Conditions for survival in the manufacturing industry in VUCA era
Satoru Murakami CEO Goal-System consultants Inc.,
Challenge to TOC complexity
Last time, I thought about the approach to complexity at Toyota (TPS), so this time I will introduce how TOC approached based on TPS. The TOC's approach to "complexity" began with the expansion of TOC methods to apply to non-production environments, forcing them to apply to constraints other than physical bottlenecks.
Regarding "complexity," Dr. Goldratt teaches that the more freedom each element in the system has, the more complex the system is. For example, what should be considered when comparing system A in which four elements move separately and system B in which each element moves synchronously from only one element in a causal relationship even if the number of elements is 20 or more.
In system B, if the element of origin is moved, other elements move depending on the relationship between cause and effect, so the degree of freedom is "1", but in A, the four elements move separately, so the degree of freedom is "4". Dr. Goldratt points out that a system with four degrees of freedom is orders of magnitude more complex than a system with one degree of freedom, and is far more distant to anticipate and control.
In response to the ridiculousness of the conventional method of enumerating problems and making improvements in order from the top, he said, "Even if these abroaches work, they only make insignificant improvements. This is because the false idea (assuming) that there is no interdependence between the gaps is at the root. However, considering that there is a causal relationship, it turns out that the gap is actually just a symptom, that is, an undesired event (UDE: Un-Desirable Effect) caused by a deeper cause. He teaches that dealing directly with an individual UDE will encourage many actions that shouldn't be taken, rather than knowing what the action should be.
Under these circumstances, Dr. Goldratt said he noticed a characteristic two problems. One is that invisible policy problems (constraints) often become major obstacles when promoting TOC production improvement methods, and changing these policies often involves multiple organizations. It is difficult to move forward due to the conflict between the two.
Another problem was that even if TOC's production improvement method was applied and there was a surplus in production capacity, sales would not increase in response to it, leading to a layoff in the production department. Once the layoffs took place, improvement activities in these departments disappeared in a hurry, leaving only the most unpleasant consequences of sacrificing the departments that made improvements. Dr. Goldratt felt that he needed a concrete way to expand the market in parallel with the improvement of the production sector and a way to expose false policy problems.
What Dr. Goldratt learned from Mr. Ohno of Toyota is that "complexity" determines the points (root couse) to be dealt with by clarifying the causal relationship and clarifying the connection between the elements.
The result is a method called the TOC Thinking Process (TP). The thinking process is a systematic way to identify the root cause of a complex problem with deep-seated conflicts, come up with a breakthrough plan that is not a compromise, and bring it to implementation.
Next time, I will give you an overview of this TOC thinking process.
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