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Theory of Constraints

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Theory of Constraints
Term Paper
BUSN 6070, Summer 2014

In the day and time in which we live, “quality” has come to encompass much more than just product or process conformance. Quality is a requirement for today’s customer regardless of type of product or the price the consumer has paid. But, when producing a quality product there are some constraints. In management, especially quality management there is something called the Theory of Constraints.
The Theory of Constraints is defined as:
A management paradigm that views any manageable system as being limited in achieving more of its goals by a very small number of constraints. There is always at least one constraint, and TOC uses a focusing process to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it.
TOC adopts the common idiom "a chain is no stronger than its weakest link." This means that processes, organizations, etc., are vulnerable because the weakest person or part can always damage or break them or at least adversely affect the outcome. (Garrison, Managerial accounting 14th ed.)
Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t put ten pounds of sand in a five-pound bag?” How about, “I’m trying to juggle too many priorities at once.” If you’ve heard (or said) either of these things, you have some sense of the stress that constraints impose on everyone. In many cases, the challenge appears to be not enough time. But, the characteristics of time are inflexible. Time passes at a constant, familiar, well-defined rate, even though sometimes it seems to positively fly, while other times it “drags”! So the causes of stress must really be something else. This “something else” is often some kind of constraint.
Sometimes our constraints aren’t merely physical. Examples of physical restraints would be lack of space, not enough resources, etc. In many cases

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