THE THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a portfolio of management philosophies,
management disciplines, and industry-specific "best practices" developed and
popularised over the past 20 years by physicist Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt and his
associates. Most people are first exposed to the concepts through his book The
Goal, (North River Press, 1984).
Dr. Goldratt has been described by Fortune Magazine as a guru to industry and by
Business Week as a genius. His books The Goal, It's Not Luck, and Critical Chain,
gripping fast paced business novels, are transforming management thinking
Goldratt's Theory of Constraints is being used by thousands of corporations, and is
taught in over 200 colleges, universities and business schools. His books have
sold over 3 million copies and have been translated into 23 languages.
The Theory of Constraints is an overall philosophy, usually applied to running and
improving an organisation. TOC consists of Problem Solving and
Management/Decision-Making Tools called the Thinking Processes (TP). TOC is
applied to logically and systematically answer these three questions essential to
any process of ongoing improvement: "What to change?" "To what to change?"
"How to cause the change?"
More specific uses of the Thinking Processes can be used to significantly enhance
vital management skills, such as: win-win conflict resolution effective
communication team building skills delegation empowerment
Famous for spectacular results, the use of TOC has resulted in Proven Solutions
created by applying the Thinking Processes (TP) in specific functional areas such
as Sales, Marketing, Logistics, Finance, Accounting, Engineering and Project
Management. Many of these solutions are discussed in detail in the books: The
Goal, The Race, It's Not Luck and Critical Chain.
TOC recognises that the output of any system that consists of multiple steps
where the output of one step depends on the output of one or more previous steps
will be limited (or constrained) by the least productive steps. In other words, as
