knelpuntmachine

A knelpuntmachine is a term used in Dutch production planning and operations management to describe the single machine or station whose capacity limits the throughput of a production line. In essence, it is the bottleneck of the system, the part of the process that determines the maximum rate at which products can be produced.

Etymology and usage: The word combines knelpunt, meaning bottleneck, with machine. It is common in Dutch-language texts on manufacturing, supply chain, and industrial engineering to refer to the machine that constrains overall performance. The concept is closely related to general bottleneck analysis and line balancing.

Characteristics: The knelpuntmachine typically exhibits high utilization and long cycle times, with noticeable queues or work-in-process accumulating before it. Because it governs the pace of downstream output, small changes in its performance can have a large effect on total throughput. Its downtime or variability often has a disproportionate impact on the entire line.

Management and improvement: Identifying the knelpuntmachine involves capacity analysis, line balancing, and sometimes value stream mapping. Improvement strategies focus on increasing the bottleneck’s capacity (additional shifts, better equipment, or process upgrades), reducing its downtime (preventive maintenance, reliability improvements), redistributing work to other stations, adding parallel capabilities, or buffering to decouple the bottleneck from upstream or downstream steps.

Example: In an automobile assembly line, if the painting station can process 40 cars per hour while other stations handle 60, the paint station is the knelpuntmachine. Enhancing its speed or adding a second painting line can raise overall production.

Relationship to theory: The concept is related to bottlenecks and the Theory of Constraints, but it emphasizes the system-wide impact of a single, capacity-limiting machine rather than isolated equipment performance.