One of my first assignments in graduate school was to read The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. As someone who majored in engineering as an undergraduate student, it had been awhile since I was assigned a novel for required reading, but I decided to put my skepticism aside and dive in. After a few chapters, it was pretty clear why our Operations Management professor assigned this book to the class. Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints and his lessons on capacity management would be the building blocks for the rest of the term. I have found his teachings on identifying process bottlenecks and designing productive systems to be incredibly useful during my time at Indium Corporation this summer.
我不想在这篇文章中总结整本书的内容，但我想强调几点，我认为这些观点特别有见地，而且适用于我作为产品管理实习生所做的工作：
- 生产力是使公司更接近其目标的行为。目标就是赚钱。
- 要实现这一目标，就必须在提高吞吐量的同时减少库存和运营费用。
- 瓶颈是指容量等于或小于需求的任何资源。
- 系统的容量取决于系统瓶颈的容量。
At first glance, point number one might seem like an oversimplification that is too money-oriented. It is true that companies may have broad, arching goals that look further than their bottom line. However, these other goals are tied to revenue streams and cash flows. For example, our goal at Indium Corporation is to increase our customers’ productivity and profitability through the design, application, and service of advanced materials. However, this goal is only possible by getting as much of our material to our customers through the generation of sales and, therefore. money.
思考第二点的另一种方法是，将吞吐量视为系统通过销售和库存产生资金的速度，也就是投资于产品或服务的资金。因此，运营费用就是将库存转化为吞吐量所需的资金。为了赚更多的钱，公司必须提高创收速度，同时减少系统中的资金占用以及将投资转化为销售的成本。
第三种说法是制约理论的基础。如果一种资源的吞吐率或能力低于订单或需求的输入率，就会形成瓶颈。简单地说，如果订单进来的速度大于或等于订单出去的速度，就会出现瓶颈。
最后，第四句话解释说，整个系统的吞吐量将由容量最小的资源决定。Goldratt 在他的小说中用一群徒步旅行者来解释这一点。他解释说，群体的速度将由最慢的远足者决定，就像系统的容量由瓶颈决定一样。
综上所述，我们可以得出这样的结论：如果我们提高瓶颈的产能，就能提高整个系统的吞吐率，同时减少库存和运营费用，从而实现赚更多钱的目标。然而，在提高吞吐率的同时减少库存并非易事。正如利特定律（库存 = 吞吐率 * 吞吐时间）所指出的，唯一的办法就是缩短完成销售所需的时间。因此，要同时有效地缩短交货时间和降低运营成本，就必须从根本上改变系统。
This summer I have been working on the introduction of a new product that could be a fundamental change in the additive manufacturing industry. We at Indium Corporation are hoping to improve our customers’ productivity by addressing a bottleneck in the 3D metal printing process. Our proposed solution leverages the company’s expertise in material science to drastically increase the throughput rate of 3D metal printing processes that use Powdered Bed Fusion or Direct Metal Laser Sintering technologies at a lower cost than the current approach. By addressing the bottleneck in the system, we hope to make our customers more productive.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working on a project that relies on the fundamentals of operations management to provide a solution. I am looking forward to our first sales, and hopefully I will be able to tell you all about the technical details soon. I believe that by getting this product into the hands of customers, Indium Corporation will be helping other companies achieve their goals.
干杯
埃文
