Are we facing an impasse in our drive for an increase in productivity? All the efforts taken to ensure that only good quality crop is delivered to the mill do not seem to have made any significant impact in achieving the goals. There are limitations in what human beings can do as many contributing factors for increased production are beyond human control. While oil loss, harvesting ripe crop and trash control are manageable by human effort, climatic conditions, weevil activity, inflorescence sex ratio etc. fall under the domain of mother nature, where we have little control. Many papers have been presented on all the possible areas where oil losses can take place leading eventually to a decline in the oil extraction rate (OER). They were written by different authors representing different plantation agencies and as a result they were not fully integrated to give the operational people a holistic view for them to effectively enforce them. The agronomists, planters and millers often present their views from different angles that may confuse the owners or the Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of companies who would be unable to make the right decision to benefit the company as a whole.