TOC'S Five-Step Cycle: An Approach to Instant Results and Cultural Change
Abstract
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) offers an interesting alternative to the use of management tools, in especial yours TOC cycle. Although it is an interesting alternative, only a small number of publications focus on the TOC cycle. This article aims to describe the TOC cycle and to present its application in the furniture industry, aiming to show a simplified method of your application. The approach is exploratory and descriptive, with a bibliometric analysis and case study. After finding a restricted number of publications, some of the articles were analyzed and it was possible to propose and demonstrate a simplified method for the application of the TOC. From the application of the five steps of TOC cycle, it was possible to identify and eliminate the bottlenecks. The results obtained were positive, because in less than a year the productive process presented productivity gains and a change in the organizational culture.
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Introduction
Every company is a complex system that needs to apply management tools to provide productivity gains, and thereafter to provide increases in profit, in order to be in balance with production process bottlenecks. Identifying and dealing with the bottlenecks and at the same time promoting a new organizational culture is not a simple equation to be solved. When talking about the management tools used nowadays by organizations, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) offers interesting alternatives to equations, seeing the company not as isolated parts but as an integrated system or a group of elements where any type of connection can be found [1]. It is an integrated management philosophy that changes managers‟ ways of thinking and represents an important tool to solve problems. Şimşita, Günayb and Vayvay [2] the TOC prescribes methods and tools to control and overcome restrictions (known as strangulation points in bottlenecks) which limit a system‟s ability to achieve goals [3].
After analysing these tools, the “five steps” methodology was found, which can implement TOC in a process by structured and simplified means. After that, a bibliometric study was realized on the Scopus database, aiming to analyse the occurrence of researches based on TOC‟s five-step methodology. Searching for the key terms „theory of constraints‟ and „five steps‟ in the last ten years, 11 scientific works were found, with eight articles being published in periodicals (Figure 1).
Conclusion
From the point of view of theoretical studies, the TOC showed to be more effective when the five-step methodology is applied, because of its understandable simplicity and practical application in numerous industrial sectors.
From the theoretical researches realized, it was possible to verify the existence of just a few articles that used the TOC five steps as the main strategy for theapplication of tools. In this way, it was possible to propose and demonstrate a simplified method for the application of the TOC. In this application of this method, the results achieved by the application of the five steps were very positive, because it was observed that in less than one year the production already showed results very close to the expected results, besides ensuring a culture change in the factory that changed the employees‟ way of thinking and acting regarding their jobs.
The mind maps underwent significant alterations following the measures and changes of the methodologies of the daily work of every employee. The relations between these three dimensions demonstrate the strong connection when things change. After the operational results, work measures, and methodologies, modification of the mind maps through which the organization and its productive methods were visualized could be observed, bringing gains in all aspects.
Finally, through the case study it could be observed that TOC is a trustable and flexible theory that brings gains and objectivity to solving problems such as bottleneck elimination with profit gains, besides significantly changing the industry‟s daily work, bringing a more effective dynamic to achieve the goal of the company.