I. Main contents of toc constraints
Toc first emerged as a manufacturing management concept. Toc was initially understood as a way to manage manufacturing industries and address bottlenecks, and has since been improved to develop a system of indicators based on production and distribution rates, inventories, operating fees, which has evolved into a system of traditional management theories and tools that have increased production and sales rather than reduced costs, and ultimately cover all functional aspects of enterprise management。
Under the usual assumption, when an enterprise is designed, it is possible to equalize production capacity at all stages of the production process, i. E. To achieve a balance of capacity, but this is an ideal state. For production is a dynamic process that is present at random fluctuations, making it extremely difficult to achieve a balance of capabilities in practice, or even impossible to achieve. Thus, the production process inevitably involves overloading of the work points or resources (persons, machines) and becomes a bottleneck in the neck. This distinguishes manufacturing resources in enterprises from non-bottleneck resources。
A bottleneck (or bottleneck resource) refers to a resource whose real capacity is less than or equal to the production load. This category of resources limits the volume of products produced by the enterprise as a whole. The remaining resources are non-bottleneck resources. Whether a resource is a bottleneck should be judged by its actual production capacity versus its production load (or demand for it)。
Ii. Five core steps
In the implementation of toc, the following five steps are generally included:
As a first step, identify the constraints in the system
Step two, finding a way out of these constraints
Step 3, subject all other activities of enterprises to the measures proposed in step 2
(a) step four, implementing the measures proposed in step two, so that the constraints identified in the first step are no longer those of the enterprise
Step five, guard against human inertia becoming a system constraint。
Identification of weaknesses in management
Weaknesses in the manufacturing of performance matrices are relatively easy to identify and the theory of restraint can be used. However, the development of an enterprise or sector also requires constant identification of weaknesses in its management, which are much more complex than finding weaknesses in the manufacturing process. A performance matrix approach could be used to identify weaknesses in corporate management。
For example, use company a as an example of how to identify weaknesses in its business processes。
1. Identification of key factors
The first is to identify the key factors affecting the success of companies. As a result of the study, company a identified the following six factors as determining its success:
1 advanced product design
2 time of delivery
3. Accuracy of delivery
4 prices
Simplicity of repair and maintenance of 5 products
6 product appearance。
2. Draw performance matrix
Experts and company professionals are invited to rate the current level and importance of these factors (and justify them), to calculate the composite score for each factor using statistical methods, using the combined score for each factor, and to draw performance matrices。
3. Identification of relevant processes
The next step is to determine which processes have an impact on the factors, and company a's leadership has engaged a number of experts and professionals to identify processes related to these factors using the brainstorm method:
Production programmes
Manufacturing of parts and components
3. Purchase of spare parts
4 product assembly
5 to customers
6 product development and design。
Looking at these processes, companies have found that there is little room for improvement in production plans, procurement of spare parts, manufacture and transport of products, and that there is considerable potential for improvement in the assembly process. Further analysis also found that production plans, the manufacture of components and product development had a significant impact on the assembly process and the focus should therefore be on the four processes. In theory, a holistic concept is therefore required. This approach can be applied to any sector, and any enterprise, and certainly different sectors or enterprises, can have different key factors, each of which can be analysed using indicators。
