Quotes About Optimization

Managerial productivity—that is, the output of a manager per unit of time worked—can be increased in three ways: 1.  Increasing the rate with which a manager performs his activities, speeding up his work. 2.  Increasing the leverage associated with the various managerial activities. 3.  Shifting the mix of a manager's activities from those with lower to those with higher leverage.

alternatives do exist: equipment capacity, manpower, and inventory can be traded off against each other and then balanced against delivery time.

But at least you know that alternatives do exist: equipment capacity, manpower, and inventory can be traded off against each other and then balanced against delivery time.

a very important way to increase productivity is to arrange the work flow inside our black box so that it will be characterized by high output per activity, which is to say high-leverage activities.

To implement the actual simplification, you must question why each step is performed. Typically, you will find that many steps exist in your work flow for no good reason. Often they are there by tradition or because formal procedure ordains it, and nothing practical requires their inclusion.

Suitably thought through, intelligent inspection schemes can actually increase the efficiency and productivity of any manufacturing or administrative process

Thus, a very important way to increase productivity is to arrange the work flow inside our black box so that it will be characterized by high output per activity, which is to say high-leverage activities.

I think, by applying our production principles. First, we must identify our limiting step: what is the "egg" in our work?

How are we going to do this in the most intelligent way? We start by looking at our production flow. The first thing we must do is to pin down the step in the flow that will determine the overall shape of our operation, which we'll call the limiting step.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking.

Pitchers don't need to hit well; they need to pitch well. Every step you create needs to do what it does best and nothing more. Focus allows you to pursue excellence, to zero in on the target. You can ruin a great pitcher by trying to make a hitter out of him, and you can ruin a great church…

The standard library saves programmers from having to reinvent the wheel.

Automation is good, so long as you know exactly where to put the machine.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

Whereas economic man maximises, selects the best alternative from among all those available to him, his cousin, administrative man, satisfices, looks for a course of action that is satisfactory or 'good enough'.

I always try to find better ways to do things. Whether it's a game plan, a practice, a meeting, an interview, whatever it is. I'm going to find a way to find a way to analyze it and find a better way to do it. That's my mindset. I've never been satisfied with anything. That's just my mindset. I'm always trying to find a better way to do things.

Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage.

If I see a problem, I like to think if there's a better way to do it.

Problem-solving is essential to engineering. Engineers are constantly on the lookout for a better way to do things.

We did a year of Uber in San Francisco before we went to a second city. You get those processes down, then you really get started.

You don't try to have the very lowest cost of an asset. You try to have the right asset. So rather than thinking about the lowest cost, the question is how do you get the best productivity.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

What I'm good at is making sure we have the best resources, the best talent, the best marketing, and the best access to distribution.

I have always used e-mail to the greatest extent possible.