Research And Application Of Improvement Model Of TOC+LEAN

With the subordinated debt crisis from the United States, global economy is indownturn. Many enterprises are facing more tough competition, so they need improvetheir management accordingly. Then Lean Thinking and Theory of Constraints asadvanced methods and tools are increasingly being recognized by the enterprise, andare applied into practice. However, the more enterprises fail to improve theirmanagement.This paper studies the similarities and differences between Lean Thinking andTheory of Constraints, and analyzes their advantages and limitations. In the case ofactual capacity less than the customer demand, which means that constraint exists inthe production, if we implement the lean production according to the five steps ofLean Thinking(define value, identify value stream, make value flow, pull value flowaccording to the customer demand, perfection), it is so difficult to achieve the desiredeffect. While the five step of Theory of Constraints (identify bottleneck, exploitbottleneck, Subordinate bottleneck, elevate bottleneck, go back to step one) can helpthe enterprise manage bottleneck, and systemically move bottleneck out of production.But when it comes to detail cases, Theory of Constraints lacks practical tools andmethods, and the effect is the same too. Fortunately Lean Thinking can provide manypractical improvement tools and methods for exploiting and elevating bottleneck.Furthermore, construct improvement model combining Theory of Constraints andLean Thinking, and this model puts customer demand onto the first priority. Whenenterprises can not meet customer demand, they use Theory of Constraints to manageproduction bottleneck strategically, use Lean Thinking to implement relatedimprovement tactically. After meet customer demand, according to value streammapping of Lean Thinking, implement continuous improvement.Finally, this paper introduces the improvement case in C enterprise with themodel of combining Theory of Constraints and Lean Thinking, which help solve ontime delivery and reduce WIP (work in process) in production line.