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Mom’s Success

 

Mom is quite happy with the performance of the business. Profits are up and customer satisfaction is through the roof. In fact, the only complaint is customers want more. Mom and the boys now look to ways to produce and sell more cookies. Now that they know about the theory of constraints, they concentrated on the packaging line. They talked to their equipment supplier who offered a machine upgrade. For $50,000 they could increase the capacity of the packaging line to 110 cookies per hour. They made the change and got to step 4.

 

Step 4: Elevate the constraint.

 

After the packaging changes were made, Mom and the boys thought that they would see a great increase in sales. Unfortunately, they didn’t see any change in production. When they analyzed what happened, they realized, that the system constraint has changed to the bake area. They made some operational changes like increasing maintenance in the bake area and changed the inventory location to between mix and bake. They realized that they have come full circle in the process. Once these changes were made, they saw sales increase by 7% overnight! In making these changes, Mom and the boys reached step 5.

 

Step 5: If when you elevate the constraint, the constraint changes, return to step 1.

 

Mom and her boys have succeeded in turning their business around. And they lived happily ever after!

 

You might think this is an overly simple example. Yet, many companies are still caught in this trap.

 

To learn more about this, read The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement