out of capacity first, and thereby limits system throughput (Betterton and Cox 2009);
(9) the resource for which a change in isolated production rate has the greatest impact on system performance,
that is, the resource to which the system performance sensitivity is greatest (Kuo et al. 1996);
(10) the resource which impedes the performance of a system in the strongest manner, that is, the resource that
has the largest impact on reducing the throughput of a system (Chiang et al. 2001); and
(11) the resource with the strongest effect on the systems throughput (Biller et al. 2010).
The first seven of these definitions either offer a local view only, or do not relate the definition to the implicit
reason the resource is called a bottleneck namely, that it throttles the overall system throughput more severely
than any other individual resource. The last four definitions relate global performance to changes in the designated
bottleneck resource, and in this sense are preferable to the others. The Kuo et al. (1996) definition is limited in that it
refers only to changes in the isolated production rate of a resource, when the system production is actually a
function of not just process time, but also such factors as uptime, downtime, setups, yield loss (scrap), and buffering
level. The Chiang et al. (2001) definition avoids these omissions but is stated in negative terms. The Biller et al.
(2010) definition suggests that throughput is the only performance metric, but there may be others, such as due date,
flow time, inventory, etc. The Betterton and Cox (2009) definition in context uses throughput in the larger, theory
of constraints, sense of goal units but implies a resource must have 100% utilisation (run out of capacity) before it
becomes a bottleneck, thus we choose as our definition of bottleneck the following:
The bottleneck is the resource that affects the performance of a system in the strongest manner, that is, the resource that,
for a given differential increment of change, has the largest influence on system performance.

This is an operational definition that can be tested via discrete event simulation using finite difference
sensitivities of throughput (or other performance metrics) to individual resource changes. It is essentially based on
the partial derivative of the system capacity with respect to an individual resources capacity, that is, the rate of
change in system capacity for unit change in resource capacity. While in this study we consider only station
bottlenecks, the chosen definition is sufficiently general that under it, the bottleneck resource could be a buffer, and
the system capacity change might be a result of unit change in buffering level at a specific location in the line. In this
work we use throughput as the system performance measure.
2.2 Bottleneck detection methods
Our review revealed eight basic approaches to bottleneck detection in serial lines. The eight approaches are given a
short name in Table 1 along with references to their use. We briefly describe each of the eight methods, plus a ninth
called the Overall Throughput Effectiveness (OTE) method (Muthiah and Huang 2007). This last method is not
included in Table 1 nor compared separately because for the serial production lines studied here the OTE method is
equivalent to one of the other eight methods, namely the Utilisation method.
2.2.1 Utilisation method
Utilisation of a resource is the long-term fraction of time it is not idle due to lack of work, that is, the ratio of arrival
rate of items to be processed to the effective production rate, where the effective production rate is the maximum

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Table 1. Bottleneck detection methods.
Method
Utilisation
Active Period
Inactive Period
Arrow
Turning Point
Average Waiting Time
Longest Waiting Time
Longest Queue

Reference
Hopp and Spearman 2000
Roser et al. 2001
Sengupta et al. 2008
Kuo et al. 1996, Chiang et al. 2001
Li et al. 2009a
Faget and Herrmann 2005
Law and Kelton 2000
Lawrence and Buss 1994

average rate at which the resource can work considering the effect of downtime from all sources (Hopp and
Spearman 2000). Utilisation is calculated using not the raw production rate but the effective production rate, which
is the raw production rate reduced to eliminate time loss due to failure, setup, etc. Accordingly, this approach is also
called the effective process time method. In serial production lines without re-entry or yield loss, the arrival rate is the
same at all stations, so the station having the highest utilisation will be the station with the smallest effective
production rate. Utilisation is calculated for each resource in the line and the resource with the largest utilisation
percentage is considered the bottleneck.
2.2.2 Active Period method
This method measures the duration of the periods in which a station is active without interruption, and calculates
the average active period for each station. The machine which has the longest average active period is considered the
bottleneck. Examples of active states are working and downtime (repair time following failure); examples of inactive
states are being starved or blocked. Consecutive active states are considered to be one active state.
2.2.3 Inactive Period method
This method designates as the bottleneck the station with the minimum combined total time spent in inactive
(blocked and starved) states. (This is similar to the Turning Point method.)
2.2.4 Arrow method
This method derives its name from the practice of drawing arrows pointing left or right showing which stations have
higher blocking and starving compared to adjacent stations, and uses two related rules to locate the bottleneck. The
first rule is the bottleneck indicator rule, composed of two related parts, which says that (a) if the frequency of
blocking for station (i) is greater than the frequency of starvation for station (i 1), then the bottleneck is
downstream of station (i), and (b) if the frequency of starvation for station (i) is greater than the frequency of
blockage for station (i 1), then the bottleneck is upstream of station (i). If by this rule there are multiple bottlenecks
then the primary bottleneck is determined by use of the second rule, a heuristic referred to as the bottleneck severity
measure. The severity of the i-th bottleneck is defined as Si (mbi1 msi1) (mbi msi), where S is the bottleneck
severity measure at a machine (station), mb is manufacturing blocking, ms is manufacturing starving,
i 2, . . . , M 1, and M is the number of machines (stations) in the serial production line.
2.2.5 Turning Point method
The turning point is the station where the trend of blockage and starvation changes from blockage being higher
than starvation to starvation being higher than blockage. The total blockage plus starvation time of a turning point
station is smaller than that for its two neighbouring stations, that is, the turning point has the highest percentage of
operating time plus downtime compared to its adjacent stations. For the special case that no turning point is found,
if each stations starvation is higher than its blockage, the first station is the bottleneck; else if each stations
blockage is higher than its starvation, the last station is the bottleneck.

