This order only
For New Zealand Business Owners. Spend first and you buy capacity you already owned. Name the constraint from the office and you will name the wrong one.
01
Follow one real order from the first phone call to the money in the account. Mark every wait in hours or days. Stand next to the pile. Ask the person who expedites where they always have to go.
I do not redesign a machine I have not watched fail.
02
A chain holds the weight of its weakest link, and not one gram more. The constraint may be a machine, a person, a rule, or the market. Most complaints sound physical. Most free wins hide in a rule that outlived its reason.
If we cannot say the constraint in your words, we have not watched long enough.
03
Three numbers. Throughput is revenue minus the costs that rise with each extra unit sold. Investment is money tied up. Operating expense is what it costs to keep the doors open.
A good change raises throughput, or releases cash, or lowers the burn. A cheaper-looking department can still leave profit flat.
04
Question the rule that put the pile there. Delete the step that does not serve the constraint. Simplify what remains. Speed that loop. Automate last.
Running every resource at 100 percent fills the floor with work the weak link cannot swallow. Idle time away from the constraint is fine.
A new machine, another hire, or a company-wide improvement programme before the constraint has been squeezed. That bill often buys capacity the constraint already had.