2023年经济学人 公司的瓶颈烦恼

 

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

The bottleneck¹ bane

瓶颈烦恼

“The goal” is a notable business book for two reasons.

《目标》是一本著名的商业书籍，原因有两个。

The first is its unusual genre².

首先是它不同寻常的文体。

First published in 1984, it is a management tome dressed up in the clothes of a thriller³.

该书于1984年首次出版，是一本披着悬疑小说外衣的管理学巨著。

The book, written by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox, tells the story of Alex Rogo, a plant manager who has to overhaul⁴ his factory within three months or face closure.

这本书由艾利·高德拉特和杰夫·科克斯所著，讲述了亚历克斯·罗戈的故事，罗戈是一名工厂经理，必须在三个月内对工厂进行彻底改革，否则工厂将倒闭。

To the objection that this is not thrilling at all, consider that it could have been a lot worse (“Alan Key must format⁵ a slide deck by midnight or he won’t get enough sleep to function properly the next day”).

有人反对说，这故事一点都不刺激，但请想一想，情况可以变得更糟(“艾伦·基必须在午夜前做完一套PPT，否则他第二天就会因为睡眠不足而没法正常工作”)。

And Rogo’s efforts to reduce excess inventory⁶ and win over Bill Peach, his hard-driving boss, are weirdly⁷ entertaining.

此外，罗戈为了减少过剩库存和赢得严厉的老板比尔·皮奇的支持所做的努力，也有一种奇怪的趣味性。

In any case readers lapped it up.

无论哪种原因，读者非常买账。

“The Goal” sold millions .It has been reprinted several times.

《目标》卖出了几百万册，重印了好几次。

It even got turned into a graphic⁸ novel.

甚至还被改编成了一本图画小说。

Its second contribution was to popularise thinking about bottlenecks⁹.

这本书的第二个贡献是普及了对瓶颈的思考。

The novel was written to get across Goldratt’s “theory of constraints¹⁰”, a method for identifying those resources whose capacity does not match the demands placed on them.

高德拉特写这部小说是为了阐释他的“制约理论”，这是一种用来识别那些能力无法满足需求的资源的方法。

(This definition comes from one of the book’s protagonists—Jonah, a brilliant, globe-trotting business adviser¹¹ whose resemblance to a real person seems unlikely to be coincidental.)

(这个定义来自书中的一个主人公钟纳，他是一位才华横溢、周游世界的商业顾问，他与一个真实人物的相似之处似乎不太可能是巧合。)

Bottlenecks are often thought of as physical constraints.

瓶颈通常被认为是物理上的限制。

In Rogo’s factory, for example, the bottlenecks are two particular machines whose through-put must be increased in order to ship orders faster.

例如，在罗戈的工厂里，瓶颈是两台特定的机器，它们的产量必须提高，才能更快地发货。

In recent years the pandemic has increased awareness¹² of such bottlenecks in the wider supply chain, whether because of the impact of semiconductor¹³ shortages or the effect of backlogs¹⁴ at congested ports.

近年来，疫情提高了人们对更大范围的供应链中此类瓶颈的认识，无论是半导体短缺的影响，还是港口拥堵积压的影响。

Policies can be bottlenecks, too.

政策也可能成为瓶颈。

The pandemic also forced vaccine¹⁵ manufacturers to ditch normal patterns of working.

疫情迫使疫苗制造商放弃正常的工作模式。

In “Vaxxers”, a book about their work to develop the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 jab, Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green describe how they did more “at risk” work, doing things in parallel that would usually have been done sequentially.

《做疫苗的人》讲述了疫苗制造商如何研发出牛津-阿斯利康新冠肺炎疫苗，在这本书中，萨拉·吉尔伯特和凯瑟琳·格林讲述了制造商如何做了更多有风险的工作，把通常情况下需要依次完成的事情改成同时进行。

That would have meant wasted work if they had hit a problem, but also that scientists got stuff done much faster than usual.

这意味着如果他们遇到了问题，那么工作就白做了，但也意味着科学家们完成工作的速度比平时快了许多。

Bill Peach would have approved.

比尔·皮奇肯定会同意这种做法的。

People are also bottlenecks.

人也是一种瓶颈。

Within organisations, managers themselves are frequently the points at which things get bunged up.

在组织内部，经理本身往往是出问题的地方。

That might be because executives simply have too much to do.

可能是因为高管们有太多的事情要做。

Estimates vary on how many direct reports a manager should ideally have.

一名经理应该有多少直接下属才是比较理想的，对于这个问题的估计各不相同。

But if they don’t all fit in a lift, you almost certainly have too many.

但是，如果一个电梯里装不下所有这些人，那么几乎可以肯定人数太多了。

It might be their own fault—if they are micromanagers, say, offering up helpful opinions on everything from font sizes to office furniture.

也可能是经理自己的错，比方说，如果他们是微观管理者，从字体大小到办公室家具，事无巨细地提供有用的意见。

It might be because no one is comfortable making a decision for fear of being hauled over the coals later by their own boss.

还可能是因为没有人敢于做出决定，因为他们担心之后会被自己的上司指责。

It might be because there is jockeying and confusion over who has the right to make a call (an “upward status disagreement”, if you like jargon¹⁶; a “pissing contest”, if you don’t).

也可能是因为在谁有权力拍板的问题上存在争执和混乱(这用行业黑话来说就是“向上地位分歧”，说人话就是“抢着当老大”)。

Bottlenecks can stem from good behaviour as well as bad.

