Conditions for survival in the manufacturing industry in VUCA era
Satoru Murakami
CEO Goal-System consultants Inc.,
Solution to Complexity "TOC Thinking Process"
Dr. Goldratt began developing the TOC thinking process in the late 1980s, and in 1994 published a novel called "It's Not Luck" that explained the TOC thinking process.
TOC has come to be used not only for production (factory) problems, but also for solving problems in departments other than factories such as sales and services, government relations such as government and military, and many organizations such as NPOs and educational organizations.
The TOC thinking process connects many "Entities" with a causal relationship of "if, then, because" and searches for the root cause. The characteristic of this TOC thinking process is that it regards the problem as a "dilemma".
By general definition, the problem is the "gap between what it should be and what it is." However, TOC thinking process interprets the problem broadly and sees it as a "dilemma or conflict that cannot realize what it should be." In short, the problem is that there are two options, and one cannot decide what should to do.
There is a conflict in which you have to do conflicting (D') even if you can't decide what to do and sway or think that you should actually do (D). It is said that various "Undesirable effects" occur causally from the conflict.
The cloud (conflict resolution diagram) consists of five boxes, and even if there is a common purpose or goal (A), there is a necessary condition (C = reason) that forces us to take action (D'). On the other hand, it is a framework that "decomposes and visualizes the problem" that another requirement (B = reason) that has to act as (D) exists and hinders problem solving.
In organizational problems in which many people are intertwined, "policy in the organization" forms "evaluation and values: (Measurement)", and the actions (Behavior) generated by it form a causal relationship, it causes many problems. In short, because there is a policy, it causes a dilemma that you can not decide the action because you care about the evaluation, or you have to take the opposite action that you think you should do, and many problems as a result of that halfway action Occurs. Therefore, we think that this dilemma state itself is a "true problem", and first we take it as a constraint and solve it.
The TOC thinking process progresses problem solving while answering 5 tools (trees) and 3 basic questions.
What to change? In this step, you will find the essential issues that need to be changed. The essential problem is the root cause of the many "undesirable facts" that exist in achieving our goals. When trying to solve a problem, is it effective to take individual measures for all the problems? Let's take the medical world as an example. Doctors do not treat or give medicine to individual symptoms such as "headache," "joint pain," "stuffy nose," or "cough." Find out what is causing those symptoms and treat them. Similarly for tissues, we believe that there is an underlying disease that causes a number of symptoms. In the TOC thinking process, the problem is solved by treating the "core problem" that is the disease.
What to change to? In this step, you will find a solution to the essential problem you found in "What to change?". Implementing the solution can have unexpected side effects. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the side effects (negative branch) that occur here and consider countermeasures.
How course the change? In this step, you will develop a plan to implement the solution you found in "What to change?". There are various obstacles to implementing a solution. We will draw a roadmap to overcome these obstacles one by one and identify the actions.
As I have introduced, Dr. Goldratt is the teaching of Mr. Ohno, the idea that "complexity" clarifies the causal relationship, clarifies the connection between elements, and decides the point to be dealt with (root couse), he developed the TOC Thinking Process (TP) with reference to this idea.
This TOC thinking process not only just improve the physical problem in front of you, like "why why 5 times" but also it has evolved to deal with problems that include deep-seated dilemmas (conflicts) created by humans in complex organizations.
