General Motors increases its production throughput

In the late 1980s, General Motors Corporation (GM) initiated a long-term project to predict and improve the throughput performance of its production lines to increase productivity throughout its manufacturing operations and provide GM with a strategic competitive advantage. GM quantified throughput performance and focused improvement efforts in the design and operations of its manufacturing systems through coordinated activities in three areas: (1) it developed algorithms for estimating throughput performance, identifying bottlenecks, and optimizing buffer allocation, (2) it installed real-time plant-floor data-collection systems to support the algorithms, and (3) it established common processes for identifying opportunities and implementing performance improvements. Through these activities, GM has increased revenue and saved over $2.1 billion in over 30 vehicle plants and 10 countries.