Introduction

Most managers hate constraints and bottlenecks. Even more so after 2020!!  After all constraints and bottlenecks cause delays, don’t they?  Lewis Trigger presents a complete turnaround, showing managers to value their constraints by leveraging them - to look after them, to protect them from nasty surprises, and so enable managers to deliver consistently better results from the resources you already have. After all Constraints and bottlenecks are what ultimately controls the output of your business.   Through Lewis’s powerful and practical workshop, you will internalize the management techniques of managing your constraints to optimize outcomes.   Constraint Innovation is based on the internationally acclaimed Theory of Constraints (TOC) and combines other leading management doctrines such as Lean, Concurrent Engineering, and System’s thinking. 

In this 2-day Constraint Innovation workshop, international CI expert Lewis Trigger shares common sense, practical solutions, drawn from the advanced management doctrine TOC (Theory of Constraints) to address the challenge of “Unlocking Value” via leveraging your Constraints be it Resource Constraints, a Policy Constraint, as well as a Market Constraint.

The workshop focuses on 3 critical management challenges, providing Constraint Innovations breakthroughs in Leveraging Constraints, KPI’s, Synchronizing Shared Resources in a dynamic environment.

Workshop Format
Emphasis is placed on the active involvement of the participants with an emphasis on their working environment. As part of the workshop, the participants will be divided up into workgroups, with each group being assigned a challenging area from at least one of the participant's working environments.  As we proceed with the learning, each group will be required to illustrate the practical relevance of the learning to their nominated case study.  Exercises are extensively used, and group learning through open discussions is encouraged.   Reliable case studies that have shown great success using CI’s methodology are elaborated on throughout the workshop.  The workshop is limited to 15 participants.

 

Workshop Content

Day 1:  The Building Blocks of Constraint Innovation 

The core idea is that every System has at least one Constraint.  The performance of the Constraint is what ultimately determined the performance of the System.  The building blocks focus on significantly improving performance via leveraging the Constraint.

The six steps for unlocking value within existing resources are:

• Defining the System’s "Goal".

• Identifying the constraint (i.e. the "Bottleneck")

• Exploiting the Constraint (i.e. "Take what you’ve got to get 100% use of the constraint")

• Subordinating to the Constraint (i.e. "Rearrange others to what you need to maintain 100% of the constraint")

• Elevating the Constraint (i.e. "Innovate to get greater than 100%)

• Identifying the new Constraint - continual improvement loop.

The above 6 steps are the building blocks of Constraint Management and they provide the key to unlocking the door of: "How can we get more out of what we have before purchasing additional resources?  And if we need to add resources where can we get the best values for our $'s?”

Day 2:Morning: Managing performance – KPI’s. 

“Tell me how you measure me and that is how I behave!!!”  Having said that we can appreciate the power of Key Performance Measurements (KPI’s).  Performance measurements have the potential for advancing an organization’s goal, but at the same time, they can be misused causing tremendous damage.  This workshop provides a creative solution for KPI’s that drives positive performance based on the principles of Constraint Innovation.  Using the KPI’s of Constraint Innovation, decisions at ALL levels can now be linked to the “bottom line” of the organization.  More than that, the KPI’s in themselves change behavior to being effective rather than simply being efficient.  Many leading organizations around the world have adopted these KPI’s as have leading academic institutions such as the Harvard Business School.

3 fundamental KPI’s, based on the “Theory of Constraints” KPI’s are elaborated on:

• “Throughout” - defined as Effectiveness

• “Operating Expenses” - a different approach from traditional Cost Accounting

• “Inventory” – a universal definition that can also be applied in a service environment

 

Afternoon: Synchronizing Shared Resources:                                                Revealing an effective and practical application of Resource Synchronization and Scheduling, known as "Drum Buffer Rope" (DBR).  DBR provides a competitive advantage be it a Resource or Market Constraint via shortening lead times, reducing costs, and improving quality. 

Scheduling rules will be demonstrated using an engaging simulation scenario.  For those participants who come from a manufacturing environment, the following areas will also be addressed: how to treat idle capacity, how to achieve a balanced production line, optimizing batch size, establishing a reduction policy, offloading from one resource to another, reducing inventory build-ups, and cost reductions.

Completion: Developing an effective implementation plan:

The remainder of the day will focus on the development of a Co.' wide improvement program based on the TOC paradigm; i.e. via leveraging the organization's constraints.  The outcome is a realistic implementation plan with tasks, milestones, and the delegation of responsibilities.  

Learning Outcome

• Meeting commitments: deliverables on time and within budget; meeting service levels within cost; Reducing downtime of key facilities and equipment.

• Enhance service levels, greater inventory turnover, and shorten lead times. Enhancing the ability to improve system performance without incurring additional costs.

• Improve quality by focusing our corrective and preventative actions on what counts most.

• A shift in thinking from localized efficiency towards system effectiveness.

• Focusing management efforts on where it counts most.

• Allocating resources to where it counts most.

• Enhance teamwork and job satisfaction.