This reminds me of the book The Goal by Eli Goldratt. It's fictional, but there's a story about a boy scout troop that goes on a hike, and there's an overweight kid named Herbie who hikes the slowest. The troop leader teaches everyone that the entire group as a whole will reach the top faster (and stay together) if they keep Herbie in the front.

When you have a bottleneck step in your process, the whole end-to-end process will run the most smoothly if everything else matches pace with the bottleneck.