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2.2.6 Average Waiting Time method

The station where work waits longest, as measured by the average time a job spends in queue, is considered the
bottleneck.
2.2.7 Longest Waiting Time method
The station where work waits longest, as measured by the maximum time a job spends in queue, is considered the
bottleneck.
2.2.8 Longest Queue method
The station having the greatest number of waiting jobs in queue for the largest proportion of the overall line
processing period is the bottleneck. In practice, this method requires that queue lengths at all machines be compared
at specified time intervals, for example, each time a job arrives at any resource queue, and that a running tabulation
be maintained of the queue having maximum length at each point in time (Lawrence and Buss 1994). A practical
substitute is the maximum average queue length.
2.2.9 Overall Throughput Effectiveness (OTE) method
The OTE method is defined and discussed in Muthiah and Huang (2007). The OTE metric incorporates all forms of
station delay and downtime as well as cumulative yield loss. The station having the smallest OTE is considered the
bottleneck. OTE is calculated using net station available capacity adjusted for cumulative yield loss. Although
different terminology is used, this method is identical to the Utilisation method of Hopp and Spearman (2000) for
the serial production lines considered in this research, and for this reason the OTE method is not compared
separately in this work; subsequent comments on the Utilisation method will apply equally to the OTE method.

3. Proposed bottleneck detection method

3.1 The nature of bottlenecks
A distillation of the findings about bottleneck resources suggests a set of bottleneck proclivities, the characteristics
manifested by a bottleneck situation. These are tendencies only, not absolutes, because of the random variation over
time of the elements that make up a serial production line. Within a serial line a bottleneck station will tend to:
. have a greater effective processing time than other stations. Effective processing time is the raw process time
adjusted to account for failure downtime, setup, or other factors such as scrap (Hopp and Spearman 2000).
. have higher utilisation than other stations (Hopp and Spearman 2000).
. have a longer queue in front of it than other stations (Lawrence and Buss 1994, Law and Kelton 2000).
. be interrupted by instances of blocking and starving less frequently than other stations (Roser et al. 2001).
. have lower total blockage plus starvation time than its adjacent stations (Li et al. 2009a).
. have a higher active (working or in repair) time rather than inactive (blocked or starved) time
(Sengupta et al. 2008).
. cause upstream stations to be blocked and downstream stations to be starved (Kuo et al. 1996, Chiang
et al. 2001).
Consideration of the characteristics of a bottleneck station lead us to hypothesise that the bottleneck station has
the smallest WIP interdeparture time variance (ITV) among all stations in a serial line. In general, if a station has a
higher effective processing time than other stations then its utilisation will be greater. If its utilisation is greater, it
will experience fewer instances of blocking, and will have a longer queue in front of it than other stations. If it has a
longer queue in front of it, then it will experience fewer instances of starvation. If it experiences fewer instances of
blocking and starving, then it will have lower total blockage plus starvation time than its adjacent stations. If it has
lower total blockage plus starvation time than its adjacent stations, then it will have a higher active (working or in
repair) time than other stations. If it has a higher active time than other stations, then it will cause upstream stations
to be blocked and downstream stations to be starved. The increased blocking and starving at non-bottleneck
stations will cause their WIP ITV to be larger, and the lower blocking and starving at the bottleneck will cause its
WIP ITV to be smaller.

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The interdeparture time distribution (and arrival distribution) at every station will always have the same mean
value as the overall line in steady state. This is required by conservation of matter, when there is no yield loss or
re-entry at stations. But with random failure and random process times it is inevitable that the variance of the
interdeparture time distributions will change from station to station. A stations coefficient of variation for
departures (Cd) is a function of its own variation (Ce), its utilisation (u), and the variation of arrivals from upstream
(Ca). This is the so-called linking equation of Hopp and Spearman (2000):


1
C2d u2 C2e 1  u2 C2a :
Thus, according to (1), if a station has very high utilisation, close to 100%, its interdeparture times will be
virtually the same as its process times. If a station has low utilisation of its available capacity, the reason will be that
the station is blocked and/or starved a relatively large proportion of the time. If a station has a high blocking/
starving proportion, then the variability of its WIP interdeparture times will increase accordingly. Blocking and
starving events are forms of delay at a station. Long delay of any kind at a station can be seen as no more than a
large processing time, and the delay adds to the time between successive WIP completions. Although buffer
arrangements can cause exceptions, and with unlimited buffers no blocking will occur, we can say generally that
stations upstream of the bottleneck having greater capacity than the bottleneck will be blocked a portion of the time,
and stations downstream of the bottleneck having greater capacity than the bottleneck will be starved a portion of
the time.
To the extent that arrivals occur more frequently than the receiving station can process (as they tend to do at the
bottleneck), jobs will form a queue at the receiving station. If a station has a WIP queue of any size, then it does not
starve. The resulting reduction in starving at the receiving station means that its own WIP interdeparture times will
be less variable. If the receiving stations buffer fills completely the upstream adjacent station will become blocked.
Blocking will tend to increase the variability of the upstream stations WIP interdeparture times.

