Theory of Constraints Course – EPGP

Wishing you all a very happy new year.

I am sure that all of you are placed by now.

A few guidelines for our course:

1) The first Reading: Chapter 20: Constraint Management, Pages 789 to 829 from the BOOK -Operations & Supply Management - by Richard Chase, Ravi Shankar, Robert Jacobs, andNicholas Aquilano, 12th Edition. ….this is the most critical reading. Please read this and master this.

There is an individual assignment coming on this chapter – by march 20th, 2015 submit a summary of this chapter in less than 4 pages by e mail to me at vf-rraghavendra@iimidr.ac.in … I request the Class rep to put all the submissions into one folder and send to me so that nothing gets missed out.

2) I am planning for a group assignment with 2 people in a group. Groups will present their “assignment” in less than 20 PPT charts and in less than 20 minutes. Please bear with me – people have asked me in the past that how can we have 5 presentations in a 10 session course? .. I find this a very useful way .. I plan to use your presentations as the anchor for teaching some topics. The topics for presentation are as follows:

a) Comparing Lean and TOC & MRP ( Session 8)b) V,A,T,I configuration of process – where should the buffers be placed. ( Session 5)

( Students who are presenting this topic need to present on 11th March .. they have less time .. but it is less complex … if it is impossible, I am willing to postpone it to Session 6)

c) Activity Based Costing Vs TOC accounting (Where does each work and where do they fail)…. (Session 6)

d) Applying TOC to Sales. (Session 9)e) Current reality Tree & Evaporating the cloud (Session 7)f) Future Reality Tree + Negative Branch reservations…( Session 7)

( You will find a lot of material in the readings I have given you + a lot of material is available in various websites – if you have difficulty, do let me know)

These are Six topics and I would like one group to pick up each of them and present in less than 20 PPT slides and in 20 minutes or less.

Some of you have worked before you joined IIM Indore – can you look back and see where you could have applied TOC in your work / business?

Some Points:

1) TOC has its own limitations. Hence not a solution for everything.2) Some authors give TOC a cult like status – we will study TOC from a utilitarian perspective – how

can I use it and benefit from it. There are several good and interesting ideas in TOC.3) TOC thinking process is one of the modules we have – it is very difficult to teach this topic in one

session – Hence I am asking two groups to present parts of this idea. This topic will be covered in an “introductory” fashion rather than an exhaustive fashion. But this is applicable for many situations in management and hence useful.

4) Organized Reading Material is not available for TOC in general and hence you might feel that the reading materials are a little vague – but these are rich in ideas. If you master the first reading, then the others become simpler.

5) We will use Session 10 for examining Criticism of TOC + clearing any doubts etc.6) I am sending a small reading from the book The Goal .. please go through this and we will use

this in the first session. (Goal – 4.pdf)

Best regards R Raghavendra Ravi