CASE STUDY/INDUSTRY PRESENTATIONS
TOC World^® 2006 will feature speakers from various sectors. Breakout sessions will cover topics in Supply Chain, Project Management, the TOC Thinking Processes, and Strategy. Topics will include Lean and TOC, and hands-on learning of Thinking Process Tools. As we announce presenters, their information will appear below.

AIR COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE

Wednesday, March 29, 10:00-10:30am
Presenter: Anthony C. Cain, PhD (Col, USAF, retired)

Theory of Constraints as a Critical Thinking Methodology
One of the most important leadership characteristics is the ability to think critically about a wide range of topics. Educating future leaders to have this and other abilities is one of the core missions of the Air Command and Staff College. The Theory of Constraints Thinking Process allows instructors and students to identify, assess, and develop solutions to a wide range of strategic, operational, and tactical problems.

TIMCO AVIATION SERVICES - MRO OPERATIONS

Wednesday, March 29, 1:30-2:15pm
Presenter: David K. Christ

Critical Chain Scheduling: Necessary but not Sufficient

TIMCO Aviation Services Inc. is one of the largest independent Commercial Jet Maintenance, Repair, Modification, Overhaul and Aircraft Storage service providers in the United States. Founded in 1990, Timco has grown to now include MRO facilities in Greensboro, NC; Macon, GA; Lake City, FL and Goodyear, AZ; Timco Engineering Services with offices in Greensboro, Atlanta, and Seattle; Brice seats in Pacoima, CA; Timco Engine Center in Oscoda, MI; and Line Maintenance operations at airports across the country. This case study focuses on two of the MRO operations.

Dramatic changes in the aviation industry following 9/11 have created substantial new opportunities in the MRO industry as air carriers increasingly outsource their work in an effort to reduce costs. With this opportunity come the challenges of managing growth in an environment of multiple customers with differing requirements, various aircraft types, supply chain and inventory issues and shortages in some resource skill sets, to name a few.

Each aircraft arriving for service is a physically large and logistically complex project comprising thousands of individual tasks requiring thousands of man-hours of effort. Several categories of skilled resources are required to work an aircraft, and some skills are currently experiencing especially high demand as a result of the War on Terror.

Each project potentially contains three types of work: the known or ‘routine’ work scope; a known-unknown ‘non-routine’ component; and an unknown-unknown ‘non-routine component. The extent of variation in the non-routine components of the work, complicated by corrective action decisions and procurement/fabrication cycles is often recognized as the principle driver of the project’s completion.

In 2004 Timco began development of their MRO application of TOC PM. Two site applications are reviewed from the perspective of initial conditions, immediate benefits of Critical Chain Scheduling, and effects of local constraints on the TOC solution.

This case study emphasizes the following lessons:

• The Theory of Constraints approach to Project Management consists of two components
  • Critical Chain Scheduling
  • TOC Synchronization
• To gain the desired benefit of TOC PM, a synchronization method is imperative.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL (NUH) - SINGAPORE

Wednesday, March 29, 2:15-3:00pm
Presenter: Dr. Eric De Smet, Partner, Avraham Y Goldratt Institute USA and Managing Director, Avraham Y Goldratt (AGI) Asia Pacific

Applying TOC for Operations (DBR) and TOC for Supply Chain to a Healthcare Environment to Significantly Improve Patient Care
NUH opened its doors to the public on 24 June 1985 as the first restructured hospital in Singapore. Since its inception, it has grown to become a +/- 928-bed, acute-care, tertiary hospital. NUH is committed to improving the standard for its patients’ medical, paramedical and nursing care and constantly strives to provide personalized, cost-effective, and specialized patient care.

With 22 clinical, three dental and six paramedical departments, as well as numerous specialist outpatient clinics and specialized service centers, NUH has a comprehensive range of services available to meet the growing needs of its patients. NUH also has a pool of more than 3000 professional staff providing round-the-clock personalized care to its patients every day of the year.

As Singapore’s only university hospital, NUH actively supports clinical teaching for undergraduate medical students and postgraduate training for specialist doctors. The hospital also collaborates with and serves as a clinical and research base for the medical and dental faculties of the National University of Singapore (NUS).

