Productivity Hacks from a Book Meant for Manufacturing

A while ago I read “The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox (20th Anniversary Edition.) This book contains a fictional story designed to assist those in manufacturing to improve their performance. Since I read it I realized that there are several lessons we all can use in our lives.

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. The Goal of any business is to make money. If we want to be self-sufficient we also need to focus on making enough money to cover our needs AND wants.

2. Before requesting additional resources make sure you are using your current ones as efficiently as possible. This will save you time, money, and allow you to save favors for the future.

3. Don’t accept any job offers or other opportunities without considering the effect on your family. If they are not happy or have been harmed by your decision you have gained nothing.

4. Before closing a business or selling an investment consider the degree it may negatively affect the livelihoods of the employees and the community/town it is located in. We all have a responsibility to our fellow man and should consider how all of our decisions will affect others.

5. Make sure you have the right definition of productivity — if an action is not moving you towards your goal(s) then it is not making you productive. Just being busy does not make you effective or keep you from wasting time and resources. You only have a limited amount of time to work with so use it wisely.

6. Making poor quality products or issuing poor advice is just a way of making costly mistakes. You will lose consumer confidence and have more difficulty in the market. You will also have less allies

7. You are achieving The Goal when Throughput (“the rate at which the system generates money through sales” is stable or increasing while Inventory (“the money that the system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sell”) is stable or decreasing and Operational Expenses (“all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput”) is stable or decreasing.

8. If you do not understand a problem and how to fix it get as many people as possible to advise you until you can get the big picture and understand the system perfectly.

9. Knowledge is only inventory if it can make money in the marketplace.

10. No matter how good of a “deal” you got on the parts or knowledge needed to make a product or service it is only valuable to you once you turn it into throughput. Excess storage space required for “bargains” is an operational expense not considered when evaluating productivity. If your cash flow is $0 because you have all your money tied up in stuff that you cannot sell or can only sell seasonally then you have made a mistake.

11. Respect the accumulations of fluctuations — no matter how perfectly you try to set up a system you will never achieve complete consistency. Small increases and decreases over time will add up and affect the productivity of the system. Try to design your system so you can accommodate for these changes without running out of capacity or having the system stall on you.

12. Bottlenecks — the part(s) of the system that important parts/steps must flow through to get to the desired outcome or product — determine the capacity of the system. Search for and either eliminate them or make them as efficient as possible.

13. Avoid multitasking around bottlenecks — their importance means they should have designated workers or people watching over them so they do not back up and reduce the capacity of the system.

14. Always look for positive trends or suggestions within your organization. People with boots on the ground who do the same tasks day after day can come up with inspiration that those higher up may be oblivious to.

15. Always make sure that production = demand. If you are producing more without a plan of how you will sell your product/service then all you are doing is increasing inventory and costing yourself money.

16. Know the difference between activating and utilizing a resource. Utilizing a resource means it is being used in such a way that it will assist towards The Goal. Activating a resource turns it on but may not consider how to use it efficiently within the system.

17. Use whatever tools you need/have to determine the schedule for bottlenecks. Do not let them either have too much work or not enough as this will not lead to an efficient system.

18. It is ok to ask for help in the beginning but as you become more skilled, confident, and have more responsibilities — use the principles you know and your own instincts to solve problems and only request help from a mentor after exhausting your own wisdom and knowledge.

19. Be willing to celebrate victories — as long as you learned from your mistakes and never gave up you won fair and square. Remember to include and thank all the people who helped you in these celebrations.