areas (machines) in the plant that are constantly holding back the production of the finished product. The philosophy behind this will become clear in a moment.Philosophy of Ongoing ImprovementSince the beginning of the industrial revolution manufacturing organizations have followed the rules that idle time is lost time. That the only way to make money is to keep everyone and everything operating at 100 percent. When in fact a plant that runs it's resources at 100 percent all the time is actually a very inefficient plant. Most of the time the struggle to meet efficiencies is taking the organization further away from it's goal. Excess production creates excess inventories that in turn ties up money and slows down or impedes cash flows. The key to balancing production is to search out those places in the plant that slows down all the processes behind it, essentially a bottleneck. Obviously the bottleneck can't just be removed so the rest of the process must be governed by the speed at which the bottlenecks can operate. Release of materials must be staggered so that just as a batch is sent through the bottleneck another batch is waiting in front of it to be processed. No other non-bottleneck area can be allowed to operate faster than the bottlenecks can handle otherwise the inventories will begin to climb again.In order for the system to work there must be a way of measuring when materials should be released for processing by the bottlenecks and also a way to predict when the finished product will leave the plant. This system will therefore allow the inventory controllers to release materials only as needed maximizing the savings in reduced work-in-process costs. The bottlenecks should not be looked at as a hindrance but rather as a means of controlling the whole process. By maximizing the outputs of the bottlenecks the facility can operate at the highest possible speed and still be moving towards the goal. From traditional p...
