Last few weeks I’ve spent with Dr Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Unfortunately, not in person, as he’s not with us since 2011. His ideas of not obvious but easy and effective approach to production process changed my mind. Theory of Constraints (ToC) is applicable to many different parts of the business.
I definitely recommend book: “The goal”. There are many other books around it, worth reading. Last days I’m fully immersed in those. I would not recommend Klapholz & Klarman “Cash Machine Using Theory of Constraints for Sales Management”, as it gives much less value, than typical book from this series…
What is not obvious in ToC? It’s your people should not work all the time. Sometimes if we see, someone doing nothing, we think it’s a loss… but in many cases it’s not true and we may give a rest to our non-constraint resources… and it will be beneficial for our business. I had some feeling, that it’s right to not push for “doing” whatever it takes. And ToC shows why it’s important, and where.
Other three main questions, ToC help to answer are:
- What to change? (Current state – A)
- To what to change? (Future state – B)
- How to make the change? (Transition from A to B)