瓶颈可能源于糟糕的行为，也可能源于良好的行为。

Collaboration¹⁷ is normally celebrated¹⁸, but it can easily result in more delays if people’s time is being soaked up on non-essential tasks.

协同合作通常是受到提倡的，但如果人们的时间被非必要的任务占用，那么合作就很容易导致更多的拖延。

Similarly, the person who responds to every message quickly and clears their inbox every night looks like the very opposite of a bottleneck, but that depends on two things: on what work they are not doing while they manically check their email, and on whether those messages are about trivial things.

同样，及时回复每一封邮件并每晚清空收件箱的人看起来是瓶颈的反面，但这取决于两件事：一是他们疯狂查看电子邮件时落下了什么工作没做，二是这些邮件是否都是些鸡毛蒜皮的小事。

If people are responding at great speed on matters of zero importance—especially if they are high up the ladder and colleagues are therefore likely to respond to them in turn—they are probably creating trouble of some sort.

如果人们对不重要的事情回应很快--特别是如果他们的职位较高，同事就很可能会再回复他们--那么这些人很可能正在制造某种麻烦。

Whatever the causes of congestion¹⁹, the costs can be material.

无论造成拥堵的原因是什么，成本都可能是巨大的。

Daniel Ek, the boss of Spotify, attributed a recent restructuring at the music-streaming company to the need to make faster decisions.

Spotify的老板丹尼尔·埃克最近将这家音乐流媒体公司进行了重组，声称原因是需要更快地做出决定。

Consultants²⁰ at McKinsey have estimated that about 530,000 days of managers’ time each year may be wasted on broken decision-making processes at a typical Fortune 500 company.

麦肯锡的顾问估计，在一家《财富》500强企业中，经理们每年大约有53万天被浪费在被中断的决策过程上。

“The Goal” is not the greatest thriller ever. No one dies.

《目标》并不是最棒的悬疑小说。书中没有人死去。

The only real violence done is to the English language (“It’s not until I’m busy with my delicious veal²¹ parmesan that my thoughts start to crystallise”).

唯一真正的暴力是对英语语言的暴力(“直到我忙着吃美味的帕尔马干酪小牛肉，我的想法才开始明朗起来”)。

But it is a lot more readable than most business books, and it makes you think about a subject that is relevant not only to supply-chain managers and operations managers but to bosses everywhere.

但它比大多数商业书籍的可读性要强得多，而且它让你思考的主题不仅与供应链经理和运营经理相关，也与所有地方的老板相关。

Bottlenecks abound²². They just need to be found.

瓶颈比比皆是，只需找到它们。

1 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。

2 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

3 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

4 overhaul   

v./n.大修，仔细检查

参考例句：

• Master Worker Wang is responsible for the overhaul of this grinder.王师傅主修这台磨床。
• It is generally appreciated that the rail network needs a complete overhaul.众所周知，铁路系统需要大检修。

5 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

6 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

7 weirdly   

古怪地

参考例句：

• Another special characteristic of Kweilin is its weirdly-shaped mountain grottoes. 桂林的另一特点是其形态怪异的岩洞。
• The country was weirdly transformed. 地势古怪地变了样。

8 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

9 bottlenecks   

n.瓶颈( bottleneck的名词复数 )；瓶颈路段（常引起交通堵塞）；（尤指工商业发展的）瓶颈；阻碍

参考例句：

• Roadworks are causing bottlenecks in the city centre. 道路施工导致市中心交通阻塞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• At five o'clock in the afternoon the city streets are a series of bottlenecks. 下午五点市中心的街道就成了拥挤不堪的窄路。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

10 constraints   

强制( constraint的名词复数 )； 限制； 约束

参考例句：

• Data and constraints can easily be changed to test theories. 信息库中的数据和限制条件可以轻易地改变以检验假设。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
• What are the constraints that each of these imply for any design? 这每种产品的要求和约束对于设计意味着什么？ 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

11 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

12 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

13 semiconductor   

n.半导体

参考例句：

• In the beginning,engineers hoped to use semiconductor lasers.在开始时，工程师们希望能够利用半导体激光器。
• The main agent of the company brand semiconductor sales.本公司主要代理各品牌半导体销售。

14 backlogs   

积压未办之事( backlog的名词复数 )； 没交付的订货； 备用； 备用物

参考例句：

• "You'll need kindling and medium wood and logs and backlogs. “点火柴、引火柴、原木、垫底的，你都用得着。” 来自名作英译部分
• Our manufacturers have heavy backlogs on their hands. 我们的生产厂商手头有许多积压而没有交付的订单。

15 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

16 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

17 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

18 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

19 congestion   

n.阻塞，消化不良

参考例句：

• The congestion in the city gets even worse during the summer.夏天城市交通阻塞尤为严重。
• Parking near the school causes severe traffic congestion.在学校附近泊车会引起严重的交通堵塞。

20 consultants   

顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生

参考例句：

• a firm of management consultants 管理咨询公司
• There're many consultants in hospital. 医院里有很多会诊医生。

21 veal   

n.小牛肉

参考例句：

• She sauteed veal and peppers,preparing a mixed salad while the pan simmered.她先做的一道菜是青椒煎小牛肉，趁着锅还在火上偎着的机会，又做了一道拼盘。
• Marinate the veal in white wine for two hours.把小牛肉用白葡萄酒浸泡两小时。

22 abound   

vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于

参考例句：

• Oranges abound here all the year round.这里一年到头都有很多橙子。
• But problems abound in the management of State-owned companies.但是在国有企业的管理中仍然存在不少问题。