3.2 Bottleneck detection using interdeparture time variance

Taken together, the generalisations about relative blocking, starving, and utilisation of bottleneck and
non-bottleneck stations imply that non-bottlenecks have a relatively greater variation of interdeparture times,
and the bottleneck has a relatively smaller variation of interdeparture times. If this is the case, then one could locate
the bottleneck within a serial line by finding the station with the smallest ITV.
Few studies examine any aspect of interdeparture time variability in serial production lines. This was noted by
Erel et al. (2004) who studied interdeparture time variability of finished goods, and by Kalir and Sarin (2009) who
proposed a method of reducing interdeparture time variability of finished goods. Others who have looked at
interdeparture time have also focused on variability of finished goods completion, that is, interdeparture time at
the last station. Miltenburg (1987) is the first known study of such variability. Others that consider some aspect of
finished goods interdeparture time are Chow (1987), Martin and Lau (1990), Hendricks (1992), and Hendricks
and McClain (1993). Sengupta et al. (2008) used interdeparture time as an intermediate step in their
inactive period method. Otherwise, to the authors knowledge no studies have been reported on interdeparture
time of individual stations, and no studies have considered interdeparture time variability relative to bottleneck
detection.
The proposed method for bottleneck detection is to record the time between departures of each WIP unit at each
station over some designated production period (day, month, etc.). At the end of that period the variance
(or standard deviation) of the interdeparture times is calculated for each station. The station having the smallest ITV
is the bottleneck station.

4. Testing the proposed method through simulation

To test our conjecture that the station having the smallest ITV is the bottleneck, we used discrete event simulation to
model serial lines having a range of lengths, process times, failure attributes, and buffer sizes. We recorded the time
between WIP departures at each station and calculated the related variance.

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4.1 Model description

We modelled various configurations of an open asynchronous serial production system. The system consists of M
stations arranged serially, and M 1 buffers separating each consecutive pair of stations. Buffers may be of any
integer size. Stations are subject to random failure. Stations are subject to starving and blocking, but the first station
is never starved and the last station is never blocked.
4.1.1 Definition of the serial line
The following assumptions apply to the serial lines tested in this work:
(1) The system consists of M stations arranged serially.
(2) M 1 buffers separate each consecutive pair of stations; buffers may be of any integer size, and may be
equally or unequally distributed across the stations.
(3) A single product is being made.
(4) Units leave station 1, proceed to station two, and so on sequentially through the line; there is no
backtracking, bypassing, or re-entry along the line.
(5) Units exit from the last station and become finished goods.
(6) No setups are involved.
(7) Transfer batch size equals one.
(8) There is no defective work.
(9) Transfer between stations is instantaneous.
(10) Process time at individual stations may be constant or variable, for instance, lognormally distributed.
Random process times have a coefficient of variation (CV) of 0.50.
(11) Stations are subject to random failures with the time between failures being exponentially distributed, and
downtime following failure (repair time) being exponentially distributed.
(12) Stations are subject to starving and blocking, but the first station is never starved and the last station is never
blocked.
4.1.2 Simulation models
The simulation models were constructed using the Arena simulation software package (Arena is a registered
trademark of Rockwell Automation, Inc.) We used a warm-up period with duration sufficient to remove transient
effects, determined by visual inspection of a graph of the throughput variable. Throughput was plotted as a function
of time to show at what point in simulated time the transition to approximately steady-state status occurred.
A typical example is shown in Figure 1.
The truncated replication approach of Kelton et al. (2002) was used, wherein a warm-up period to overcome
transient effects is removed from each of several independent and identically-distributed replications of the
simulation. Simulation run length was established in each case by adding to the warm-up period sufficient time for a

Figure 1. Warm-up period determination stabilisation of throughput.

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C.E. Betterton and S.J. Silver

representative number of unlikely failure events to occur. The number of replications was based on the sample size
needed in order to achieve the desired statistical confidence.
The simulation model was designed to automatically collect interdeparture times at each station, and to calculate
the variance for each of those data sets. Thus the station ITV values were included along with other simulation
output for each replication. We inferred and tested the bottleneck location based on the minimum ITV. Throughput
was used as the system performance measure. For each unimproved line simulated, the mean throughput
performance was recorded as a reference value. Finite difference improvements (e.g., 5%) were made at the nominal
bottleneck station and other stations within the line, and the mean throughput values of the improved lines were
compared to one another using ANOVA and Tukey testing, and to the mean throughput of the unimproved line
using Dunnetts test. An equal number of replications was made for both improved and unimproved lines; since the
number of replications constitutes the group size, this satisfies the requirement for equal group size when using
Dunnetts test. The significance criterion (alpha) used for statistical testing is a probability of 0.05.

