CTP--New Tools, Old Theories

Drum-Rope-Barrel Theory
This theory ties (with a rope) the amount of work down past the bottleneck (platesetter) to the amount of work in progress in the queue (or barrel) before the platesetters.

You create this queue of work-in-progress after digital proofing and before platemaking. Since the platesetter is faster then the bottleneck, when the queue (barrel) gets low, you turn it off—and use the platemaking people in another area that is bottlenecked (digital proofing). After you turn off platemaking, the work in the queue (barrel) is rising. The benefit is the reassigned staff (platemakers helping in digital proofing) are overcoming the bottlenecked work in the proofing area, increasing overall throughput.