Production Line Bottleneck Finder

Line Configuration

Station 1 cycle time 2.0s

Station 3 cycle time (bottleneck) 4.0s

Buffer capacity (WIP cap) 3

Part release interval 1.5s

Live Readouts

Bottleneck: Station 3

Throughput

0.0 /min

Bottleneck util.

Current WIP

Little's Law WIP

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Parts completed

How it works

Five stations sit in series, each separated by a finite buffer (a WIP cap). A part must finish at station i before it can even start at station i+1, and a finished part that has nowhere to go blocks its station until the downstream buffer has room — this is exactly how a real assembly line or a lean/Six Sigma value stream behaves.

Theory of Constraints:
  Line throughput ≤ 1 / max(cycleTime_i)
  → only the slowest station (the bottleneck) sets the ceiling

Little's Law:
  L = λ · W
  (avg. work-in-progress) = (throughput) × (avg. time a part spends in the line)

Station 1 / Station 3 cycle time — try speeding up Station 1 alone: throughput barely moves, because Station 3 is still the constraint. Now lower Station 3's time below Station 1's and watch the bottleneck badge jump.
Buffer capacity — a small buffer propagates a slow station's stalls upstream (starvation) and downstream (blocking) fast; a larger buffer decouples stations but holds more inventory.
Release interval — how often a new part enters the line. Release faster than the bottleneck can absorb and WIP piles up at Station 3's input queue.
Little's Law WIP — computed independently from measured throughput and average flow time; it should track the actual on-screen part count once the line reaches steady state, confirming the law empirically.

Real-world relevance: this is the core mental model behind Lean Manufacturing, the Theory of Constraints (Goldratt), and Six Sigma flow analysis — identify the constraint, protect it, and every dollar spent speeding up a non-constraint station is wasted.

Processing Idle Blocked Bottleneck station

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