For those reading my entries on TOC and wondering what it is I am talking about, here is one of the more useful references on the Theory of Constraints. I think it does a great job of laying out the principles, thoughts and history behind it. The author does at times get carried away with jargon and uses phrases like "verbalizing intuition" for example. But if you like hot talk like:
The reductionist/local optima approach is well represented; firstly by the family of material requirements planning (mrp), manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) and enterprise-wide planning (EPR). Secondly, it is represented by “reversions” from more systemic but nevertheless transitional approaches. The reversions are World Class Manufacturing and Lean Production.The transitional class is composed of the Ford Production System and the Toyota Production System. Both methodologies are mass production systems and while both are paced or synchronized to the slowest step in the line, safety is distributed evenly throughout the system. The advancement of the Toyota system over the Ford system is that although safety is spread throughout both, the Toyota system seeks to substantially reduce it by increased quality throughout the process.
then this is the site for you. Cheap shots aside... this is probably one of the best starting points if you are going to research TOC on the internet. Link: http://www.dbrmfg.co.nz/Introduction.htm
