> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zookooree.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Thesis 6: Takt Time Is the Operator's Attention

> The line's true constraint is not compute, it is the finite attention of the human running the plant.

A factory without takt time is a workshop. Takt is the rhythm customer demand imposes on a line — and this factory sets one: **the customer is the human operator, and takt is his sustainable absorption rate for verification and intent.**

This is a one-human plant. Every certified unit requires operator attention exactly twice — once at intake, writing the work order, and once at certification, accepting the claim. Compute is not the constraint. Agent throughput is not the constraint. *Human trust-bandwidth is the constraint*, and the whole line paces to it.

## Practical consequences

* **Takt is set explicitly and low** — on the order of 3 to 5 certified units per week at current staffing. Every WIP limit derives from it via Little's Law.
* **The only way to raise plant capacity is verification leverage,** not more agents: reference-free judges that turn human review from "check everything" into "audit the auditor." Every point of judge-alignment gained is capacity gained. This is [Thesis 1](/six-theses/verification-first) seen from the demand side.
* **Overproduction is redefined.** An agent built faster than it can be verified is not early; it is waste rusting in the yard. The classic first waste — building agents nobody asked for — gets a sharper sibling: *building agents faster than anyone can trust them.*

## The design of the two touches

The stations exist to protect the attention budget. Everything mechanizable is mechanized; what reaches the operator is judgment that only the operator can supply. At [Station 0](/stations/0-work-order) that judgment is intent — what should exist and why. At [Station 4](/stations/4-certify) it is acceptance — whether the claim and its evidence deserve a signature. What the operator reviews at certification is the *claim and its evidence, not the work* — that is what the verification shop bought.

Automating everything except the decisions that matter is not a compromise. It is the point of the whole system.

## Self-audit

| Claim                                                                                                | Source                     |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| The customer is the operator; takt is his sustainable absorption rate for verification and intent    | docs/factory-design.md:71  |
| One-human plant; attention twice per unit (intake, certification); trust-bandwidth is the constraint | docs/factory-design.md:71  |
| 3–5 certified units/week; WIP limits via Little's Law                                                | docs/factory-design.md:75  |
| Verification leverage is the only capacity lever; audit the auditor                                  | docs/factory-design.md:76  |
| Overproduction redefined: faster than anyone can trust them                                          | docs/factory-design.md:77  |
| Human reviews the claim and its evidence, not the work                                               | docs/factory-design.md:146 |