4.2 Testing results

We constructed and tested four groups of serial lines as described in Section 4.1.2, meeting the assumptions in
Section 4.1.1. The four groups of lines, referred to as Cases 1, 2, 3, and 4 are described here along with simulation
results. The lines of Cases 1 and 2 have three levels of buffer size low (all buffers one unit), medium (all buffers
10 units), and high (all buffers 100 units); lines of Case 3 have a buffer size of 10, and Case 4 has a buffer size of 20.
Station parameters for Cases 1 through 3 are given in the corresponding sections that follow. It should be noted that
the lines for Cases 1 and 3 are constructed with obvious bottlenecks for the purpose of readily demonstrating that
the ITV method can detect the known bottleneck in each of those lines. On the other hand, while the lines of Cases
2a, 2b, and 2c have less obvious bottlenecks, the most plausible candidate bottleneck station would be the station
having the largest effective processing time in isolation, or conversely the smallest available capacity, determined by
multiplying the nominal capacity by station availability, that is, MTTF/(MTTF MTTR). For the Case 2 lines this
is station eight, to which our detection method points, and which finite difference improvement confirms as the
bottleneck. In Case 4 the bottleneck is neither obvious nor identifiable through calculation of effective capacity of
stations in isolation. In such cases, the throughput measure obtained from simulation is used to verify the bottleneck
detection.

4.2.1 Case 1 simple five-stage line

Case 1 is a simple five-station serial line with all stations having MTTF of 200 minutes and MTTR of 20 minutes.
The bottleneck station has a mean process time of 10 minutes, while the remaining stations have mean process times
of five minutes. All process times are lognormal with a CV equal to 0.50. Five different configurations of this line
were simulated bottleneck at station one, at station two, at station three, at station four, and at station five. Each
configuration was simulated with three levels of buffer size one unit, 10 units, and 100 units to represent low,
medium, and large buffering respectively. Thus, three simulations were run for each location of the bottleneck, for a
total of 15 simulations. Each simulation run had 40 replications of 100,000 minutes following a warm-up period of
the same length. For each of the 15 simulated lines we recorded the interdeparture times at all stations and
calculated the ITV at each station; the square root of these values (interdeparture time standard deviation) is shown
in the column labelled ITV in Tables 24.

Table 2. Bottleneck at five respective locations, buffers 1.

Station
1
2
3
4
5

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

10
5
5
5
5

7.5
8.4
9.1
9.7
9.9

5
10
5
5
5

8.2
7.8
8.6
9.2
9.5

5
5
10
5
5

9.2
8.5
7.9
8.6
9.0

5
5
5
10
5

10.0
9.4
8.5
7.9
8.3

5
5
5
5
10

10.5
10.0
9.2
8.2
7.4

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International Journal of Production Research

Table 3. Bottleneck at five respective locations, buffers 10.
Station
1
2
3
4
5

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

10
5
5
5
5

6.2
7.4
8.4
9.1
9.8

5
10
5
5
5

7.3
6.2
7.4
8.3
9.1

5
5
10
5
5

8.5
7.3
6.2
7.4
8.4

5
5
5
10
5

9.6
8.6
7.4
6.2
7.4

5
5
5
5
10

10.3
9.4
8.4
7.2
6.1

Table 4. Bottleneck at five respective locations, buffers 100.

Station
1
2
3
4
5

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

Mean PT

ITV

10
5
5
5
5

6.2
7.4
8.3
9.1
9.8

5
10
5
5
5

7.3
6.2
7.4
8.3
9.2

5
5
10
5
5

8.6
7.3
6.2
7.4
8.3

5
5
5
10
5

9.6
8.6
7.4
6.3
7.4

5
5
5
5
10

10.3
9.5
8.5
7.3
6.2

Table 5. Case 2, 10-station serial line.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Table 6. Case 2a, IT variance and throughput obtained by

individual station improvement.

MTTR
(Minutes)

MTTF
(Minutes)

Mean PT
(Minutes)

154
589
398
520
126
34
530
244
485
589

1490
1291
2388
3716
3107
5974
4677
3204
4763
1631

59
27
40
68
23
69
50
76
70
44

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

IT Variance for
Unimproved
Line (Minutes)

System
Throughput
(Units)

45,890
46,440
44,373
42,062
41,315
40,393
39,482
37,458
39,549
41,677

10,445
10,461
10,431
10,468
10,430
10,410
10,431
10,604
10,450
10,491

In all 15 variants of Case 1 the bottleneck station was correctly identified by the minimum ITV. We checked
other versions of the five-station line, that is, those with differing mean process times, MTTF, MTTR, and CV with
the same result, that is, the bottleneck station was always correctly identified by the minimum ITV.

4.2.2 Case 2 10-station line

Case 2 is a 10-station line having parameters shown in Table 5. All process times are lognormal with a CV equal to
0.50. Three variations of this case were tested the identical line with three levels of trailing buffer capacity Case
2a with buffers of one unit in capacity, Case 2b with 10 units in capacity, and Case 2c with 100 units in capacity.

