Theory of Constraints Handbook authors John G. Schleier, Jr. and James F. Cox III were part of my recent podcast Holistic approach to the Theory of Constraints. We covered so much material during the interview that I split the discussion to 2 parts. The one preceding and another on the Thinking Processes of TOC. I enjoyed the conversation, I hope you do.
An excerpt from the podcast::
Joe: When we talk about lean problem solving, we talk about the five why’s, but the thinking process that the Theory of Constraints uses is a whole different level of thinking, is it not? I mean it goes much, much further than you can with lets say the five Why concept.
Jim: Yes, I agree with you, but if you took the five why concept, the early use of the thinking tools and the current reality tree in particular, both would ask why but in TOC you would validate that that cause really existed before you asked the second "why". Then when you ask the second Why, you would validate that that cause existed. So I look at the five "why’s" and what we call the Snowflake Effect, or Diving Down to identify a core problem as being very similar, except TOC is like a person that wears a belt and suspenders. TOC wants to ensure that that cause really exists and validate that cause exists before they ask the second or the third or the fourth Why.
John: We go through categories of what we call legitimate reservation, which are also documented in the book, in reviewing the logic so that we can assure that it’s solid.
So the picture we see of the current reality expressed in logical cause and effect construct is really right on the money. It accounts for causes of all of the undesirable effects that we’ve been able to identify in the environment.
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