I think I’ve given away over 20 copies of _The Goal_ by Goldratt, and recommended it to coworkers hundreds of times. Thanks for the chance to recommend it again—it’s much more approachable than _Theory of Constraints_, and is more entertaining, while still conveying enough about his worldview to let you decide if you want the further precision and examples in his other books.
It’s important to recognize the limits of the chain metaphor—there is variance/uncertainty in the strength of a link (or capacity of a production step), and variance/uncertainty in alternate support for ideas (or alternate production paths). Most real-world situations are more of a mesh or a circuit than a linear chain, and the analysis of bottlenecks and risks is a fun multidimensional calculation of forces applies and propagated through multiple links.
The limit is on feasibility of mapping to most real-world situations, and complexity of calculation to determine how big a bottleneck in what conditions something is.
I think I’ve given away over 20 copies of _The Goal_ by Goldratt, and recommended it to coworkers hundreds of times. Thanks for the chance to recommend it again—it’s much more approachable than _Theory of Constraints_, and is more entertaining, while still conveying enough about his worldview to let you decide if you want the further precision and examples in his other books.
It’s important to recognize the limits of the chain metaphor—there is variance/uncertainty in the strength of a link (or capacity of a production step), and variance/uncertainty in alternate support for ideas (or alternate production paths). Most real-world situations are more of a mesh or a circuit than a linear chain, and the analysis of bottlenecks and risks is a fun multidimensional calculation of forces applies and propagated through multiple links.
Yes, even a factory process often isn’t a chain because e.g. a workstation may take inputs from multiple previous workstations and combine them.
Do you have a specific limit in mind re non-linear systems? I’m not clear on what the problem is.
The limit is on feasibility of mapping to most real-world situations, and complexity of calculation to determine how big a bottleneck in what conditions something is.
I replied at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qEkX5Ffxw5pb3JKzD/comment-replies-for-chains-bottlenecks-and-optimization