4.2.2.1 Case 2a buffer size one unit. Operation of the Case 2a serial line was simulated for 1,200,000 minutes
(beyond warm-up of 150,000 minutes). Throughput obtained for the unimproved line with low buffer capacity
was 10,413 units. Station ITV for Case 2a is shown in Table 6, with the smallest value being 37,458 minutes at

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C.E. Betterton and S.J. Silver

Table 7. Case 2b, IT variance and throughput obtained by

individual station improvement.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

IT Variance
for Unimproved
Line (Minutes)

System Throughput
Obtained by
Station Improvement (Units)

23,889
30,948
24,227
18,668
16,517
14,566
15,006
10,467
15,693
26,034

13,454
13,479
13,517
13,542
13,466
13,473
13,491
13,792
13,604
13,505

Table 8. Case 2c, IT variance and throughput obtained by

individual station improvement.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

IT Variance
for Unimproved
Line (Minutes)

System Throughput
Obtained by
Station Improvement (Units)

16,548
26,899
15,364
11,315
7898
7043
8361
2808
8067
23,223

14,675
14,650
14,676
14,705
14,661
14,678
14,698
15,311
14,673
14,689

station eight, implying that station eight is the bottleneck. We tested this implication by finite difference
improvement (reduction) in process time at each station. For Case 2a the process time at station one was improved
by 5%, that is, from 59 minutes to 56.05 minutes, the simulation performed, and the resulting throughput recorded.
This station improvement was repeated for each station in the line, with the throughput results shown in Table 6.
The largest throughput was obtained by improving station eight. ANOVA indicated that the 10 mean throughput
values are not the same, and Dunnetts test showed that only the mean throughput from improvements at stations
eight and 10 differ from the unimproved line throughput. But the mean throughput for improvement of station eight
is 112.59 units larger than that for improvement of station 10, and a Tukey test of all the means showed that the
difference between the two stations is significant. This finding supports the conclusion that station eight is the
bottleneck, since improvement at that station has the greatest effect on system performance.
4.2.2.2 Case 2b buffer size 10 units. Throughput obtained for the unimproved line with medium buffer capacity
was 13,489 units. Station ITV for Case 2b is shown in Table 7. The smallest ITV is 10,467 minutes at station eight,
implying that station eight is the bottleneck. Finite difference improvement of 5% at each station resulted in the
mean throughput values shown. Again, the largest throughput was obtained by improving station eight. ANOVA
and post hoc tests as in the previous case show that station eight is the bottleneck, with improvement at that station
having the greatest effect on system performance.
4.2.2.3 Case 2c buffer size 100 units. Throughput obtained for the unimproved line with high buffer capacity was
14,676 units. Station ITV for Case 2c is shown in Table 8. The smallest ITV is 2808 minutes at station eight,
implying that station eight is the bottleneck. Finite difference improvement of 5% at each station resulted in the
mean throughput values shown, with the largest being at station eight. ANOVA and Dunnetts testing showed that
the new throughput at station eight differs significantly from base throughput and that throughput in lines of other
improved stations does not differ significantly from base throughput. As with cases 2a and 2b, this finding supports
the conclusion that station eight is the bottleneck, since improvement at that station has the greatest effect on system
performance.
4.2.2.4 Case 2 summary. Case 2 provides good evidence in support of using ITV for bottleneck detection. In all
three forms of the case, ITV pointed to station eight as the bottleneck and finite difference testing resulted in
significantly greater throughput via improvement at station eight.
4.2.3 Case 3 multiple bottlenecks
Case 3 is a set of three configurations (3a, 3b, and 3c) of a six-station line, each having two known bottleneck
locations. Each of the three lines has the buffer, MTTF, and MTTR values shown in Table 9. All times are in

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Table 9. Case 3a, 3b, and 3c, station parameters.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6

MTTR

MTTF

Trailing Buffer Size

35
35
35
35
35
35

140
140
140
140
140
140

10
10
10
10
10

Figure 2. Case 3a process time pattern.

Table 10. Case 3a, ITV values.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6

Process Time (Minutes)

IT Variance (Minutes)

1
2
3
3
2
1

134
125
109
109
125
133

Figure 3. Case 3b mean process time pattern.

minutes; buffer size is units of WIP. For all three simulated lines the warm-up time was established as 100,000
minutes and the replication period was also 100,000 minutes; 40 replications were made in each instance to obtain
ITV and other results.

4.2.3.1 Case 3a constant process times, inverted V. Case 3a has constant process times (CV equal to zero) that
appear as an inverted V, as shown in Figure 2. Both stations three and four are bottlenecks.
The ITV for Case 3a is given in Table 10, with the two known bottleneck stations having the lowest, identical
variance.

4.2.3.2 Case 3b variable process times, V shape. Case 3b has variable process times that appear as a V shape, as
shown in Figure 3. Both stations one and six are bottlenecks.
The ITV for Case 3b is given in Table 11, with the two known bottleneck stations having the lowest variance.
These two values are not statistically different (n 40, alpha 0.05).

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C.E. Betterton and S.J. Silver

Table 11. Case 3b, ITV values.

Station

Process Time (Minutes)

IT Variance (Minutes)

3
2
1
1
2
3

92.69
116.47
127.85
127.37
115.30
91.76

1
2
3
4
5
6

Figure 4. Case 3c mean process time pattern.

