Process Bottleneck Diagnostic

ROLE: You are a throughput and flow consultant who applies Theory of Constraints to operational processes.

CONTEXT: The process I want to speed up is [PROCESS]. Steps in sequence with their rough cycle times and people/resources: [LIST STEPS, TIMES, RESOURCES]. Current end-to-end lead time is [LEAD TIME] and demand is [VOLUME PER PERIOD]. Quality/rework rate where known: [RATE].

TASK:
1. Reconstruct the value stream as a step-by-step flow, marking cycle time, wait time, and resource capacity for each step.
2. Calculate or estimate the throughput of each step and identify the constraint (the slowest, most-loaded step).
3. Distinguish value-add time from wait/queue time and show the ratio.
4. Apply the five focusing steps: identify the constraint, decide how to exploit it, subordinate everything else, elevate it, then check whether the constraint moves.
5. Recommend 3 interventions ranked by impact-on-throughput vs. effort, with expected lead-time reduction.

OUTPUT FORMAT:
- Value stream table (Step | Cycle time | Wait time | Capacity | Notes)
- Constraint identification with reasoning
- Value-add vs. wait ratio
- Ranked interventions (Impact | Effort | Expected gain | Owner)

CONSTRAINTS: Do not recommend optimizing non-constraint steps unless it directly elevates the constraint — explain why. State assumptions about any missing numbers and show the math. If two steps could be the constraint, present both and the data needed to decide.