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Lessons for Supply Chain – Capacity Utilisation of the Heart!
Supply Chain teams are often focused on maximising capacity utilisation of their key resources, especially if these are bottlenecks. Is it a good move?
We know that heart is the bottleneck organ in our body. It has capacity to beat at 200-220 beats per minute (bpm) and pump a lot of blood through the circulatory system. We also know that the normal heart beat is around 70-72 bpm, which means that we are utilising only 1/3rd of its capacity. Should we try to maximize it?
Of course not. Heart’s primary purpose is to maintain adequate blood flow to various cells of the body, based on their requirements. Pumping at a higher rate would be counter-productive.
Let’s switch back to our manufacturing operations. Having identified the bottleneck, should we maximize its capacity utilisation? No, we should instead focus on maintaining adequate flow to the downstream nodes.
Measurements in supply chain should also move from capacity utilisation of bottlenecks to flow through the system.