Optimized Production Technology

OPT is an operations control system that is based on the identification of bottlenecks
within the production process.

OPT planning and control approaches uses the terminology of drum, buffer and rope.

OPT was developed by Goldratt and Cox in 2004.

Bottlenecks defined as "any resource whose capacity is less than or equal to the demand
placed on it".

Goldratt and Cox (2004) defined three key performances (ultimate goals) to evaluate:

   (1) Throughput - the rate at which the production system generates money through sales

   (2) Inventory - defined as all the money that the system has invested in goods that 
                       it intends to sell

   (3) Operational expenses - which the system spends in order to turn inventory into
                                    throughput


These key performance criteria used to restate the goal of a manufacturing organization as:
"To reduce operational expense and reduce inventory whilst simultaneously 
increasing throughput" (Objective of OPT)

The aim of OPT:
   To avoid much of complexity of scheduling by focusing on bottlenecks.
   (or, to schedule bottleneck capacity in an efficient way)

The idea of OPT:
   System output is determined by bottlenecks so it is essential to schedule 
  nonbottleneck resources to ensures maximum use of the bottleneck resources
   themselves.

Production Planning : OPT vs traditional approaches
   The traditional approaches is to balance capacity at all the work stations in response
   to anticipated demand from the master production schedule.

   However, there are two reasons why a production facility cannot be balanced to
   the demands of production.
   (1) Nondeterminance - refers to the fact that the information used to derive the production
                                   schedule may not be a fixed nature
   (2) Interdependence - refers the fact that most stages in production are connected in some
                                  way to other stages





Read More : [Book Name] p.270-273
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Additional:

Bottleneck analysis (computer science)
   A detailed study of the manner in which elements if a computer system are related
   to find out where bottlenecks arise, so that the system's performance can be improved.

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