Theory of Constraints crash course by Philip Marris

[@FrankLangeTV]

"One hour gained on a non-bottleneck is an illusion." Great insight, this alone is worth watching the video. If only more business leaders would understand this concept...

[@marrisconsulting]

Thank you for your feedback Frank. You are right that many companies continue to ignore this.

[@matt.loupe.]

Random thought I had: I’m an electrical engineer so I looked at the diagram and thought that a bottle neck is analogous to a resistor. So ToC would be a circuit of series resistors where the total resistance is set by the largest resistor. That’s not true though, except when the largest resistor is much much larger than the others. Otherwise, the total resistance is just the sum. So that model doesn’t work. Then I looked at the diagram again and saw you are storing water in tanks and the pressure on the tanks is set by gravity. So that’s like a capacitor after the resistor going to ground. That’s a low pass filter. That would mean that each “bottle neck” could be modeled as a low pass filter and ToC says that the highest frequency that can pass is set by the filter with the lowest cutoff frequency. That’s much more consistent with what ToC says. So I’m gonna go with that analogy in my head.

[@paulsimister944]

Straightforward explanation with emphasis that TOC is not just for manufacturing

[@marrisconsulting]

Thank you Paul.

[@juliechipo257]

SO powerful, helpful and insightful. Thank you!

[@macdonaldkuchocha2834]

Clear & to the point!

[@marrisconsulting]

Thank you Macdonald.

[@ps5801]

1:55 "If somebody put 40 people where 20 would be enough..." that would be government.

[@marrisconsulting]

Yes indeed governments do that! And it goes unnoticed because there are rarely calculations on the time to do each task and therefore an estimate of workload. But for profit organisations do it too!

[@softwareminimalist]

Lovely! Great presentation :)

[@marrisconsulting]

Thank you very much!

[@pascalb4562]

What if I increase efficiency on a non-bottleneck? I understand that throughput and inventory won't change but couldn't I still decrease operational expense and thus add to my goal ie making money?

[@marrisconsulting]

You are correct: if done properly you can increase an organization's financial performance by improving the performance of a non-bottleneck. The improvement must truly reduce operational expenses is some way. Another possible improvement that will indirectly increase profits is to improve the flexibility (by SMEDs for example) or reliability of non-bottlenecks. This allows one to reduce WIP and lead-times and therefore increase agility and customer service and hence maybe lead to increased sales. When we warn about the problems with improving non-bottleneck performance, what we are trying to say is that if you increase the efficiency of a non-bottleneck (by improving it's O.E.E. for instance), you cannot by definition sell more (that is determined by the bottleneck). This is a frequent mistake in reasoning.

[@lilissusilowati4663]

Why the factory cannot ensure to make money if just focus on improving the productivity of each machine ? Anybody can help answer me ?

[@marrisconsulting]

Hi Lilis, In today's factories, it is no longer possible to distribute evenly the workload among the resources (machines or workshops). The Theory of constraints states that there is one resource (rarely two or three), also known as the bottleneck, which has, on average, a capacity equal to or less than the demand placed upon it and thus determines the throughput of the entire production system. All the other resources or machines already have excess capacity (they work faster than your bottleneck), so where is the need to invest money in them? Improving a non-bottleneck resource would in addition increase the work-in-progress in your system and the workload would be building up in front of your bottleneck, lengthening drastically your leadtime (Little's law). If you take a look at our logo, what would happen if you tried to increase the flow in tank 1, 2, 4 or 5? And what if we only increase the flow of tank 3 instead? I hope this helped, have a good day!

[@erikbbrouwer]

Everybody who ever played factorio be like: this is something i spend days on without knowing it

[@marrisconsulting]

Factorio is great, but it the real world there is variability in the process.

[@camgere]

Isn't this really a puzzle lover's dream job? You have a multi-stage process where you are working on each stage simultaneously. So, the rate of the complete process is the rate of the slowest stage. The easy case is n stages and n people. The slowest process defines the stage (takt) time. However, tasks have a mean time and variance. If you have one piece flow you can't do any time averaging. Each and every stage is designed to have a faster than takt time process (worst case projected cycle time or actual time). If you have buffers you CAN average takt times up to the limit of the buffer. Your takt time is 1 minute and every 100 minutes it takes you 2 minutes to wheel your wagon over to the supply room and get more bolts. One piece flow you have to design a takt time of 3 minutes (slowest possible time). With a small buffer can improve your projected cycle time to 102 minutes/100 parts and beat the system. So projected cycle time is important, Takt time is important. Buffer depth is important. But if you use the same assembly line for multiple projects you want the lead (start to finish) time including buffers to be as small as possible. Buffer depth also cost money in inventory tied up. The depth of the buffers adds delay to the lead time switching from making 44" TVs to 55 " TVs. The puzzle lover's challenge doesn't end there. You can have cellular manufacturing where m workers handle n stages (usually in a U shape). If you have six workers doing 10 stages and you need to double production, it is possible than going to 12 workers will suffice (in reality that is too easy and unrealistic). Each cell has buffers that need to be sized ahead and behind it. So, the minimum quantum production rate isn't to double (or half) the number of workers (and machines) at each stage. It is to go to m+1 (m-1) people per n stages. Workers, unfortunately, come in quantum units of 1. If you like turning knobs, you'll love designing system processes.

[@Lemurai]

Sir/ma’am thank you for your comment, it helps put in perspective, the way the book is written. As a recently retired military veteran, looking back, I could have reaped many benefits from the information presented. I wish I had known about this 10 yrs ago, I’d be a lot further along career wise. No matter, I will definitely use these principles in my new career as an engineering manager, I find it strange that I work with PhD’s that have never heard of ToC, this should be mandatory reading in all universities and high schools to include industry. I’m just sorry I’m late to the party, your explanation is spot on.

[@softwareminimalist]

1. It is a puzzle lovers dream job, which is why I love it. 2. It gives real meaning to the optimization work everyone is doing at an org. 3. It clearly shows what is a waste of effort, this helping everyone do meaningful work, and it fixes morale very quickly. People like to work again because they see a point. 4. It gamifies the process of continuous improvement and gives a great deal of satisfaction.

[@johndowney6923]

Can anyone let me know what he meant by Trumpism? When I look into it all I see is about Donald Trump but I doubt he was talking about him back then.

[@marrisconsulting]

He is referring to the influence that politicians have on world trade through imposing sanctions or other ways of influencing world trade significantly. This increases demand on certain factories quickly and significantly and thereby creates bottlenecks. The remark addresses leaders of large countries in general. It was not meant to single out one politician in particular.

[@johndowney6923]

@@marrisconsulting thanks! So that's a term that predates the trump presidency?

[@marrisconsulting]

This training was hosted when Donald Trump was just elected. Hence the choice for this speech. In different conferences and videos Philip Marris also refers to other leaders.