out of the ATE section was even more challenging.

Buying more ATE was more

expensive than buying additional surface-mount equipment. Finding qualified

ATE operators was also more difficult.

In short, it took more time, effort, and money to manage or break the ATE

constraint than it did to break the surface-mount constraint. Had the company

been able to anticipate that ATE would become the system constraint, they

could have chosen to either a) leave the constraint where it was— at the

surface-mount machine, or b) begin long-lead time acquisition of ATE and ATE

operators to boost the ATE section’s capacity before increasing the surfacemount

capacity. Doing so would have increased system performance, yet

preserved the system constraint at a location that was far easier to manage.

Another important factor to consider is return on investment. Once the

company described above broke the surface-mount constraint, there was

potential to generate more Throughput, but how much? If the ATE's capacity

was only slightly more than that of the original surface-mount machine, the

company might have gained only a small increase in Throughput as a payback

for the cost of the new surface-mount unit. This could become a definite

disappointment.

As long as the next constraint poses a substantially higher limit than