Table 12. Case 3c, ITV values.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6

Process Time (Minutes)

IT Variance (Minutes)

1
2
3
1
2
3

127.35
117.70
100.89
118.56
118.72
99.94

4.2.3.3 Case 3c variable process times, stair step shape. Case 3c has variable process times that appear as a
repeated stair step shape, as shown in Figure 4. Both stations three and six are bottlenecks.
The ITV for Case 3c is given in Table 12, with the two known bottleneck stations three and six having the lowest
variance. These two values are not statistically different (n 40, alpha 0.05).
4.2.3.4 Case 3 summary. Case 3 provides additional evidence in support of using ITV for bottleneck detection.
In all three lines having multiple bottlenecks, ITV correctly located both bottleneck stations.
4.2.4 Case 4 long line
Case 4 is a single line composed of 30 stations. The trailing buffers at all stations are equally sized at 20 units of
WIP. Station process times are lognormally distributed with a CV equal to one. Process time, MTTF, and MTTR
values are in minutes as shown in Table 13, and were chosen as follows: integer process times were randomly selected
from a uniform distribution having a lower limit of 20 minutes and an upper limit of 80 minutes; integer MTTF
values were randomly selected from a uniform distribution having lower limit 400 minutes and upper limit 12,000
minutes; and integer MTTR values were randomly selected from a uniform distribution with lower limit 40 minutes
and upper limit 1200 minutes. For this line, simulation warm-up time was established as 500,000 minutes and the
replication period was also 500,000 minutes; 40 replications were made in each instance to obtain ITV and other
results.
Operation of the Case 4 line was simulated for 500,000 minutes (beyond warm-up of 500,000 minutes).
Throughput obtained for the unimproved line was 4673 units. Station ITV for Case 4 is shown in Table 14, with the
smallest value being 54,434 minutes at station four, implying that station four is the bottleneck. We tested this
implication by finite difference improvement (reduction) in process time at each station. For Case 4 the process time

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International Journal of Production Research

Table 13. Case 4, 30-station serial line.
Station
1
2
3
Mean Process Time
47
49.0
43
CV of Process Time
0.50
0.50
0.50
MTTR
761
104
883
MTTF
10,381
9819
1035
Station
11
12
13
Mean Process Time
56
72
63
CV of Process Time
0.50
0.50
0.50
MTTR
929
761
799
MTTF
10,537
6457
10,390
Station
21
22
23
Mean Process Time
78.00
57
20
CV of Process Time
0.50
0.50
0.50
MTTR
967
48
589
MTTF
10,496
10,049
858

4
5
6
78.00
26
57
0.50
0.50
0.50
714
720
555
7588
5816
2283
14
15
16
74.00
57
37
0.50
0.50
0.50
1055
185
279
6246
11,585
10,363
24
25
26
27
60.00
50
0.50
0.50
0.50
358
981
768
5259
5553
8403

7
8
9
46
49
68.00
0.50
0.50
0.50
971
267
1143
2157
4624
11,942
17
18
19
21
54
74.00
0.50
0.50
0.50
1041
909
1023
1453
10,303
10,485
27
28
29
75.00
44
22
0.50
0.50
0.50
980
667
82
5169
2818
5862

10
74
0.50
796
9495
20
28
0.50
1127
9648
30
62.00
0.50
483
4974

at station one was improved by 10%, that is, from 47 minutes to 42.30 minutes, the simulation performed, and the
resulting throughput recorded. This 10% station improvement was repeated for each of the 30 stations in the line,
with the throughput results shown in Table 14. The largest throughput was obtained by improving station four.
ANOVA indicated the 30 mean throughput values are not the same, and Dunnetts test showed that only the mean
throughput from improvements at station four differ from the unimproved line throughput. This finding supports
the conclusion that station four is the bottleneck, since improvement at that station has the greatest effect on system
performance.
4.2.5 Counterexamples
Along with supporting cases in which ITV correctly locates the bottleneck, we discovered a few counterexamples,
that is, cases in which our method fails.
4.2.5.1 Counterexample 1. Counterexample 1 is an interesting situation that helps clarify conditions under which
failure of the ITV method occurs. Counterexample 1 is a 10-station line having parameters shown in Table 15. All
process times are in minutes, and are lognormally distributed with the mean values shown. The CV of all station
process times is 0.50.
Throughput obtained for this line in its unimproved condition was 6103 units. Station ITV for Counterexample
1 is shown in Table 16. The smallest ITV is 905 minutes at station eight, implying that station eight is the bottleneck.
As it happens, station two is actually the primary bottleneck; this station has the second smallest ITV at 2157
minutes. Thus the ITV method does not locate the primary bottleneck. Finite difference improvement confirms that
station two is indeed the bottleneck; a 5% improvement in its process time results in 6148 units of throughput,
whereas the same improvement at station eight does not increase system throughput. There is a close relationship,
however, between stations two and eight. Although their raw process times differ, they have almost the same
effective process time; 81.34 minutes at station eight and 81.74 minutes at station two. Our numerous simulation
experiments have demonstrated that certain conditions lessen the IT variation at stations. If a station is surrounded
by large buffers and by adjacent stations that are much faster, the surrounding stations will tend to keep the large
buffers stocked upstream and emptied downstream, which in turn will tend to avoid starving and blocking at the
station in question: the less starving and blocking, the lower the stations IT variability. If a station has little
downtime, its IT variation will be less. When both conditions exist together, station IT variability is greatly reduced
and approaches its isolated process time variability. All these conditions prevail for station eight; it has adjacent
upstream and downstream stations that are much faster, it has low downtime (1.6%), and it has very ample buffers
(80 units upstream and 99 units downstream). With its effective process time approaching that of the bottleneck
station, station eight is already a near-bottleneck. All these conditions together cause station eight to have the
smallest ITV and it is selected (in error) as the primary bottleneck. All the detection methods checked for this

