Training Programs, Events, Schedules

Case Studies

Opening new “Custom Wood” doors: How Amberwood Doors Synchronized its System and Increased Profits

Amberwood Doors is a custom wood door manufacturer in Toronto. Through AGI, they implemented a constraints-based design in 2009, which resulted in a throughput increase of 23% in the first year.

Once operations were stabilized, the owners wanted to ensure growth now and in the future. In March of 2010, again through AGI, Amberwood completed a Leadership Strategy Workshop, mapping the steps necessary for continued growth. Over time, with their rapid growth, they needed to address synchronization issues in the production shop. This was done with focused bottom line improvement sessions with AGI in 2011. These sessions included elements of the TOC Design, Lean Standard Work, and SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die). The production shop was once again running smoothly with an increase of 25% in throughput.

Amberwood Doors has been recognized as one of the top 105 fastest growing companies in Canada.

Key Takeaway:

• How to grow rapidly and still maintain highest standards of quality and delivery.

Baxter Healthcare

Success Built Through Identifying Relationships

3 Key Takeaways

1. Network Building Builds Teams
2. Project Templates Enable Quick Estimates
3. Identifying Resource Need Across the Portfolio Increases Capability Awareness

The results at Baxter Healthcare came through the implementation of network diagram work sessions, developing a portfolio view of tasks, project fever charts, and the creation of project schedule templates. TOC has been able to turn an organization that could not deliver on any commitment, into one that has delivered several commitments on time and under budget.

Cleveland Clinic

Currently less than 19% of all harvested lungs are utilized for transplantation. Although significant progress in research has produced relatively modest increases in the harvest to transplant utilization, this number remains problematic and rather disappointing.

The waste of this elegant sacrifice is both a disquieting fact and a call to action. It is the primary mission and fundamental intention of the Human Lung Lab to reverse and transform this catastrophic and heartbreaking reality through innovation, the application of evidence-based clinical protocols, and rigorous scientific inquiry.

Although in its infancy The Human Lung Lab is seeing the benefits of the structure and planning provided by the Theory of Constraints thinking processes. With the advancement of available technology and with the success of recent protocols utilizing both animal and human lungs, benefactors have begun to show a tremendous interest in and support for, the work of organ rescue, resuscitation and research.

Prior to the rigorous examination and thought required by the Jonah Program^®, The Human Lung Lab was an idea without form. The act of constructing, defining and graphically depicting the current reality created the space and momentum for realizing clarity in the intuitive depiction of the future reality. Indeed, we knew we had the vision but what we needed and what the Jonah Program^® provided was a tangible plan and a clear path to the achievement of that vision.

The critical element in the formation of this cluster organization was the identification and preemptive management of potential constraints to the establishment and growth of The Human Lung Lab as an emerging platform for enhanced patient care, education and research. One of the central obstacles was the identification and training of a complement of clinically advanced, professionally established and economically viable team members to perform the tasks associated with the mission-specific scientific protocols. The Jonah Program^® provided the toolkit both for identifying personnel and establishing a curriculum for this elitecorps.

This endeavor would not exist in its current form without the framing mechanisms provided through Theory of Constraints Thinking and the Jonah Program^®.

EHC Global

Handrails and SDAIS ESCALATE us to Higher Profits

In April 2008 EHC Global participated in the VELOCITY World^® 2009 conference and were motivated to implement the SDAIS model. This direction and enthusiasm to make improvements in their business model brought about many changes in their day to day operations around the globe. During the presentation they will pass along the path they followed and key objectives they accomplished to improve their global supply chain and their ability to ensure they have the right material, in the right place at the right time to satisfy their customers.

Key takeaways from the workshop will focus on applying best practices globally which now allow company-wide transparency in their inventory planning and execution, reduced inventory levels, reduced obsolescent stock, higher customer satisfaction, and higher bottom line results.

