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Bottlenecks
A constraint is the slowest stage or member of a system due to limited capacity, which can be used to set the maximum pace for the entire system. A constraint’s capacity will always be less than or equal to the demand placed on it. A constraint is the same thing as a bottleneck.
Constraints Quotes in The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
The The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement quotes below are all either spoken by Constraints or refer to Constraints. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 18
Quotes
“This much is clear to me. We have to change the way we think about production capacity. We cannot measure the capacity of a resource in isolation. Its true productive capacity depends upon where it is in the plant. And trying to level capacity with demand to minimize expenses has really screwed us up. We shouldn’t be trying to do that at all.”
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“A bottleneck […] is any resource whose capacity is qual to or less than the demand placed upon it. And a non-bottleneck is any resource whose capacity is greater than the demand placed upon it.”
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Chapter 32
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A chill goes down my back as I remember it. I was in deep trouble. My plant was under a real threat of being closed down; over 600 people were about to join the already long unemployment lines; my career was one inch from being kissed by limbo; and on top of all that, the unbelievable hours I was putting in at work had pushed our marriage to the brink of going down the tube. In short, I was about to change from a bright, rising star to an ordinary bum.
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Constraints Term Timeline in The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
The timeline below shows where the term Constraints appears in The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 25
...and profiting from that work are two different things.” They need to work within the “constraints” of the system, rather than try to override them.
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Chapter 36
...1.” Written out, Alex thinks that it all seems simple. Stacey advises replacing “bottleneck” with “constraint.”
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Chapter 37
...Ralph raises the concern that something about their process still feels off. Even when the constraints were changed and their capacity increased, it did not seem to affect the non-constraints, even...
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Chapter 40
...Alex meet to analyze their issues: Lou believes that bad metrics are the division’s chief constraints, but Alex is unconvinced. He thinks some more basic principle is at work. They continue...
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As they continue debating about constraints and core problems, Alex realizes that they are fundamentally asking “what to change,” “what to...
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