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Table 14. Case 4, IT variance for unimproved line and

throughput obtained by individual station improvement.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

IT Variance
(Minutes)

System Throughput
(Units)

100,857
101,239
98,007
54,434
75,405
76,890
104,730
91,706
76,082
64,060
72,345
63,539
67,216
67,491
74,846
98,238
138,674
101,353
74,758
88,292
65,859
71,749
106,700
99,780
85,264
80,395
65,316
82,398
82,042
72,409

4669
4667
4705
4782
4645
4669
4707
4683
4669
4667
4688
4661
4670
4691
4670
4647
4681
4690
4658
4652
4627
4657
4678
4668
4666
4677
4663
4678
4666
4702

Table 16. IT variance for Counterexample 1.

Station

Table 15. Counterexample 1.

Station
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

MTTR

MTTF

Mean PT

Trailing Buffer Size

208
174
558
192
559
329
450
187
511
53

3286
2302
16,534
4037
9105
1464
14,196
11,184
5040
7208

37
76
36
26
32
62
25
80
20
70

60
12
41
93
22
90
80
99
58

Table 17. Counterexample 1 bottleneck ranking.

ITV for Unimproved Line (Minutes)

Bottleneck Detection Method

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

2943
2157
3369
3820
7506
11,376
10,568
905
2660
2422

Active Period
Arrow (Severity Measure)
Average Waiting Time
Inactive Period
ITV
Longest Queue
Turning Point
Utilisation

Station 2
Rank

Station 8
Rank

2
1
1
1
2
1
1
1

1
2
2
2
1
2
2
2

example indicated station two and station eight as the two top choices for the bottleneck, but differ as to ranking.
Table 17 summarises the rankings of these two stations for eight bottleneck detection methods.
In practice, what might happen in this situation? If the practitioner knew that station two was the primary
bottleneck, he would focus improvement effort there. A 5% improvement in process time at station two results in a
line throughput of 6148 units, a gain of 45 units above the unimproved line throughput.

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International Journal of Production Research

Table 18. Counterexample 2 line parameters.

Table 19. Counterexample 2 ITV values.

Station

Station

1
2
3
4
5
6

MTTR

MTTF

Mean PT

Trailing Buffer Size

40
100
65
85
120
35

300
350
140
400
360
140

3.49
3.00
2.50
2.86
2.92
3.10

100
80
150
100
100

1
2
3
4
5
6

ITV for Unimproved Line (Minutes)

112
231
260
262
289
159

The practitioner using the ITV method believes that station eight is the bottleneck, and begins to improve that
station. As soon as station eight has its process time improved by 2.50% the ITV will indicate correctly that
station two is the bottleneck. At this point improvement would be focused on station two. An improvement of
2.5% in the process time of station two brings the line throughput level to 6250 units. Thus the combined effects
of improving both station two and station eight by 2.50% is a gain of 147 units, more than three times the gain
obtained by a 5% improvement in station two alone. The explanation for this is that the bottleneck shifts between
stations two and eight as improvement actions are undertaken. If the primary bottleneck station two has its
process time improved by even one minute, from 76 minutes to 75 minutes, the primary bottleneck shifts to
station eight. If the new primary bottleneck station eight then has its process time improved by one minute, from
80 minutes to 79 minutes, the primary bottleneck shifts back to station two. For this reason, system improvement
is greatest when both stations are improved together. As can be seen, even though the ITV method did not
indicate the primary bottleneck station two, it did detect the near-bottleneck station eight, that with minor
improvement causes the ITV method to point to the primary bottleneck, and also the station that must be
improved in parallel with the primary bottleneck to obtain maximum system improvement. When
near-bottlenecks exist, improvement efforts should be made with due caution to the possibility of the bottleneck
shifting. Using ITV data will permit one to readily monitor such shifting.

4.2.5.2 Counterexample 2. Counterexample 2 is a six-station line adapted from Chiang et al. (2001), the parameters
for which are shown in Table 18. All process times are in minutes, and are lognormally distributed with the mean
shown. The CV of all station process times is 0.50. We also modelled a version of this line in which process times
were constant (as with Chiang et al. 2001). The discussion applies to both versions but the table values reported here
are for the version with variable times.
This serial line seems to be a particularly troublesome one. Chiang et al. (2001) reported that their Arrow
method failed to detect the unique bottleneck in this line, which is station two. Their Arrow method pointed to both
stations two and five. Chiang et al. (2001) developed the so-called bottleneck Severity Measure specifically to break
such ties. But their Severity Measure incorrectly showed station five as the bottleneck. They made finite difference
checks of system throughput corresponding to small improvements in each station to confirm the bottleneck was
indeed station two.
We repeated the work of Chiang et al. (2001) on our versions of their counterexample and obtained the
same results. We found that the Arrow method showed stations two and five as the bottlenecks, and the
bottleneck Severity Measure incorrectly indicated station five as the bottleneck. We also confirmed by way of
finite difference improvements that the actual bottleneck is station two. Our ITV method also failed, indicating
station one as the bottleneck, according to the variance values in Table 19. We say this line is troublesome
because not only did its bottleneck escape detection by the Arrow method, the related Severity Measure
method, and our own ITV method, but by several other methods. Although we did not check all detection
methods, we confirmed according to the simulation data we collected, that the average Active Period method,
the Inactive Period method, the Longest Queue method, and the Utilisation or Effective Process Time method
fail, all showing station one as the BN. Learning why lines of this kind avoid bottleneck detection is part of
ongoing work.

