Adleretal. (1996) found that some highly successful fi rms had been applying workprocess
management to product development projects. Specifi cally, they found that projects
are completed faster when the fi rm does fewer of them, that increasing bottleneck capacity
pays large dividends to the investment, and that eliminating unnecessary workload and
processes decreases the variation in service times (p. 134). Levy et al. (1997) also adopt
queuing theory to deal with multiproduct management. They illustrate calculations for the
“cost of waiting in line,” the “cost of underutilizing” a facility with capacity greater than
the demand for it, and “the cost of delayed projects.” They also discuss ways of reducing
these costs.