Eli Lilly & Company

Implementing Critical Chain: An ongoing Journey to Success

Eli Lilly first piloted Critical Chain Project Management in 2005 with one IT function. The expansion proceeded for the next three years to all IT components globally. During this time, the product development organization (Lilly Research Labs, LRL) ran a pilot. The pilot was actually cut short because of the benefits seen quickly by the network building process in LRL and data from the IT success. LRL went into full implementation mode.

Organizationally, Critical Chain Project Management has changed the way we do many things, so much so that it has become our Operating System. It's not just a Project Management methodology, but also way we do business and manage our resources. As such, we are always working to improve our Operating System. Leveraging a solid base of Six Sigma Experts and processes already in place, the integration of Six Sigma and Critical Chain has played a major role in process improvement across functional areas.

Partnering with AGI in 2009, we put a renewed emphasis on execution and better leveraging of our key "signal makers". We saw opportunities in modifying the way we sized buffers, how to do buffer management and the related task execution priorities. While seven years of a journey of Critical Chain Project Management we have indeed come a long way, but we also feel there is much, much more to do!

Key Takeaways

1. Understanding the 7-year journey one company has taken to implement Critical Chain Project management (CCPM). From beginning to current date, what steps were taken to integrate functions and processes. 

2. Understanding some of the benefits realized and some yet to be realized and the targeted next steps.
3. Understanding the Continuous Process Improvement efforts required to sustain and grow the benefits from the operating system change of Critical Chain Project Management

ITT Exelis

Jelly Side Up – TOC CCPM in an Engineering World

It is very difficult to meet both schedule and cost in projects and programs that are knowledge-based, and are over 2 years in length. ITT Exelis had a program that was behind schedule and was facing large financial penalties if the hardware was not delivered on time. Program Management took a risk and allowed the team to implement a TOC CCPM schedule in an attempt to meet a critical deadline.

The implementation of the TOC CCPM schedule was made successful by identifying the need to use classical lean six sigma methods such as Value Stream Mapping and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, to develop the necessary thinking to understand TOC CCPM philosophy. The process resulted in teamwork throughout the entire system (from suppliers to customer), a concentrated relay race mentality where giver and receivers were ready at any time of the day, an acknowledgement that Engineers sometimes behave and think differently and that toast doesn’t always fall to the floor “Jelly Side Up”, and a genuine desire from the entire team’s perspective to be successful. The success of this first experience of TOC CCPM for Exelis has resulted in other programs “pulling” rather than “pushing” this critical thinking process in their schedules.

3 Key Takeaways

1. TOC CCPM is Extremely Effective in the Engineering World.
2. Lean Six Sigma and TOC CCPM are complimentary philosophies.
3. An Understanding of Psychology aided in the Implementation of TOC CCPM with Engineers.

Republic Industries International

How to Keep Chaos in Control

Key Takeaways

1. Having a clear understanding of the actions we take and the resulting financial outcomes enables us to effectively address constraints in any functional area of the organization.
2. Integrating the way we plan with the way we manage execution enables us to keep chaos in control, even in a chaotic remanufacturing environment.
3. Having gained control of our business enables us to effectively utilize process improvement methodologies to deliver measurable bottom line results.

Republic Industries International started its journey with AGI when it had no idea that interdependence existed. Each department performed to local optima and each division was scheduled independently, despite the fact that each division used shared resources. Efficiencies and cost accounting ruled production, and determined how resources were used.

Currently, Republic Industries International is having its best financial year in the past eight years. It is now able to perform around 4000 tasks each month, with sufficient dependability using many of the TOC concepts in conjunction with the “MANAGE” capability in the AGI Supply Chain Suite^TM.

Republic has grown from a company that generated most of its profits through inventory builds to one that generates profits in terms of real money with the outcomes known well in advance. This understating of its financial system enables the company to exploit any constraint - no matter what functional area it occurs in - not just in production. Having gained control of its business, management is now able to effectively utilize lean techniques to further reduce variability and increase capacity leading to measurable bottom line results.

Royal Mouldings

"Moulding" Our Own Success

Royal Mouldings is the largest US manufacturer of extruded PVC building materials used in exterior trim, doors, shutters, windows, outdoor decks, and interior crown mouldings and other decorative trim. Our customers include other manufacturers, builders, and building material distributors and retailers including Fortune 50 companies such as Lowes and Home Depot.

