Why this book?

The book is a novel illustrating the author's famous Theory of Contraints (TOC). This theory helps companies to achieve their goals.

In "Standing on the shoulders of giants: production concepts versus production applications. The Hitachi Tool Engineering example", the author complete the flow concepts with the choice of time (more than space and stock) as a basic mechanism to reduce the delays (just-on time=LEAN is introduced).

What did I learn?

Defining a goal, at the heart of any strategy, never forget that :

• The goal of an individual or an organisation should not be define in absolute.
• The good definition of a goal is the one which is putting a company on track of the continuous improvement.
• the choice of KPIs bounded with financial/accounting consideration (e.g. stock valorisation) can hinder the continuous improvement process.

The TOC illustrated by :

• the metaphor of the column of walker in the forest to describe the throughput of a factory as the pace of the last walker of the column.
• Such a walk is a set of dependent events and random fluctuations just like the ones on a production site
• The rules of LEAN manufacturing are a deduction of this theory in a way that the revenues from sales of the whole system decrease proportionally to the increase of stocks.
• The temptation to activate all resources at the same time and permanently is not a recipe for efficient operation.

What to do about it?

Learning by working on key support factors, rather than fighting symptoms, we can exercise real control over the systems (leverage effect).

Before going further identify the constraints

Once you identify the constraint let's get the most out of it.