Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [10]
Industry Week Late Night Discussion Series
Management Skills Workshop Series (Workbooks)
Video Movie/Presentations
Goldratt Program Series (Video/DVD)
Self-Learning Computer Education Software Programs
Necessary and Sufficient Series
TOC Insights Series. 4 Self-learning Computer Software
Chapters in Books
Conference Proceedings/Video Proceedings/Presentations
Keynote Presentations/Video Conference Presentation
The Goldratt Webcast Series
Strategy and Tactic Trees
POOGI Forum Letter Series
Plays
Commercial Software
Index
Preface
Beginning in the early 1980s with the OPT software, a software package for scheduling manufacturing operations, Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt started applying the concepts of the hard sciences1 to problems in organizations. Later, with the publication of The Goal in 1984, Dr. Goldratt launched a series of revolutionary concepts aimed at bringing about improvement in the global performance of organizations by focusing on a few leverage points of the system. These revolutionary ideas of Theory of Constraints go to the very core of how things work in the real world. They focus on Constraints as a centerpiece in the definition and management of production work flow in manufacturing, administrative processes, project management and the like. Holistic thinking is emphasized throughout, shifting the focus on work direction and measurement from local efficiencies to Throughput of the entire system, buffering the system to protect it from the statistical fluctuation caused by unexpected problems (Murphy), Parkinson’s Law, etc. This is fortified with clear guidance on placement of buffers in the flow of the system and simple tools for “Buffer Management” as a way of achieving the best focus on priority actions. By taking a systems view and focusing the cause-and-effect relationship of the leverage points to global performance, Goldratt invented new management concepts and applications in production, project management, finance, accounting and performance measurement, distribution and supply chain, marketing, sales, managing people, and strategy and tactics. The concepts are robust with applications appearing in manufacturing, services, engineering, government, education, medicine, prisons, banking, and professional, scientific, and technical services and other service industries.
Perhaps Dr. Goldratt’s most important contributions are the Thinking Processes which employ structure and language to lay out true cause and effect in defining problems and laying out conflict dilemmas and their solutions. They have been taught and used effectively in all levels of education from pre-kindergarten through PhD research. On a grand scale they provide a suite of complementary problem-solving and decision-making tools based on using the scientific foundation of cause-and-effect logic, with steps for verification and validation. While they are applied in strategy, development, marketing, sales, production, distribution, finance, and accounting, they are useful for addressing personal problems and have even been used in teaching prisoners how to deal with the issues they face.
Theory of Constraints concepts and tools are aimed at one overriding objective: bringing about a process of ongoing improvement in enterprises. That said, the purpose of this book is to provide “hands on” guidance from the world’s top experts on how to implement these TOC capabilities. This guidance is buttressed by clear definition on how they work, why they work, what issues are resolved and what benefits accrue. Leading practitioners provide guidance based on their hands-on implementation experience. Academic authors give a review of the wealth of literature on why to move from the traditional discipline to each TOC discipline and a review of the TOC literature in that discipline. Indeed these ideas are of such a scope that this Handbook required 44 authors to explain them.
James F. Cox III
John G. Schleier, Jr.
Acknowledgments
We have a number of people and organizations to acknowledge for their help in bringing this