1) A bottleneck is an operation that has the lowest effective capacity of any operation in the process. 2) The process with the least capacity is called a bottleneck if its output is less than market demand. 3) The process with the least capacity is called a bottleneck if its output is still greater than the market demand. 4) Operating processes close to their capacity can result in low customer satisfaction and even losing money despite high sales levels. 5) The Theory of Constraints method is also referred to as the drum-buffer-rope method. 6) According to the Theory of Constraints the four operational measures include inventory throughput delivery lead times and utilization. 7) A business school with plenty of classroom space that hires adjunct faculty for a semester to meet unusually high student demand for courses is an example of elevating a bottleneck. 8) Any system composed of resources that are operating at maximum output will by definition have maximum output for the entire system. 9) In a shop managed according to TOC principles inventory is needed only in front of bottlenecks in order to prevent them from sitting idle. 10) The first step in applying the Theory of Constraints is to identify the constraint. 11) The final step in applying the Theory of Constraints is to repeat the first four steps. 12) Lanny discovers that the bottleneck is the riveting machine so he schedules all production around when that machine is available. This is an example of elevating the constraint in the five-step constraint management process.
