If you want to know how to improve your business, then what we have brewing in June is sure to grab your attention! Because we have world renowned expert Arrie van Niekerk headed to New Zealand to talk all things ‘Theory and Constraint’.
This concept works around bottleneck analysis and covers many aspects such as:
- improving your ability to meet targets
- facilitating you offering faster and more reliable delivery dates
- giving you visibility on how you’re doing with project due dates
- helping you assess if your output is stable and reliable or erratic, unpredictable and unreliable
- identifying if your unit costs are getting lower or higher
- addressing issues around being under pressure to do more with less
- moving you away from having to put out fires constantly, and
- ensuring you and your people experience a well aligned culture rather than a blame shifting one.
That’s why I recommend both this program and speaker as “not to be missed” and “best in the field”.
This program will provide the basic skills to overcome bottleneck issues in a novel way that is not commonly used in New Zealand.
If you have tried Lean, this is an ideal complement and may be a very good alternative too.
Once you’ve completed the workshop, our team can also provide support for you to imbed the practices in your own business. So, we’re pretty excited to be able to bring Arrie van Niekerk, to New Zealand in his capacity as a leading specialist facilitator on Theory of Constraints (TOC).
Evidence to back TOC up
Arrie says improvement of more than 20% is experienced regularly within the same infrastructure with the same people – but with a different mental framework. Where he has implemented TOC production flow successfully into more than 80 mining operations and over 20 other industrial operations.
So, we’re anticipating this program to be massively impactful for our industry.
The Theory of Constraints (TOC)
TOC is a methodology for identifying the most important constraints that stand in the way of achieving a goal, and then systematically improving that constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor.
There is always at least one limiting factor or constraint, and TOC uses a focusing process to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organisation or the process around it.
TOC takes a systematic approach to improvement. It assumes that every complex system, including manufacturing processes, consists of multiple linked processes, one of which acts as a bottleneck upon the entire. It can be described as a “weakest link in the chain”.
Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt introduced TOC to a wide audience through his bestselling 1984 novel, “The Goal”. Since then, TOC has continued to evolve and develop, and today is a significant factor within the world of management best practices.
The bottleneck
In manufacturing, the constraint is often referred to as a bottleneck. TOC provides a powerful set of tools to eliminate the bottlenecks helping (fabrication) businesses to optimise their profitability.
In fabrication or manufacturing, the bottlenecks can vary as the load and nature of the work varies, while in repetitive manufacturing, it remains more or less stable. For example, welding is one of the bottlenecks in fabrication.
A successful TOC implementation will have the following benefits: increased profit, fast improvement, improved capacity, reduced lead times and reduced inventory.
The enhanced process
TOC can be enhanced by rapid results and some unique leadership and engagement processes. Instead of trying to optimise every component of the business through cost and efficiency, the total operation can be analysed to find unique ways to create bottom line value for the whole company.
The 4 Pillars
Tavanec CC demonstrated that the efficiency of the bottleneck analysis can be further enhanced by focusing on four Pillars.
- Flow of the whole,
- Buffer management,
- Leadership, and
- Operational conversations.
These concepts are integrated into a powerful, tailored approach for each client, based on their specific nature of business, infrastructure, bottlenecks and management culture. With the improved approach, the throughput can be improved by more than 20% and delivered sustainably within a few months, with essentially the same infrastructure and people.
What’s our take from HERA?
We believe that TOC offers a robust tool that can deliver a significant productivity gain for our member companies.
That’s why we’d like to invite you to attend an exquisite two-day workshop that introduces the Theory of Constraints (TOC) concepts to give you a strong grasp of its application and potential.
This workshop demonstrates how TOC can lift productivity through systems thinking – so you can significantly improve delivery time, production lead time, cost, quality and excellence.
Covering TOC for operations, project management, logistics and making financial decisions, this workshop is enhanced through practical case studies, and design templates for practical application.
It’ll demonstrate why and how it’s possible for the same factory, infrastructure, people and equipment to produce at least 20% more by doing things differently.
Ultimately, attendees will be challenged to change the way they think, plan, measure and execute their operations. The physical work will be the same, but the way it is streamlined is different.
Arrie van Niekerk, Tavanec brings over 25 years’ experience with the application of the TOC Production Flow approach – so its expertise you know you can trust.
There are limited seats available, so be sure to register as soon as you can. We’re holding two workshops, one in Auckland from 10 – 11 June, and the other in Christchurch from 12 – 13 June. See you there!
Update shared by our General Manager Welding Centre Dr Michail Karpenko
