A point in a process where the flow of work is limited or restricted, causing delays in the entire system. It represents the slowest step that determines the overall speed of production or workflow.
From the narrow neck of a bottle that restricts liquid flow, first used metaphorically in the 1890s. The business sense emerged in the mid-20th century with industrial engineering and operations research.
Interestingly, fixing one bottleneck often just reveals the next one hiding behind it - it's like a game of whack-a-mole where constraints migrate through your system. The Theory of Constraints suggests you should actually protect your bottlenecks rather than eliminate them all.
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