Template 02 · Starved / blocked observation · A4 portrait← Back to site
LineEfficiency
Template 02 · Starved / blocked observation Vol. I · Shop-floor form · A4
Starved / blocked observation
Stand in front of the line, watch each machine for 25 cycles. Tick S if it waits for upstream (starved), B if downstream is full (blocked). The bottleneck is the machine with the fewest ticks of either.
Date
Line
Observer
Start time
Sample interval
5 stations × 25 observations
Mark S, B, or — (running) in each cell · left-to-right, top-to-bottom
Station 01S / B
Machine ____
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Station 02S / B
Machine ____
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Station 03S / B
Machine ____
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Station 04S / B
Machine ____
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Station 05S / B
Machine ____
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Σ starved
__
Σ blocked
__
Σ running
__
Bottleneck station
__
% utilization
__ %
Read the result
S upstream not delivering → look before this station.
B downstream full → look after this station.
Station with fewest S+B and most running = the bottleneck.
Method
1. Sample every 30 s for 12 min 30 s (= 25 obs).
2. Always look at the same instant for all stations.
3. Repeat 3× per shift to filter out random events.