Five Focusing Steps
At the heart of TOC lies a five-step procedure called the Five Focusing Steps. This procedure enables managers to plan the overall process and focus attention on the resources. The focus is on resources which have the greatest potential to be affected by changes to the system.
Reflecting the key underlying principle of TOC—namely, that the performance of a system is limited by its constraints—these five steps create a framework for TOC implementation and utilization. The five steps in the TOC focusing process are:
- Identify the system’s constraint. The first step is to identify the constraint in the system that limits throughput or progress toward the goal.
- Decide how to exploit the constraint(s). Decide on a plan for the primary constraint that best supports the system’s goal. This requires taking advantage of the existing capacity at the constraint, which is often wasted by making and selling the wrong products, and by improper policies and procedures for scheduling and controlling the constraint.
- Subordinate everything else to the above decisions. Alter or manage the system’s policies, processes, and/or other resources to support the above decisions. Management directs its efforts toward improving the performance of the constraining task or activity and any other task or activity that directly affects the constraining task or activity.
- Elevate the constraint(s). Add capacity or otherwise change the status of the original resources as the dominating primary constraint. In this step, additional capacity is obtained that will increase (elevate) the overall output of the constraining task or activity. This differs from step 2 in that the added output comes from additional purchased capacity, such as buying a second machine, tool, or implementing new technology.
- Return to step 1. Don’t let inertia become the new constraint – go back to step 1, but do not allow previous decisions made in steps 2 to 4 to become constraints. As a result of the focusing process, the improvement of the original constraining task or activity may cause a different task to become a constraining task or activity. Inertia could blind management to additional steps necessary to improve the system’s output now limited by a new constraint.