Efficiency Is Bullshit, Actually. Efficiency gets a lot of praise, but… | by Tim Dingman | Medium

Actually, that’s wrong. Here are some issues with efficiency, both the concept itself and how people use it. Nearly all systems could become more efficient (more on what that exactly means later) in some facet. Of all the possible ways a thing could happen, almost never does it actually happen in the most efficient way possible. So when you say “we can make it more efficient,” you’re spouting a truism, nothing more. Time efficiency? Monetary efficiency? Effort efficiency? All possible! But nobody ever specifies, even though there are many types of efficiency and they look different. Lack of clarity allows for lazy thinking. Efficiency (strictly, actually defined for your particular system) in one place may result in inefficiency in another place and ultimately hurt efficiency overall. Readers of The Goal know that an optimal system is not just a combination of local optima: a single stage (that isn’t the bottleneck) on a factory line that now goes twice as fast just piles up unfinished

Actually, that’s wrong. Here are some issues with efficiency, both the concept itself and how people use it. Nearly all systems could become more efficient (more on what that exactly means later) in some facet. Of all the possible ways a thing could happen, almost never does it actually happen in the most efficient way possible. So when you say “we can make it more efficient,” you’re spouting a truism, nothing more. Time efficiency? Monetary efficiency? Effort efficiency? All possible! But nobody ever specifies, even though there are many types of efficiency and they look different. Lack of cl