Written by Source: Humanistic Systems by Steven Shorrock
Shorrock’s law of limits states that, “When you put a limit on a measure, if that measure relates to efficiency, the limit will be used as a target.”
It was first articulated by Steven Shorrock with reference to the dynamics of Flight Time Limitations (FTL) in aviation. How many other procedural and regulatory limits within your flying activity can you think of where this law could be said to apply?
“When a regulator imposes a limit on a system, it’s usually because they see a problem with exceeding that limit. If the limit is a binding constraint — that is, if you limit something critical to the process, and require a lower level of the metric than is currently being produced, the best response is to hug the limit as closely as possible. If we limit how many hours a pilot can fly (the initial prompt for Shorrock’s law), or that a trucker can drive, the best way to comply with the limit is to get as close to the limit as possible, which minimizes how much it impacts overall efficiency.“
For the full article from Humanistic Systems introducing the concept click the link here: https://humanisticsystems.com/2019/10/24/shorrocks-law-of-limits/