The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Third Revised Edition

Use questions to guide people to discover answers themselves rather than dictating solutions -- because conclusions you reach yourself are the only ones you truly own

Synchronize the entire production system to the constraint's pace using a drum to set the beat, a buffer to protect it, and a rope to control material release

Replace cost accounting with three measures -- throughput, inventory, and operating expense -- to make decisions that actually improve profitability

A relentless cycle of identifying, exploiting, subordinating, elevating, and repeating to drive ongoing improvement

Every system has exactly one constraint that limits its throughput -- find it, fix it, and find the next one