The former director of operations, Dr. Tan Weng Mooi, came to know about TOC through her executive MBA program where The Goal was compulsory reading material. She felt that the concepts described in The Goal could help her to reduce the patient waiting time of 6-8 hours at the emergency department down to two hours or less. The challenge she faced was how to apply this common sense approach to her health care environment and get buy-in of the medical community at NUH. She contacted AGI Asia Pacific to come up with solution to help her meet the patient waiting time reduction objective.

The TOC solution has been designed developed and piloted and is currently being rolled out throughout the hospital.

This presentation will describe the challenges faced throughout the different stages of the project as well as the results achieved to-date.

SOLEL BONEH LTD.

Wednesday, March 29, 5:15-6:00pm
Presenter: Alex Klarman, President, Goldratt Institute (Israel)

How should one intelligently deal with the onslaught of uncertainty events (the omnipresent Murphy), which can derail even the most carefully planned project from its tracks? That’s a question the management at project organizations so often finds itself asking. And the higher the uncertainty in a given environment - the more pressing this question becomes.

The standard project management methodology puts its trust in the risk management approach: First a careful assessment of the risks involved with each of the project’s tasks. Then the probability of a failure at a given task is assessed, as well as the gravity of the damage to the project once that occurs. Following this analysis, risk mitigation steps are taken, especially for tasks at which both factors seems to be significant. But very often, in spite of careful risk management, projects don’t succeed to fit into their planned duration or budget, while providing for the entire planned scope.

We’ve tried to use an environment well known for its high uncertainty – that of large infrastructure projects. Be it an airport, a highway, park, bridge or tunnel – all these are infamous for many projects far behind schedule or high above budget.

If in such an environment we’ll very carefully apply risk management methodology, while also applying Critical Chain Project Management – will that make the buffers redundant? Will the project then finish ahead of schedule and before exhausting its budget?

The project we’ve used as our test-bed was that of rainwater drainage system built at the center of a busy Israeli town. It has applied a novel method of tunneling (pipe-jacking), used for the first time in Israel. It was large and complex project, and it has demanded a lot of simultaneous work to be done in quite an exact sequences.

The company doing it, Solel Boneh Ltd., Roads and Development division, is the largest of its kind in Israel and has done since 1930 more infrastructure projects than any other company in the country. It was willing to test CCPM at that project, which was seen as a major risk for the company.

A careful and systematic process of risk management was applied, and as a result of it project plans were changed and a score of activities was initiated to reduce the risks. Then a CCPM project plan was built and approved. The systematic process of reporting and buffer management (using the ProChain® software) was applied from day one till the end of it.

The results have unequivocally shown that, in spite of the application of risk management, it was the TOC buffer management, which has brought the project to its successful end.

The presentation will show the various risk factors, which has have influenced the project planning and its execution, and how they have impacted the final result. We’ll discuss then how both methodologies should be used synergistically to yield even better project management.

AIR FORCE FLIGHT TEST CENTER (AFFTC) 412TH TEST WING

Thursday, March 30, 8:30-9:15am
Presenter: Lt Col David G. Smith

Using TOC to Shape the Workforce at the 412th Test Wing
The workforce of the 412th Test Wing is comprised of a variety of technical professionals who have derived a considerable amount of their skill and expertise through experiences that are unique to the flight test mission. However, the 412th Test Wing is not immune from normal changes that occur in any large organization. Older, experienced personnel move or retire, and younger recruits have different job expectations than they did 10, 20 or 30 years ago. These changes and more, along with a desire to ensure the flight test mission is successfully accomplished in the future, prompted a comprehensive look into the problem.

As with many problems, there were many facets and many viewpoints. Knowing that solving one or a few aspects of a complicated problem can lead to sub optimization at best, or a completely unsatisfactory solution at worst, a methodical approach to finding the solution to the problem was employed.

This presentation will focus on:

1. The mission of the 412th Test Wing and the current situation of the technical workforce,
2. The Thinking Process(es) used to:
   1. define the problem (What to Change)
   2. determine the direction for a solution (To What to Change)
   3. begin the process of fixing the problem (How to Cause the Change)
3. What went well and not so well in the effort, the current status, and what would be done differently if started over.

