Question

What is the difference between a flow-blocking delay and lack-of-work delay?

How can each be reduced?

Answer 1

A flow-blocking delay occurs when a unit is completed by a work center but the completed unit is not released by the work center because the in-process storage is full at the next stage. In this case the worker has to remain idle till the time the storage space becomes available.

On the other hand lack-of-work delay occurs when work is completed in one stage but there are no units that are waiting processing from the previous stage.

Both these sources of delay can be reduced putting in an attempt to balance the process by designing the appropriate level of capacity at each workstation. One of the usual methods used here is to add additional workstations in parallel. Assembly line balancing is one of the methods that can be used. In this method tasks will be grouped among workstations so as to ensure that each workstation has the same amount of work.