Final answer:
To find the bottleneck in a process, we must calculate and compare the capacities of each resource; the resource with the lowest capacity is the bottleneck. The process capacity equals the bottleneck's capacity, and the utilization is determined by the demand rate relative to the capacity of each resource.
Step-by-step explanation:
In assessing a production process with three resources, we have to identify the bottleneck, which is the stage in the process that has the lowest throughput potential and hence limits the rate at which the entire process can operate. This is done by calculating the capacity of each resource, which is calculated as the inverse of the processing time times the number of workers (capacity = 1 / processing time * number of workers). The bottleneck is the resource with the lowest capacity.
After that, we can calculate the process capacity, which is equivalent to the capacity of the bottleneck, as this stage determines the maximum number of units that the process can handle over a given time period. For the flow rate, it's dictated by demand as long as it is less than or equal to the process capacity.
To determine the utilization for each resource, we divide the demand rate by the capacity of each resource (utilization = demand rate / capacity of the resource). If the demand rate is eight units per hour, we calculate the utilization for each resource based on its capacity. Utilization is often expressed as a percentage, where a 100% utilization means the resource is maximally used, and less than 100% indicates spare capacity.