The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
— Bill Gates
Unpopular Operational Efficiency quotations
Automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.
Mergers are like marriages. They are the bringing together of two individuals. If you wouldn't marry someone for the 'operational efficiencies' they offer in the running of a household, then why would you combine two companies with unique cultures and identities for that reason?
This...Godless society operates in an extremely efficient manner at least in its higher levels of leadership...It follows a perfectly mapped out strategy. It holds almost complete sway in international organizations, in financial circles, in the field of mass communications; press, cinema, radio and television.
All true religion, all true morality, all true mysticism have but one object, and that is to act on humanity, collective and individual, in such a manner that it shall correspond efficiently with the great law of development, and co-operate consciously therewith to achieve the end of development.
We are operating at an overall mechanical efficiency of only four percent.
.. Therefore, we find that if we increase the overall mechanical efficiency to only twelve percent we can take care of everybody. That three-fold increase in the overall efficiency can only be accomplished by redesign.
From the time I first understood economic principles, I was always concerned also that any system be operated on an efficient basis, which meant decentralization because knowledge is not concentrated anywhere. It's based on motivation, and so these are the advantages of, say, the cautious case for capitalism, that the market system is efficient.
The output is far from smooth, and the impact on dispatchable plant required to deal with residual demand is highly significant. Our view is that plant operating under these conditions in the support role for wind will suffer: 1) reduced availability, 2) significantly reduced efficiency, and thus 3) higher emissions per MWh generated.
The physical symptoms of fight or flight are what the human body has learned over thousands of years to operate efficiently and at the highest level...anxiety is a cognitive interpretation of that physical response.
The Texas Energy Office's Loan Star Program has reduced building energy consumption and taxpayers' energy costs through the efficient operation of public buildings, saving taxpayers more than $172 million through energy efficiency projects.
Trade has played a vital role in the social evolution of humankind.
It allowed people to specialise, which raises both skill levels and efficiency. It brought people from different lands together, co-operating rather than competing over resources.
The everyday brain could be dubbed "the baseline brain," because it operates at the minimum functioning to keep you alive and healthy. It controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, your immune function, all of your subconscious impulses. That's not a minor role; the baseline brain is a marvel of complexity and efficiency. But too much of it is devoted to habits, old conditioning, unconscious reflexes, and lack of self-awareness.
You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.
If you don't understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance. The sure way to increase productivity is to better administrate man and machine.
During my career as an airline pilot, I had the opportunity to be a check and training captain. Part of this job was to train and test experienced pilots to ensure that they had the necessary knowledge and skills to safely and efficiently operate those magnificent big jets.
Using technology merely to lower operational costs amounts to standing on a whale fishing for minnows. It just allows you to do the old thing more efficiently, where in this moment of deep transformation, it is much more likely that you should be doing something entirely new in an entirely different way.
We've so, so fallen for the premise that only government can do certain things.
But then when we get around to privatizing, people always applaud it. Well, I mean, the left never does. Privatize this; privatize that. Prisons, you name it. When you are endeavoring to create wealth by virtue of creating profit, you're gonna have a much more efficient operation a bunch of bureaucrats - who have no idea what they're doing, by the way.
Systems are corporate funded mechanisms for increasing efficiency;
programs are user funded mechanisms for increasing effectiveness. Programs should generally be charged back to users, systems should never be. Allocating corporate overhead to the operating units is simply a mistake.
The oil industry is hardly free to operate as efficiently as it could or to be as responsive to consumer demands as it would like. It has become, in essence, a quasi-state-run enterprise, because it cannot drill, transport, refine, and store fuel without receiving government permission, complying with government regulations, and paying taxes at every level or production.
Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier.
Using the combined, integrated force of the mind and body is more efficient than using one without the other. Since the body can only exist in the present, that's where the mind should be too (unless we deliberately choose to contemplate the past or future). At the same time, the body needs to be healthy and in optimum operating condition so that it can respond effectively to the mind's directives.
To make HP a great company once again, we need more than competitive costs and operational efficiency. We're in the process of assessing and refining our growth strategy, and the same concepts that were behind our operational changes will be at work here: simplicity, focus, alignment, and execution.
In today's retail environment, competition comes from every conceivable retail format. To succeed, we have to operate more efficiently and compete more effectively against players at all levels of the retail demographic. There is no question that this is a bold and exciting move, and one I believe will have a positive impact on competitive retailing for American consumers in the longer term.
It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending, ... No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt.
What a pleasure it is to be in business with BASE.
I'm impressed with the honesty, integrity and efficiency with which they operate. The next show I do and represent, I will be doing with them all over again.
Corporations, in the name of efficiency, suppress variation by "getting all the ducks in line."To optimize productivity, they evolve highly refined and internally consistent operating systems. Payoff - results - as long as the music lasts. But ... all that streamlining and re-engineering limits diversity, suppresses self-organization ... and curtails a bottom up emergent response to disruptive change.
There's huge opportunities to continue to improve efficiency in the way the government operates and improve the way government provides services to its citizens.
The Earth school is not a concept. It is an an ongoing 3-dimesional, full colour, hi-fidelity, interactive multi-media experience that does not end until your soul goes home (until you die). Every moment in the earth school offers you important opportunities to learn about yourself. Those things have to do with your soul. The Earth school operates with exquisite perfection and efficiency whether you are aware of it or not.
The efficiency of the cleaning solution in liquefying wizards suggested the operation of an antithetical principal,which-" "Did you have to get him started?" Cimorene asked reproachfully.