THE TOC CENTER (RUSSIA)

Thursday, March 30, 9:15-10:00am
Presenter: Dmitri Kapranov, President, The TOC Center

A Pioneer TOC SCM Application in Russia
Production of standard unmarked aluminum cans for preserved food is hardly a very challenging business. The market for cans was growing, the demand was stable and margins were fat. That's what the owners of a small Russian manufacturing operation thought when they started their company four and a half years ago. It turned out that they were wrong. This business did quickly become a major challenge - of keeping it afloat.

This company is a supplier of cans for food-producing companies in the European part of Russia. Their operation is indeed simple -- consisting of a few stamping presses that produce two types of cans and one type of lid. Their customers range from tiny backyard firms to huge holdings to government institutions. Most of those customers used to have their own can manufacturing shops but eventually outsourced them. This is how the company got its presses. There is only one supplier of the raw material -- aluminum tape -- in Russia. Being a monopolist, this ALCOA-owned plant puts harsh payment and ordering requirements on its customers. Can manufacturers have to place orders at least a month in advance and prepay 50% of the order right away. On the other hand, food-processing companies in a competitive market often change their orders, demand credit and still miss payment dates.

Despite its small size, this company held about 10% of the total market. Their major competitors are older, larger in size and more diversified. All of them strive to hold high stocks of finished goods and aggressively push them into the market, occasionally at reduced prices. To keep up, our company had to do the same. However, due to high internal and external variability, they kept running into overages and shortages, their overall due-date performance kept deteriorating, and above all, their working capital was quickly disappearing.

They tried TOC out of desperation. One of the shareholders took the time to read The Goal, and later insisted that the other shareholders and the GM read it. Although it made perfect sense to them, they were still skeptical that such drastic improvements were at all possible in their "unique and very difficult situation."

This presentation will show how a simple DBR and Buffer Management solution was developed and implemented, along with Throughput Accounting, VMI and own inventory management applications. It will then describe the improvements achieved in lead-times, due-date performance and key financial measures.

SPOTLIGHT STORES PTY LTD (AUSTRALIA)

Thursday, March 30, 1:45-2:30pm
Presenter: Lewis Trigger

The Spotlight Story - Rapid Implementation and Deployment
Spotlight is Australia's largest fabric, craft, and home interior retail chain, with over 100 superstores throughout Australia, Singapore and New Zealand. This family owned company has experienced a phenomenal growth, averaging a 20% growth per annum since the opening of its first store in 1973. Today's yearly revenue numbers are in excess of $60 million.

In August 2004 Lewis Trigger was invited to Australia as the TOC facilitator for Spotlight (Lewis's activity base is in Israel). Spotlight's management decided that the best platform to introduce TOC into the organization was within the setting of the company's annual managers' conference. Each year all the store managers together with all the senior corporate managers (all in all 150) convene for a five-day session for an entire management review and strategic planning for the next year. The company flies in all its managers to an exclusive conference centre and a lot of serious work, together with team building, is done.

Lewis was charged with the challenge of infusing into the organization the TOC methodology. Time was set aside for learning TOC as well as the application of TOC principles for the company's key processes (half the conference time). The challenge was incredible, but so was the opportunity for infusing the entire organization with the TOC building blocks. Lewis was given to his disposal the entire management team of this huge organization; all of them concentrated in both time and space.

What was particularly interesting is that a core constraint that was common to each of their retail outlets was revealed during the conference itself. Namely, this constraint was the capacity of the Dress Counter resource centre in each of the superstores. Together, the entire company's management team addressed how best to manage this constraint using the basic five-step TOC methodology. In addition to this common constraint, ten additional problematic processes were identified and addressed using the five-step process.

Recommended changes were evaluated through the TOC performance measurement criteria of Throughput, Operating Expenses, & Inventory.

This case study emphasizes the following lessons:

• The possibility for rapid dissemination of the TOC's prime methodology. This rapid yet thorough dissemination of TOC basics was made possible by having a "captured audience" that consisted of the company's entire senior management team at both the corporate level as well as the retail outlet level. All in all over 150 executives for an entire five days.
• Identification and management of a core company constraint. A common constraint was found in all of the retail outlets. This real life example was addressed by all the management team. Not only was this a powerful learning experience, but also the solution immediately provided a bottom line value for Spotlight.

