The Goal

Whenever the constraint is broken it changes conditions to the extent that it is very dangerous to extrapolate from the past.’ Even the things that we put in place in order to elevate the constraint must be reexamined.

Everywhere, improvement was interpreted as almost synonymous to cost savings. People are concentrating on reducing operating expenses as if it’s the most important measurement. But the important thing is that we, in our plant, have switched to regard throughput as the most important measurement. Improvement for us is not so much to reduce costs but to increase throughput.

When you make a non-bottleneck do more work than the bottleneck, you are not increasing productivity. On the contrary, you are doing exactly the opposite. You are creating excess inventory, which is against the goal.

To increase the capacity of the plant is to increase the capacity of only the bottlenecks.

The Goal: to make money by increasing net profit, while simultaneously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously increasing cash flow

Increase throughput while simultaneously reducing both inventory and operating expense.

To make money by increasing net profit, while simultaneously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously increasing cash flow.

“Throughput,” he says, “is the rate at which the system generates money through sales.”

The goal of a manufacturing organization is to make money, and everything else we do is a means to achieve the goal.

Productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.

An hour lost at a bottleneck is an hour lost for the entire system.

Throughput is the rate at which the system generates money through sales.

If a manager doesn't know how to answer those three questions, is he or she entitled to be called manager?

The level of utilization of a non-bottleneck is not determined by its own potential, but by some other constraint in the system.

A system of local optimums is not an optimum system at all; it is a very inefficient system.

The rule we should be following is to balance the flow with demand, not the capacity.

We have moved from the 'cost world' into the 'throughput world'.

It's not prioritizing the bad effects, it's identifying what causes them all.

If we reduce batch sizes by half, we also reduce by half the time it will take to process a batch.

The real constraints, even in our plant, were not the machines, they were the policies.

We must carefully choose which ones to concentrate on, otherwise... it's overwhelming.

If we just thought systematically before we implemented it, rather than after the fact, we could have prevented many problems.

The goal is to reduce operational expense and reduce inventory while simultaneously increasing throughput.

We can only use as much as the market demand can absorb.

The maximum deviation of a preceding operation will become the starting point of a subsequent operation.

Inventory is definitely a liability, but under what heading are we forced to report it on the balance sheet?

Diagnosing a patient and diagnosing a business is the same thing.

The goal is not to improve one measurement in isolation. The goal is to reduce operational expense and reduce inventory while simultaneously increasing throughput.