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4.3 Comparison with other detection methods

The ITV method performs well compared to other bottleneck detection methods. Where the ITV approach fails,
most other detection methods also fail. But as has been shown, the ITV approach often succeeds where other
methods do not.
In Case 2 the ITV method performed quite well. Case 2 was a 10-station line having a uniform buffer
distribution. Case 2a had a buffer size of one unit. In case 2a we reproduced the Arrow method and found that it
chose stations four, six, and eight as the bottlenecks, and the bottleneck Severity Measure indicated station four was
the bottleneck. The actual bottleneck was station eight as we demonstrated using finite difference improvements.
The Longest Queue method, the Inactive Period method, and the Active Period method all correctly selected the
bottleneck station. Similar performance of these detection methods occurred in Cases 2b and 2c (the 10 buffer and
100 buffer cases respectively), except that the Inactive Period method failed on Case 2c pointing to station one as the
bottleneck rather than the correct bottleneck station eight.
In Case 3 it was seen that our method correctly detected multiple bottlenecks in three line forms (Cases 3a, 3b,
and 3c). In those lines, other methods sometimes found only one of the two bottlenecks, or found neither. For
example, in Case 3a, the Arrow method, including the BN Severity Measure, and the Inactive Period method would
choose station four while overlooking the second bottleneck. In that same line, the Active Duration method would
choose station four only, and the Longest Queue method would choose an incorrect bottleneck altogether, station
two. These same approaches generally perform somewhat better on cases 3b and 3c, but usually detect only one of
the two bottleneck stations. The Utilisation or Effective Process Time approach of Hopp and Spearman (2000)
works well in finding both bottlenecks in all three Case 3 lines. This implies that the OTE method would also
perform well.
Case 4 is an example in which the ITV method outperforms most methods. The Arrow method indicates that the
bottleneck in the 30-station line is either station four, six, 14, 21, 25, or 27. The Severity Measure, intended to
distinguish among such multiple identifications, shows the bottleneck to be station three, an entirely different
station. The Longest Queue method also incorrectly points to station three as the bottleneck. The Inactive Period
method along with the Turning Point method (both based on minimum sum of blocking and starving) indicate
station 27 to be the bottleneck, as does the Utilisation (Effective Process Time) method and by implication the OTE
method. The only detection method beyond our ITV method that correctly specified station four as the bottleneck
station was the Active Duration (longest uninterrupted processing time) method.

5. Conclusions and future work

We have described and numerically validated a novel method of detecting bottlenecks in open, asynchronous serial
production lines with finite buffers. This work addresses an important problem in industry locating the bottleneck
in a production line and suggests a practical approach to accomplish that end. For the lines modelled, our method
performs as well or better than other published bottleneck detection methods, although such comparison is not the
focus of the paper and a comprehensive comparison was not made. The approach also has limitations in that it does
not apply to serial lines that have no buffers; in such lines no WIP accumulation is possible. It would also not apply
to transfer lines and similar serial lines that are highly automated and have essentially identical, constant process
times, that is, have no variation in process times. But for open, asynchronous, buffered lines, considering the growth
foreseen in the availability of real-time data in manufacturing systems (Li et al. 2009b), our proposed bottleneck
detection method may be widely applicable.
In Counterexample 1 it was shown that even though the ITV method failed to indicate the primary bottleneck,
it detected the near-bottleneck the station that with minor improvement caused the ITV method to then point
successfully to the primary bottleneck, and also the station that was required to be improved in parallel with the
primary bottleneck to obtain maximum system improvement.
5.1 Advantages of the proposed method
The ITV method has a number of significant advantages:
. Easy to use and implement.
. Uses easily-obtained (Kuo et al. 1996, Kock et al. 2008) real-time production line data, that is,
interdeparture times at each machine.

International Journal of Production Research

4173

. Can identify production constraints without building an analytical or simulation model.

. Does not require data about failure and repair times, raw process times, buffer sizes, etc.
. Is not limited to serial lines that satisfy assumptions of Markovian lines, Bernoulli lines, deterministic cycle
times, etc.
. Well-suited for use in industry.
. Can be readily implemented in standard simulation tools.

5.2 Future work

Additional work is needed to characterise the serial lines in which bottleneck detection fails, or where detection
methods do not locate multiple bottlenecks, or indicate multiple bottlenecks where they do not reside. A better
understanding of the impact of buffer level on the ability of a given method to locate the bottleneck is also needed.
Obviously, methods that depend on WIP accumulation (e.g., the longest queue method) will be ineffective in
unbuffered lines, but there may be a minimal level of buffering that would permit their effective detection of
bottlenecks. An interesting extension might be whether higher moments (i.e., skewness and kurtosis) of
interdeparture time can be helpful in detecting or prioritising bottlenecks. Lau and Martin (1987) found that
positive skewness of processing times had a significant negative effect on serial line performance.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. The authors would also like to express
gratitude to the journal editors and staff for their expertise and helpful guidance.

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