Theory of Constraints

Discover the powerful Theory of Constraints (TOC), and use it to drive continuous performance improvement in any services organization
Identify the hidden constraints that are limiting your organization, and manage or eliminate them
Use TOC to improve the way you manage resources, projects, processes, finance, marketing, and sales

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a framework of interdisciplinary knowledge, methods, and management tools for organizations. It starts from the premise that imbalance is inevitable but also desirable. The flow management method of the Theory of Constraints, called Drum – Buffer – Rope, involves pacing the release of manufacturing orders to the pace of the bottleneck to avoid excess work in progress and reduce cycle times, while ensuring that parts arrive sufficiently early to never stop the same bottleneck. The five key implementation steps of the theory of constraints are: 1, identify the constraint; 2, exploit the constraint (increase its utilization and efficiency); 3, subordinate all processes to the constrained process; 4, elevate the performance of the constraint (if necessary); 5, repeat from step 1.