No, the example doesn't cheat.
You hit on the point of the example.
With batch processing, and large levels of inventory you have a lot of idle inventory (waste).
Adding two extra people to work on the idle inventory (instead of having it sit there) isn't cheating.It's not letting inventory sit idle, build up, and collect defects because of a bad production run.
But if you have two extra people working, then you could do each 'batch' step in 3 1/3 minutes, not 10. If the point was "all else being equal, continuous processing is faster" then it cheats: all else is not equal in the examples given.
If the point was about idle inventory, specialization, risk mitigation, etc.... then it would be nice if it had mentioned those aspects instead of focusing specifically, and misleadingly, on throughput.
All else being equal, throughput will be equal as well. Continuous processes will produce their first products much more quickly than batch processing, but the time to completely finish the same volume (again: what the examples focused on!) will be the same as batch processing plus the extra time added while the late steps are idle, waiting on the early ones.
Comments
No, the example doesn't cheat. You hit on the point of the example.
With batch processing, and large levels of inventory you have a lot of idle inventory (waste).
Adding two extra people to work on the idle inventory (instead of having it sit there) isn't cheating.It's not letting inventory sit idle, build up, and collect defects because of a bad production run.
But if you have two extra people working, then you could do each 'batch' step in 3 1/3 minutes, not 10. If the point was "all else being equal, continuous processing is faster" then it cheats: all else is not equal in the examples given.
If the point was about idle inventory, specialization, risk mitigation, etc.... then it would be nice if it had mentioned those aspects instead of focusing specifically, and misleadingly, on throughput.
All else being equal, throughput will be equal as well. Continuous processes will produce their first products much more quickly than batch processing, but the time to completely finish the same volume (again: what the examples focused on!) will be the same as batch processing plus the extra time added while the late steps are idle, waiting on the early ones.
Yes I see what you saying now.
Yes I agree. The throughput will be the same. Regardless of batch or continuous.
I do agree the title is miss leading. The example in the post compares and contrasts the two systems, but does not demonstrate more production.
Thx for pointing that out.