Eliyahu M. Goldratt Quotes

What can I possibly do to be more competitive? I’ve done cost reduction. No other manager in this division has cut costs to the degree I have. There is nothing left to trim. And, despite what Peach says, my efficiencies are pretty damn good. He’s got other plants with worse, I know that. But the better ones don’t have the competition I do. Maybe I could push efficiencies some more, but . . . I don’t know. It’s like whipping a horse that’s already running as fast as it can.

For the ability to answer three simple questions: ‘what to change?’, ‘what to change to?’, and ‘how to cause the change?’ Basically what we are asking for is the most fundamental abilities one would expect from a manager.

More importantly, our software worked. I don't just mean that it didn't bump, or that it performed according to the written specifications, or that it was efficient in producing reports. It really worked

So I’ve got limits on how fast I can go — both my own (I can only go so fast for so long before I fall over and pant to death) and those of the others on the hike. However, there is no limit on my ability to slow down. Or on anyone else’s ability to slow down. Or stop. And if any of us did, the line would extend indefinitely. What’s happening isn’t an averaging out of the fluctuations in our various speeds, but an accumulation of the fluctuations. And mostly it’s an accumulation of slowness — because dependency limits the opportunities for higher fluctuations. And that’s why the line is spreading. We can make the line shrink only by having everyone in the back of the line move much faster than Ron’s average over some distance.

Yes, there is. We’ve just been talking

Bob comes into the office with a smear of grease on his white shirt over the bulge of his beer gut, and he’s talking nonstop about what’s going on with the breakdown of the automatic testing machines. “Bob,” I tell him, “forget about that for now.

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

What you’re saying is that making an employee work and profiting from that work are two different things.

that’s a third assumption that’s wrong,” I say. “We’ve assumed that utilization and activation are the same. Activating a resource and utilizing a resource are not synonymous.

What is the real goal? Nobody here has even asked anything that basic.

The minute you supply a person with the answers, by that very action you block them, once and for all, from the opportunity of inventing those same answers for themselves. If you want to go on an ego trip, to show how smart you are, give the answers. But if what you want is action to be taken, then you must refrain from giving the answers.

If the goal is to make money, then (putting it in terms Jonah might have used), an action that moves us toward making money is productive. And an action that takes away from making money is non-productive.

I write down the three measurements which Lou and I agreed are central to knowing if the company is making money: net profit, ROI and cash flow.

My system does not make sense at all, but by God it’s working.

sit there marveling that we’re going to reduce the efficiency of some operations and make the entire plant more productive.