How to detect a bottleneck before it costs you customers

Bottlenecks usually leave clues

If an order, procedure, or request repeatedly waits at the same point, there is probably a bottleneck. It may be an approval, one person concentrating too many decisions, or incomplete information arriving at a critical step.

Observe the operation for one week:

• Where do pending tasks accumulate?
• Which activity depends on a single person?
• At what point are corrections repeated?
• Where does the customer wait the longest?

You do not need to start with a complex system. A simple process map can make the first improvement opportunity visible.