About this Presentation
Advancing TOC: Research & New Contributions brings together Pauline Ross, Alfredo Mycue, Richard Zultner, and Guido Bacharach for a research-focused plenary examining how the Theory of Constraints is being taught, measured, extended, and grounded in scientific reasoning.
Pauline Ross looks at TOC’s presence in universities and academic publishing, including how teaching environments are changing as education becomes increasingly digital and AI-augmented. Alfredo Mycue examines the use of Quality Throughput / Operating Expense (QT/OE) as a public-sector performance measure, exploring whether better measurement can improve accountability, behavior, efficiency, and the production of public value. Richard Zultner presents a proposed Goal Tree+, expanding the traditional Goal Tree into a broader framework for structuring goals, customer needs, priorities, and multi-criteria decisions. Guido Bacharach closes the loop by proposing a framework for classifying core TOC assertions according to their proof status—distinguishing system laws, heuristics, definitions, and logic.
Together, the four presentations explore how TOC can strengthen its academic foundations, improve measurement and decision-making, and continue evolving as both a practical management approach and a body of knowledge.
What Will You Learn
To help you get the most value from this session, we’ve highlighted a few key points. These takeaways capture the main ideas and practical insights from the presentation, making it easier for you to review, reflect, and apply what you’ve learned.
Pauline Ross examines where TOC currently sits in higher education and academic publishing. Her presentation shows TOC appearing in full university programs, embedded within broader curricula, and in Throughput Accounting-specific teaching, while also highlighting the shift from traditional classroom instruction toward AI-augmented, highly connected learning environments. She also points to a growing body of scholarly publishing around TOC-related topics.
Alfredo Mycue explores whether government performance can be measured in a way that improves both efficiency and behavior. He presents Quality Throughput divided by Operating Expense (QT/OE) as a measure of public-value production and argues that measuring QT/OE can influence how public-sector leaders think about cost, quality, throughput, accountability, and improvement. His case evidence includes examples from the Texas Workforce Commission and other public-sector settings.
Richard Zultner proposes a renovated “Goal Tree+” that expands how TOC practitioners think about goals. He argues that goals can exist at multiple levels of abstraction, can include both Desirable Effects and Undesirable Effects, and can serve as decision criteria for complex choices involving multiple objectives and alternatives. His approach incorporates methods such as the KJ Method, Analytic Hierarchy Process, and Pugh concept selection.
Guido Bacharach asks a foundational question: what kind of knowledge is TOC? Rather than treating all TOC statements as equivalent, he proposes classifying assertions as system laws, heuristics, definitions, or logic. For example, he classifies “every system has a constraint” and “improvement must focus on the constraint” as system laws, the Five Focusing Steps as a heuristic, goal orientation as a definition, and the Thinking Processes as logic
Instructor(s)
Guido Bacharach
Guido Bacharach, Former Head of Strategy and Digitization Unit at the Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung in Dortmund. After his university studies he has held predominantly management positions, especially in the sales area and in public services. The focus of his work is on strategic digitization, process improvement, and project management. He is co-founder of the TOCICO SIG “TOC in Government.