TYCO THERMAL CONTROLS

Thursday, March 30, 2:30-3:15pm
Presenter: Mike Masia

DBR & Replenishment - Ten Years Later
Tyco Thermal Controls is a $350M Division of Tyco International with over 1200 employees worldwide, 48 Locations, 11 Manufacturing Facilities and seven Engineering Centers. Tyco Thermal Controls is a world leader in electric heat-tracing Products and services. Tyco Thermal Controls is also supplier of Floor Heating, Specialty Heaters, Fire-Rated Wire Temperature Measurement and Leak Detection Products.

In June 1995, the plant in California started on its journey to improved operational performance. After one cycle of improvement, the plant had improved but it was not able to decrease cycle time any further. In 1998 a decision was made to try a constraints management approach and the plant went through its first DBR and Replenishment deployment. In 2003 the plant finished its second constraints management improvement cycle. Over this time frame, 1995 to 2006, the average cycle time decreased from 60 days to 5 days, on-time delivery as measured by Dollar-Days Late decreased by a factor of 50, and finished goods inventories decreased by a factor of 20. Even though the cycle time decreased by a factor of ten, the TOC improvement model of

1. Identify the systems 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. Do not allow inertia to become a system’s constraint

DBR is now standard plant operating model and Replenishment is the standard supply chain model in nine plants in the US, Canada and Europe. Results from plants with complex constraint processes will be presented. A simple rule for determining when the TOC improvement model is at the point of diminishing return will be discussed.

This case study emphasizes the following lessons:

• DBR works well with complex constraint management models.
• The TOC improvement model can be repeated many times in the same plant.
• Effective strategic buffer management or queue management is essential for plant POGI.

THE BOEING COMPANY

Thursday, March 30, 3:45-4:30pm
Presenter: Michael VanOverloop

Using the Thinking Processes to Sustain and Refine Improvement Efforts
In September of 2003, I attended an Introduction to Theory of Constraints and Critical Chain Project Management offered within Boeing and taught by D.K. Christ in Seattle. Earlier that spring I had begun to share information that I had learned about TOC and CCPM with my supervisor, Alex Baldwin and his superior, Allen Sebaugh. I had learned about TOC through a web search on Boyd’s OODA loop. Allen sent me to the Intro course to learn more about CCPM with the intention of possibly pursuing use of the tool in order to improve our program performance. After taking the course and briefing the management team, we decided to push for permission and funding to run a pilot program application of CCPM.

In January of 2004, our team briefed functional and program directors about CCPM and our desire to use it to improve our program performance. We succeeded in showing the potential value of CCPM in the multi-project environment and moved on to the next stage of finding a high level sponsor for the pilot program.

In March of 2004, our team briefed the site manager for Aerospace Support in St. Louis as part of a monthly staff meeting. We were assisted in our presentation by Mark Stout (Sales Representative for Sciforma), who demonstrated the capabilities of CCPM through the use of PS8. Through our presentation of the problems we faced in the multi-project development environment and the PS8 software demonstration, we obtained permission and funding to execute a pilot application of CCPM.

In April of 2004 we began the pilot program with training in PS8 for the implementation team. In December of 2004 I acquired a training voucher from AGI that had been presented to D.K. Christ and although the voucher had expired, AGI honored it and I attended the March-April 2005 Jonah Program^®.

My independent study of TOC-CCPM that led to the actions outlined above was centered on CCPM. Although my independent study included TOC and the Thinking Process (TP), the pilot programs thrust was also CCPM. Attending the Jonah Program^® showed me that there was more to running a successful improvement program than buying a CCPM software package and doing some reorganization.

By December of 2004 my group was showing robust improvements in cost performance. Most of our projects had been converted to CCPM, but there were a few projects that were left in Critical Path. The differential in Cost Performance Index between the CCPM and CPM projects was approximately 45%. By the early spring of 2005, in spite of continuing the trend of improved cost performance, the group wanted to solidify the implementation in order to use it as a model for other groups to emulate. The group also saw that there was potential to deal with schedule issues as well. There was a wealth of intuitive knowledge available in the management team, but there was alack of a way to engage that knowledge. That is where the TP came to light.

I had used my Jonah training to reinforce our decision to go to CCPM. Although the trees I built during training did not specifically indicate CCPM, the need for integrated schedules and reliable management data was confirmed. Although the efforts to convert a decades old system were considerable and in spite of the increased performance, applying the TP to the group again, with a new set of UDEs showed that there was more work to be done.

