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| Criterion |  Engineering Kanban |  Operations Bottleneck Analysis |  Operations Root Cause Analysis |  Operations Barrier Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When work sits in too many parallel streams, throughput suffers and no one sees the bottlenecks. Kanban makes the flow of work visible and limits overload so a system becomes calmer and more predictable. | For a flow that backs up at one point, the method looks for the capacity limit with the greatest leverage. It explains why extra effort elsewhere barely improves throughput. | When a problem keeps recurring and the cause stays unclear, the method exposes the underlying mechanism. It separates symptom, guess, and robust explanation from one another. | For a risk that can only be managed through multiple layers of protection, the method examines the effectiveness of each barrier. It shows where safeguards are missing, too weak, or fail under real conditions. |
Complexitysame | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Timedifferent | Ongoing | 1-3 h | 1-4 h | 2-4 h |
Participantsdifferent | 2-12 | 3-8 | 3-8 | 2-6 |
Formatsame | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Kanban board, WIP policies, Flow metrics | Bottleneck Map, Flow Metrics, Improvement Options, Follow-up Measures | Problem Statement, Cause Hypotheses, Confirmed Causes, Action Plan | Barrier Inventory, Failure Analysis per Barrier, Action Backlog |
Tagsno overlap | FlowVisual managementDelivery | FlowMeasurementConstraints | Root causeProblem solvingQualityIncident | Root causeSafetyIncident |