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Flat Lines Another pattern that I look for on a CFD is whenever any lines that flatten out over long periods of time (remember that lines can never go down!). Figure 6.2 shows an example of this: Figure 6.2: Flat Throughput Sections on a CFD Depending on your perspective, these lines could represent either periods of zero arrivals or periods of zero departures. Usually you will be concerned about these flat lines as periods of zero departures. The reason why is because zero departures means nothing is getting done. In other words, no value is being delivered to the customer (or to a downstream step).