The second TP clearly showed that common practices, a corporate improvement focus area, are needed. And along with common practices and procedures, operating rules to better define tasks and task completion criteria are also required. And finally, in order to institutionalize the organizational changes, a rational system of performance measurements needs to be in place. All of these initiatives, when taken together, work together can change the behavior of an organization. The TP analysis delineated the requirements and gave the team the logical underpinnings to be confident in expending the effort required to develop new procedures, operating rules, and measurements.

NUCLEAR RESEARCH NEGEV CENTER (NRCN), ISRAEL

Friday, March 31, 9:15-10:00am
Presenter: Tomer Keidar, MSc, PMP
Yossi Peleg, MSc
Associate: Prof. Eli Abramov, PhD., PMP

P.R.O.M. - Proactive & Robust Objectives Management an Organizational Working Plans Management Model
Throughout a period of two years, the NRCN transformed its working plans management process from a program-oriented process into a proactive and robust objectives management (PROM) process.

As a result of PROM, due dates performance improved by tens of percents in the last two years. In addition, both internal and external customers highly appreciated the process, saying it brings out a management focal point allowing immediate insight at the organization.

Originally the NRCN used to manage its working plans infrastructure as a collection of hundreds of programs. However, the planning and control process was not focused enough and took too much management attention. In order to diminish waste from the process, we looked for an integrated solution which would serve all management levels: project managers to executives via projecting significant plan deviations. In order to do so, we looked for the process core constraint using the theory of constraints thinking processes. The resolution came from the Virtual Multi-level Critical Chain (VMCC) project Management methodology presented by Yossi Peleg in the TOC World^® 2002 conference.

VMCC – is a TOC methodology with independent multi-projects connected together using five types of buffers:

1. Critical Chain Completion (project) Buffer
2. Feeding Buffers
3. Contractual Milestones Buffers
4. Capacity Buffer Management
5. Project to Project (P2P) Buffer

The PROM most significant enhancement is the managers' ability to view months in advance the risk level each organizational objective carries with it to fall back in time, according to field reports. The PROM is nowadays a major objectives management tool used by NRCN senior management.

IBM

Friday, March 31, 10:30-11:15pm
Presenter: Brian Kramer, Program Director, IBM Learning Solutions

Using TOC to Develop Successful Workforce Development Initiatives
Most states and nations do not have a focused, resilient work force development organization in place to ensure its citizens have the skills needed to attract and retain industry. Few workforce development (WFD) initiatives deliver the expected results. If these programs do not succeed, increases in tax revenues may not cover increases in social services costs.

During this session we will review how TOC was used to conduct a WFD study for the State of Georgia. Attendees will gain an understanding of how TOC was used to define the entire WFD ecosystem, the five major stakeholders in WFD, and suggested strategies for creating successful WFD initiatives.

This work has resulted in Georgia's Governor Sonny Perdue annoucing the creation of the Governor's Office of Workforce Development. This office will be responsible for the coordinated planning and policy creation in support of a comprehensive workforce system designed to create an employment base that supports the state's strategies for economic growth. We are now in the early stages of launching projects in North and South Carolina, China, Bulgaria, Croation, Nigeria, and South Africa.

"MULTINATIONAL CONSUMER PRODUCTS COMPANY"

Friday, March 31, 11:15-Noon
Presenter: Bruce Watson, Director of Demand-Pull Implementations

Mastering the Fundamentals
This large multinational consumer products company manufactures in over forty countries with significant distribution and sales in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Bruce Watson, one of the most highly regarded presenters at TOC World^® 2004, returns to update us on his organization's progress

Implementing the TOC supply chain solution can be very rewarding. We have two solid successes, and we are currently working on our third and fourth. Along the way we have found it very important to ensure that the new processes and IT tools become integrated within the day-to-day fundamentals of business.

• What do I need to do to foster this?
• What is required of IT and how can I get them to respond?
• How can I get the solution to scale to many more SKUs, factories, and DCs?
• Do I need additional people or skills to run the process?

This presentation will focus on the steps and solutions we developed. While our business footprint is global and we are using large scale IT solutions, the lessons learned will help companies of all sizes to de-mystify what it takes to ensure continued success.