The TOC is overall philosophy usually applied to running and improving an organization. It consists of problem solving and management/decision making tools called the thinking process. It is applied to logically and systematically answer these three essential questions to any process of ongoing improvement:
1. What to change?
2. To what to change?
3. How to cause the change?
More specific uses of the thinking processes can be used to significantly enhance vital management skills, such as: Win-win conflict resolution, Effective communication, Team building skills, Delegation, Empowerment.
TOC postulates that the goal is to make (more) money. It can be broken down into three sub-targets: Increase throughput/Reduce Inventory/Reduce operating expense.
In order to achieve the goal, here are 5 focusing steps:
1. Identify the system's constraint
2. Decide how to exploit the system's constraint
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision
4. Elevate the system's constraint
5. If in the previous step the constraint has been broken, go back to step 1.