This presentation will focus on the first key steps we took to “re-mould” our business to achieve greater on-time deliveries and more profit. The steps to be highlighted are:

1. Importance of Strategy – leadership team agreement on focus and sequence of improvements
2. New operational methods and information tools – understanding how today’s “best” practices were causing big mistakes with inventory and internal operations.
3. Throughput Accounting – replacing the use of cost accounting in management decision making to gain a real focus on what drives profit
4. Next steps – continued agreement and clear focus based on our new Strategy

Buffer Management was introduced to the organization and implementation began in January of 2011. As a result, Royal Mouldings has seen a significant improvement in on-time delivery, quality and at the same time increased capacity.

SEI Optifrontier

SEI Optifrontier is a subsidiary of SEI (Sumitomo Electric Industries), and manufactures cables for optical communications. Despite being the number one in its industry, SEI Optifrontier opted to implement the TOC solution for production and operations (DBR) as part of its ongoing improvement program. The main objective for the TOC solution was to further strengthen SEI Optifrontier's competitive advantage by improving cash flow, reducing inventory, and reducing lead time.

Some of the results of the TOC solution implementation:

• Production lead-time reduction by 67%
• Able to generate and fulfill more sales orders despites the worsening economic environment and the strong Yen.

Tyco Thermal Controls

USMC Aviation - Current Readiness and End-to-End AIRSpeed

USMC Current Readiness, End-to-End AIRSpeed and MALSP-II: Game Changing Strategy For Advancing And Sustaining Warfighting Capabilities

Naval Aviation is experiencing a most conservative fiscal environment at a time when the Executive Branch is looking for ways to reduce the defense budget. Naval Aviation is costly, and Marine Aviation is 40 percent of Naval Aviation. How can Marine Aviation continue to cover the entire spectrum of conflict as the Nation’s first responders to global contingencies, and humanitarian aid and disaster relief? Maintaining future combat readiness requires efficient and effective resource utilization – readiness is not a pretense to justify wasteful behaviors.

Integrating TOC and LSS, Aviation Supply and Logistics’ game changing strategy continues to evolve and take shape. Starting in 2004 with Enterprise AIRSpeed at the Intermediate-level of aircraft maintenance and retail supply, this strategy has expanded in 2008 to include organizational-level maintenance (flying squadrons) under End-to-End AIRSpeed, and since 2007, Fleet Readiness Centers through the Marine Aviation Logistics Support Program-II (depot-level maintenance, wholesale supply, allowancing). Combined, Enterprise AIRSpeed, End-to-End AIRSpeed and MALSP-II are the enablers for Marine Aviation’s Current Readiness.

Interdependency engineering is critical to the success of this game changing strategy as Marine Aviation shapes its future transformation. Beyond the boundaries of any “normal” TOC Supply Chain Management implementation, lays an in-depth design of the linkages between retail and wholesale supply and maintenance (to include OEMs, vendors and suppliers), acquisition logistics, engineering, air operations, and planning to provide a future Marine Aviation that is flexible, agile, and responsive to the Nation’s needs – with a significantly smaller logistics footprint.

A city-wide development and revitalization project for the EURO 2012^TM games
Presenter: Dr. Alex Klarman, Goldratt Institute - Israel

Can you have it, without having it?
The case of a city-wide infractructure construction and renovation for the EURO 2012^TM (European Soccer Championship Games) in a large European city.

Applying TOC and Critical Chain Project Management within a set of a huge, separate but interdependent, conventionally-managed yet time-critical projects was certainly a major challenge. But, it turned out... it's not the technology, stupid! It's the trust!

Creating trust in the project managers' ability to find solutions to even the most complex problems as well as the ability of the coordinating team to assist them in resolving the emerging inter-project conflicts in a truly win-win manner, then gradually gaining the trust in the beneficial impact of CCPM, coupled with the trust in the good will of the investor turned out to be the key issue.