Grasp the Collar, Expose the Elbow

CORE DEFINITION

The image is of a garment too worn and too small for its wearer. As a systems concept it describes a resource-constrained state in which total capacity is below total demand, so no reallocation can satisfy everything and every local repair transfers the shortfall rather than removing it. The core claim is that once the constraint binds globally, optimization inside the system cannot help; only adding capacity or reducing demand changes the outcome. The qualification is diagnosis: the same symptom appears when a single bottleneck is the true constraint, and in that case relieving the bottleneck does work. The test is whether any slack exists anywhere.