Lessons learnt from Eliyahu Goldratt
Lessons learnt from the founder of the Theory Of Constraints and author of bestseller “The Goal” Eliyahu Goldratt.
Post by Philip Marris, Founder & CEO of Marris Consulting.
I started working with Eliyahu Goldratt when I was only 26. The bestseller-to-be The Goal had just been published. This was in 1985, I had just joined a start-up called Creative Output and Eli was one of the 4 people managing Creative Output, a company that sold “OPT”, a scheduling software that managed the flow of production in factories in a revolutionary way…the Theory Of Constraints Way.
35 years later I have implemented these ideas over 280 times in organizations all over the world. Over 25 countries and in a variety of industries. Some of my better-known clients are: McDonald’s, Louis Vuitton, Embraer, Siemens, GSK, Air France, Safran and Ariane rockets.
Throughout this journey Eliyahu Goldratt some of my key learnings are:
Systems are not balanced – They have bottlenecks
The realization that factories are unbalanced and therefore have bottlenecks. This simple but powerful idea led me many years later to choose a TOC inspired logo for the TOC based company I created in 2005
Focus
Focus: learning not to do what one should not do; protecting one’s daily schedule from the horrors of bad multitasking (no mobile phone); etc.
To buffer or not to buffer
The conflict between DBR and Lean Manufacturing. Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) is the scheduling mechanism proposed by TOC to manage production when there is a bottleneck. The main difference is that DBR recommends managing a Buffer of work whereas in a Lean solution you would not accept the existence of a buffer of products.
Managing projects properly with Critical Chain
The Blue Ocean of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). CCPM is an extraordinarily powerful tool to manage individual projects and portfolios of projects by a frontal and honest management of uncertainty. It enables one to finish projects about twice as fast and nearly always on time.
Logic…thinking is hard work
The strange world of logic: Thinking Processes, Goal Trees and other dangerous habits. I feel I still have a lot to learn here. I have been trained by Bill Dettmer (the recognized world expert) in the Logical Thinking Process. I use this with my teams often to design a logical growth strategy based on logic.
Post by Philip Marris, Founder & CEO of Marris Consulting.
I started working with Eliyahu Goldratt when I was only 26. The bestseller-to-be The Goal had just been published. This was in 1985, I had just joined a start-up called Creative Output and Eli was one of the 4 people managing Creative Output, a company that sold “OPT”, a scheduling software that managed the flow of production in factories in a revolutionary way…the Theory Of Constraints Way.
35 years later I have implemented these ideas over 280 times in organizations all over the world. Over 25 countries and in a variety of industries. Some of my better-known clients are: McDonald’s, Louis Vuitton, Embraer, Siemens, GSK, Air France, Safran and Ariane rockets.
Throughout this journey Eliyahu Goldratt some of my key learnings are:
Systems are not balanced – They have bottlenecks
The realization that factories are unbalanced and therefore have bottlenecks. This simple but powerful idea led me many years later to choose a TOC inspired logo for the TOC based company I created in 2005
Focus
Focus: learning not to do what one should not do; protecting one’s daily schedule from the horrors of bad multitasking (no mobile phone); etc.
To buffer or not to buffer
The conflict between DBR and Lean Manufacturing. Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) is the scheduling mechanism proposed by TOC to manage production when there is a bottleneck. The main difference is that DBR recommends managing a Buffer of work whereas in a Lean solution you would not accept the existence of a buffer of products.
Managing projects properly with Critical Chain
The Blue Ocean of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). CCPM is an extraordinarily powerful tool to manage individual projects and portfolios of projects by a frontal and honest management of uncertainty. It enables one to finish projects about twice as fast and nearly always on time.
Logic…thinking is hard work
The strange world of logic: Thinking Processes, Goal Trees and other dangerous habits. I feel I still have a lot to learn here. I have been trained by Bill Dettmer (the recognized world expert) in the Logical Thinking Process. I use this with my teams often to design a logical growth strategy based on logic.