TOCICO

The theory of constraints might be one major contributor to why we use the arithmetic mean so commonly. This is, ironically, why we usually allocate the resources in a way not utilizing the theory of constraints to our advantage. When similar causes provoke similar effects one is often misled to assume that all effects are attracted by one force. Common measures of central tendency regularly hide the presence of another force which distorts their results. We are not aware that we don’t tap the real potential. Ironically, because of this we don’t even have a realistic view of the remaining potential. The surprisingly young scientific application of the arithmetic mean allowed to determine the longitude at sea in the early 16th century. It was not until the time when the solar-centric world view gained acceptance that astronomy used the arithmetic mean to eliminate errors in observation to get closer to the true value. The astronomer Quêtelet transferred the concept into statistics. He distinguished between a typical and an untypical arithmetic mean. The presentation elaborates how the misconception arises that too often leads people to use the arithmetic mean to depart from the true state of affairs rather than getting closer to it. The author presents the open source software library ‘effectus’. It tells you which causes provoke which effects. It operationalizes the entropy model proposed by Ronen et al. (2007) to tell whether a Pareto distribution is present. It is extended by a routine returning the most relevant cause- effect relationship. The instant result serves as a simpler yet more precise measure to get an idea of the true character of the values inviting for direct action to utilize the theory of constraints to your fullest advantage.