Quote below is from Theory of Constraints Introduction:
Goal: get water to the bottom. I think get water through all the tanks.
I remember there was something important about factors in TOC. I know there’s the related idea that there’s parts of a system. I think most parts of a system have excess capacity. Also, that system has to be functional. I wonder how all that relates to factors. Im looking this up.
Ok, I saw that most factors in a system have excess capacity. Why didn’t I remember that? Cuz I liked using the words ‘parts of a system’; that was easier to remember.
Factor: middle spout. The middle spout is part of the water flowing system.
Other factors: The other spouts. They’re part of the system.
Why is the middle spout the constraining factor? Idk my first thought is that it slows down the water flowing to the bottom. Since the goal is to get water to the bottom then whatever is slowing that down may be the constraining factor.
I forgot what is a constraint. After checking, I saw that it was the factor that limits throughput. For the Marris Consulting example, throughput means the amount of water flowing through. Maybe it’s how much water flows over time. I have to rewatch the video.
In the last sentence of the above quote, it says that the other spouts have excess capacity and increasing them won’t increase water flow. That means one way to find a constraint and I guess fixing it, is to increase the size of the spouts until you find that the water flow has increased. That may be complicated to do in other situations cuz if there’s 99% of issues that don’t need attention, then that’s a lot of issues to go through just to find the constraint.
The reason why it seems useful is because it looks like you’re getting more of the goal(i.e. it looks like: more numbers = more of the goal). What is the goal tho? Being specific seems like it’ll help. Also, knowing what the system is seems useful cuz then you may figure out what happens when you make an individual spout bigger. You’re looking at the bigger picture that way.
It’s a trap cuz you’re increasing something that already has excess capacity. What does getting more do? Thinking about the bigger pic will help.