TOCICO

The majority of my consulting work deals with TOC-101 – find and fix the bottleneck. I often can find the bottleneck within hours of arrival just by looking for the largest pile of inventory. Typically a common sense solution is available, but it has been lost in the “haystack” of work orders in the system. When this does not occur, however, I provide tools that will allow them to create focus around the bottleneck, so they will “over manage” this area (Exploit) and under-manage other areas (Subordination). This presentation covers 8 of these tools that all have common attributes – they are quick to install, are data based, and are very visible. The analysis driven by this data allows the customer to move from opinion-based decisions to data-based decisions. These tools range from the readily available (stopwatches and apps on smart phones), to simple (a production board mounted near the bottleneck), to fairly complex (webcams mounted on the machine that use motion detection). All of this starts with training, so that the customer can understand the bottleneck and its attributes. I also teach the basics of variation, and how negative variation is more powerful than positive variation, and how buffers can absorb this variation.