Throughput accounting is a performance measurement system quantified in dollars. Throughput accounting is a subset of cost accounting designed to maximize cash income given resource limitations.
When a business can maximize the product or service delivered within a given period of time, it has reached maximum throughput. This is the basis of maximizing earnings and therefore profits for a company. This article will examine the definition more thoroughly and illustrate to the reader how to identify issues associated with the throughput for your business.
A part of any information feedback loop is the operating control reports in business. Depending on the nature and financial impact involved, these reports can be daily (Daily Operating Controls or DOC), weekly (Weekly Operating Controls or WOC) and/or monthly (Monthly Operating Controls or MOC) in management reporting. Their value is to inform management of business activity and identify any potential issues that could generate undue financial harm on the business or worse, create an unsafe product or work environment.
In every business no matter production or service, there exists a bottleneck. Your job as the owner or manager is to find it and fix the problem. Once this one is found and resolved; move onto the next one. There is always a bottleneck to find and fix. What is important is to find the problem, identify the core issue, and then resolve the bottleneck. This may sound simply, but it takes someone in a position of knowledge and experience to complete this task.
What I learned was that equipment didn’t call in sick, it didn’t back talk me, it never got upset about how much it was paid and it just kept on humming. It was making us money and I didn’t have to deal with personnel issues. Boy, if only all production could be like this. Turn it on and make money.
