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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