Theory of Constraints
Foundations of Supply Chain Management
This workshop is designed more to provoke
your thinking than provide a recipe or “how to” list of things to
improve. Its objective is to teach you a process to evaluate and
improve your organization. Throughout, you’ll be introduced to the
concepts of the Theory of Constraints (ToC). These concepts will
be applied to a simulated company. You’ll be required to diagnose
the reason the company is performing poorly and create a strategy to
improve it. You’ll be dealing with sales (marketing), production,
and purchasing policies and practices to create an integrated strategy
using a quantitative, “by the numbers” approach
The core areas to be addressed are:
1.
Learn a process to diagnose causes of
poor business performance
2.
Learning
a process to develop an integrated (sales, operations, & supply
chain) strategy
3.
Supplier selection
4.
Operations strategy
5.
Executing the strategy successfully in
the face of uncertainty
6.
Dealing with uncertainty in planning &
execution
In particular:
Train managers in integrative thinking through experience and guidance.
Highlight the role of capacity in the design of a firm’s strategy and
the impact of capacity on the firm’s financial success.
Identify the dependencies within the system; clarifying the
interaction of resources is critical to the system as a whole.
Discuss the limitations of traditional cost accounting in supporting
management decisions.
Discuss how to justify investment in capacity.
Discuss the "make or buy" decision and its impact on the financial results.
Discuss the role of Theory of Constraints (ToC) in the diagnostics of
the firm’s current state and its impact on strategic planning.
Teach participants how to make decisions in the face of uncertainty
Show how integrated thinking mixes information from marketing with information from operations and finance.
So, what is the mission? Generally speaking, it is to lead a virtual company to a high level of performance. To do that you need to diagnose the causes for the "not too good" state of the company, devise possible solutions, consider the effects of the proposed solutions, and add the necessary control measures to check whether your actions are going to cause the desirable results you expect.