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Theory of Constraints (TOC)
W. Edwards Deming maintained that real quality improvement
ins't possible without profound knowledge. According to Deming,
profound knowledge comes from an understanding of the theory
of knowledge, knowledge of variation, an understanding of psychology,
and aprreciation for systems.
Most modern organizational systems are considered to be cybernetic
systems. That is, they are capable of self-adjustment. Besides
adjusting their components and inputs to control the quality
and quantity of their outputs, cybernetic systems can redesignated
their goals, too, in response to changes in their environment.
So if we appreciate a system, it would mean that we throughly
understand how the system's component interact with each other,
and how the entire systems interacts with its environment.
Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt's Theory of Constraints is system
improvement philosophy. How does this differ from more commonly
known continuous improvement theories? Nearly all the improvement
philosophies focus primarily on improvement of processes. The
unspoken, underlying assumption seems to be that if all the component
processes are improved and refined to their maximum, the entire
system will exhibit maximum improvement.
Goldratt, however, maintains that organizations live or die
as system, not as processes. Their success or failure is a function
of how well the different component processes interact with one
another. Moreover, he contends that systems are analogus to chains,
ot network os chains.
Like a chain, a system's performance is limited by the performance
of its weakness link. This means, by extension, that no matter
how much effort you put into improving the processes of a system,
only the improvements to the weakness link will produce any detectable
system improvement. The weakness link is the system's constraint.
And Dr. Goldratt Theory of Constraints is the paradigm he's created
to manage the living daylights out of these weakness links, with
the end result that systems improve much more quickly than they
might otherwise.
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Goldratt for the opportunity to
learn about his philosophy, and especially how to use the powerful
logical tools to identify constraint, exploit it ... These tools
have the capability to change live. I know this first-hand, because
they have profoundly changed mine.
H. William Dettmer
University of Southern California
Institute of Safety and System Management
Reverside, California