| Our stance is straightforward.
Any company that is "traditional" in its manufacturing practices, or at any stage of implementing Lean Thinking, ERP, Six Sigma or any "Best Practice" will accelerate and amplify its competitive and bottom-line improvement if management develops an understanding of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and acts in line with that understanding. The improvements will be achieved even if the company does not "implement TOC." The relative improvement beyond even fully-implemented advanced techniques is often massive.
Any Lean or Six Sigma expert who seriously develops some Theory of Constraints know-how will immediately agree. It's no accident that a few months after a company heavily invested in Six Sigma was introduced to just ONE TOC technique, they voted it "best Six Sigma tool!"
A recent published study is interesting. A corporation with 21 plants selected some to implement Lean, others to implement Six Sigma, and other to implement Theory of Constraints - with Lean and Six Sigma being pulled-in as the focused TOC suggested. The result? 89% of all the recorded benefits across all the plants came from the plants using Theory of Constraints!
The TOC body of knowledge as it applies to manufacturing has areas both of synergy and contrast with Lean and ERP. Managers are positioned to realize the most effective performance improvements when they understand the fundamental assumptions behind the differences.
Theory of Constraints often gives management the vehicle to transform a stalled or failed ERP implementation into a success, both in terms of acceptance of the system and a generous return on the investment made in the system.
While the manufacturing application of Theory of Constraints has some counter-points in Lean, the TOC body of knowledge as it applies to Throughput Accounting, Marketing, Supply Chain Management, Project Management, Sales, Strategy & Tactics, and People Skills has no real equivalent in Lean, ERP or "Best Practices." These powerful applications provide even the most successful Lean companies with rich opportunities for substantial further improvement.
Similarly the TOC Thinking Processes, with their powerful analytical, planning and communication applications and their ability to generate outside-the-box, win/win solutions have no equivalent in Lean, ERP or "Best Practices."
|
