A little TOC goes a long way

Under the cost accounting view of manufacturing, all machine and labor resources should be utilized to the maximum. By contrast, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) view of the world centers on pacing a plant around a key bottleneck using Drum-Buffer-Rope techniques, even if that means under-utilizing n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MSI 2003-08, Vol.21 (8), p.34
Main Author: Smith, Frank O
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bottlenecks
Cost accounting
Factories
Inventory
Manufacturers
Manufacturing
Performance management
Power
Software
Specialty products
Strategic management
Success
Supply chain management
Theory of constraints
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Summary:Under the cost accounting view of manufacturing, all machine and labor resources should be utilized to the maximum. By contrast, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) view of the world centers on pacing a plant around a key bottleneck using Drum-Buffer-Rope techniques, even if that means under-utilizing non-bottleneck areas. Lately, a growing number of enterprise resources planning (ERP) and supply chain planning software vendors are stressing a simpler approach to planning based on TOC concepts, including bottleneck and throughput management. TOC is elegantly simple. Throughput is the critical index of production performance. The barrier to maximum throughput is typically thwarted by a single capacity-constrained resource (CCR), or bottleneck, so the focus is on maximizing utilization of that bottleneck. DBR is the methodology used to manage maximum throughput. The bottleneck schedule becomes the "drum," which sets the rhythm for everything else. "Buffers" are allotments of material and time.
ISSN:1554-3404