Using TOC To Improve Project Management.
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Most projects, whether big or small, are undertaken either to create a new structure, such
as a plant, an airport, an Olympic stadium, a bridge, a new product, etc., or to modify an
existing structure, such as a plant expansion, adding a new production line, expanding a
highway, etc. In most cases, the late completion of the project, such as finishing the
Olympic stadium two weeks after the opening of the Olympics, or having a new airports
opening delayed until after the elections, etc., generally carries with it some significant
negative ramifications for the project owner. At the same time, there are many cases where
the early completion of the project will provide the project owner with significant positive
ramifications, such as the market share gained by preempting the competitions launching
of a new product, or the increase in sales achieved by bringing the plants productive
capabilities on-line sooner, etc.
Another important characteristic of most projects is that many of the resources performing
the individual project tasks are sub-contracted resources, at least in terms of their
relationship to the project manager. As sub-contracted resources, they are often committed
to completing more than one project specific task during any given window of time. The
issue of resource availability is often further complicated by the nature of the disturbances
associated with most project specific tasks. As a result, most sub-contractors will only
commit to completing a project specific task within a window of time and by a specific
date, regardless of the fact, that the actual time required to complete the project specific
task is generally much smaller than the allotted time window. Hence, the detail scheduling
of the sub-contractors resources is generally something that most project managers have
little or no direct control over.
Lastly, most projects usually involve the investment/expenditure of one or more limited
resources, such as money, peoples time, skills, equipment, etc. As a result, most people try
to maximize the return on these investments/expenditures, thus making the overall lead
time, from start to finish, the key factor in almost every project.
As with most decisions involving the use of limited resources, there is the need to
considertrade-offs. Trade-offs that often appear as a conflict between the availability of the
limited resource, which is usually money, and the overall project lead time from start to
finish. As long as the decisions involve trade-offs which cannot be quantified into a single
