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Theory of Constraints tools
Every business is held back by one thing at a time. These are the tools for finding it, for settling the argument that has been going in circles about it, and for getting a plan past the people who have to agree to it.
They run in your browser and what you type stays on your own device, so you can come back and change it. Nothing is collected unless you choose to send your work to Vern for a hand with it.
Work through one
Fill these in as you go and save the result as a PDF.
Evaporating Cloud
For a conflict that keeps coming back
Start with the two things you cannot do at once, work back to what each one is protecting, then break the assumption holding the conflict in place.
Prerequisite Tree
For a goal blocked by obstacles
List what is in the way, turn each obstacle into an intermediate objective, then put them in the order they have to happen.
Five Focusing Steps
For finding and fixing the real constraint
The core cycle. Work through it against your own operation and come out with a named constraint and a plan for it.
Throughput Accounting Calculator
For deciding whether a job is actually worth running
Throughput, net profit and return the TOC way, next to what your costing system would have told you. The two often disagree, and that is the point.
Negative Branch Reservation
For the yes, but that will cause a problem
Take the objection seriously. Map how the change supposedly leads to the bad outcome, then find the step that does not have to follow.
Worth knowing
Short reference. The two ideas that decide whether a good plan survives contact with people.
The Three Questions
The shape of any change
What to change, what to change to, and how to cause the change. Every improvement effort answers these three, whether or not anybody writes them down.
ReadThe Layers of Resistance
Why good ideas get refused
People do not resist change in one lump. They resist in a specific order, and arguing at the wrong layer is why sound proposals die in meetings.
ReadWant a hand using them on your own operation?
Twenty years of finding constraints on factory floors. Thirty minutes, no charge, and you will get a straight answer about whether we can help.
The Theory of Constraints and its thinking processes were developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. The tools here are our own plain-English working versions of them, with examples from New Zealand manufacturing and trades.