Throughput accounting heuristics is still adequate: Response to criticism

• Analyzes thoroughly Blackstone (2001) and Linhares (2009) product mix selection.
• Illustrates that throughput accounting heuristics works still better than alternatives.
• Heuristics requires some further analysis on varying product characteristics.
• Step-wise changing operating expenses is challenging too, but could also be solved.

During the years, number of authors have argued against of possible non-optimality of throughput accounting product mix preference. Lastly, Linhares (2009) criticized throughput accounting heuristics in expanded product mix selection of Blackstone (2001). It is shown in this work that throughput accounting still outperforms any other approach in this referred hypothetical situation, if overall capacity availability of a constraint resource and total throughput per week delivered are being considered (vs. only using throughput per minute of a product). It is critical to expand own point of view to the profit of a system, instead of solely justify decisions on shorter time units, which are not the same with the decision period. However, as we illustrate further, throughput accounting has still its caveats, which arise especially from step-wise increasing operating expenses or from the requirement of integer product mixes. These could be addressed properly by analyzing situation as illustrated in this research work, or alternatively using expert systems concerning customers and operations optimization. Impacts of these actions on short-term profitability are significant.