Now my colleagues in Economics Department,
they kind of like to ignore the supply-demand mismatches.
They take comfort in the notion of markets and
that prices will adjust once we have a mismatch between supply and demand.
However, if you are sick, and
you're sitting in an emergency department prices were not source of problem.
If you're hungry waiting for your lunch, this is not a matter of prices.
For this reason I argue that understanding inventory, flow rate, and
flow time are indeed the most important issues,
not just what we do in operations, what we do in management in general.
So, keep those three measures in mind when, next time,
you go through a process, be it as a tourist, as a person going for
lunch or when you have a chance to tour a factory.
And always look for the three things, flow rate, inventory, and flow time.