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Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing vocabulary · Operations Research

Constraint

Meaning in industrial engineering & manufacturing, with examples

/kənˈstreɪnt/nounCommon term

In industrial engineering & manufacturing, constraint means: A limit that a solution must respect, such as available machine hours, budget or storage space. In the Theory of Constraints, the resource that limits the whole system.

In Turkish: kısıt, kısıtlama, sınırlama

How it is used

Used in optimization models (capacity constraints, demand constraints) and in everyday planning talk ('our main constraint is space'). Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC), known from his book 'The Goal', focuses improvement on the system's constraint.

Example sentences

  1. The model has a constraint that no machine can run more than 120 hours a week.

  2. Floor space, not labor, is now the main constraint in the warehouse.

Common collocations

  • capacity constraint
  • main constraint
  • Theory of Constraints
  • subject to constraints
  • relax a constraint
  • objective functionIn an optimization model, the formula that measures what you want to minimize or maximize, such as total cost, profit or delivery time.
  • linear programmingA mathematical method for finding the best result, such as the lowest cost or highest profit, when the goal and all the limits can be written as linear equations.
  • bottleneckThe slowest step or resource in a process, which limits the output of the whole system, just as the neck of a bottle limits how fast liquid flows out.
  • capacityThe maximum amount a machine, line or plant can produce in a given time, for example 1,200 units per shift.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Operations Research

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