Chapter 14, Problem 1DQ

Summary Introduction

Interpretation:

Relation of personal time management with activation and utilization.

Concept Introduction:

In the context of bottleneck management, “activation” refers to scheduling a particular activity, whereas “utilization” refers to creating value for the whole system.

Explanation of Solution

Scheduling an activity automatically does not assure that value will be created at the bottleneck center, as per bottleneck management’s recommendations. To illustrate, if this activity is upstream of the bottleneck, over-activation may create a pile-up of work-in-process inventory accumulating at the bottleneck. This accumulation of half processed materials may hinder the performance operation. Therefore, sometimes it may be beneficial to schedule the idle time of a non-bottleneck activity or underutilization of capacity.

In the case of personal time management, over-activation of multiple activities would stress the individual so much that performance may start dropping. Perhaps, it is better than some idle time in intentionally planned at a person’s time schedule so that there is a proper work-life balance, time for updating of skills, avoid burn-out, and so on.