Throughput
The rate at which a manufacturing system produces finished goods, typically measured as units per hour or per shift. Throughput is determined by the system's bottleneck operation and represents the actual productive output that generates revenue.
RELATED TERMS
Cycle Time
The total elapsed time required to complete one unit or one cycle of a production process from start to finish. Cycle time includes processing time, wait time, and move time, and is a critical metric for capacity planning, scheduling, and identifying improvement opportunities.
Bottleneck
The operation or resource in a production process that limits overall system throughput because it has the lowest capacity or longest cycle time. Identifying and managing bottlenecks is critical because improving non-bottleneck operations does not increase total system output.
Capacity Utilization
The percentage of available production capacity that is actually being used to produce goods. Capacity utilization helps managers understand how efficiently resources are being employed and whether additional capacity is needed or if existing capacity could handle more volume.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness
A metric that measures manufacturing productivity by multiplying three factors: Availability (uptime), Performance (speed), and Quality (good units produced). An OEE score of 85% is considered world-class, while most manufacturers operate between 60-70%. OEE identifies losses and improvement opportunities in equipment utilization.
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