Theory of Constraints Throughput Improvement Training Course

Course overview

Operations and project teams often work harder without increasing completed output. Work queues build before a constrained machine, specialist, approval step or test environment; local utilisation targets encourage excess work-in-progress; and urgent jobs disrupt schedules without improving delivery reliability. This course addresses the practical problem of finding the system constraint, protecting it from avoidable loss, and aligning upstream and downstream work so the organisation delivers more finished products, services or projects with less expediting and inventory.

Participants learn to apply the Theory of Constraints (TOC) Five Focusing Steps to production, service and project environments. They distinguish a physical capacity constraint from a policy constraint, map flow using a current-state process map, calculate throughput, inventory and operating expense using Throughput Accounting, and quantify the financial effect of constraint improvements. The course develops working skill in Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling, buffer management, bottleneck capacity analysis, batch-size decisions, and TOC Thinking Processes for resolving recurring operational conflicts.

Instruction combines short faculty-led briefings with operational cases, spreadsheet analysis, scheduling simulations and facilitated team workshops. Participants work through a realistic multi-stage operation and a project delivery scenario, using constraint data to make release, prioritisation and improvement decisions. Each participant leaves with a completed Throughput Improvement Action Pack: a constraint analysis, current-state flow map, buffer design, throughput measures, improvement experiment plan, and a 90-day implementation roadmap suitable for discussion with an operations manager or project sponsor.

The course is suited to professionals responsible for output, delivery performance, process improvement or project flow. It is particularly valuable where Lean, Six Sigma or project controls activity has identified waste or variation but has not yet established which improvement will increase system throughput first.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify system constraints using the TOC Five Focusing Steps and operational flow data
• Construct a current-state flow map showing queues, handoffs, rework loops and constraint points
• Calculate throughput, inventory and operating expense using Throughput Accounting measures
• Design a Drum-Buffer-Rope release schedule for a constrained production or service process
• Set buffer profiles and escalation rules using buffer management signals
• Analyse constraint capacity losses from downtime, setup time, quality failures and policy restrictions
• Apply TOC Thinking Processes to resolve a core conflict limiting throughput improvement
• Produce a 90-day throughput improvement action plan with measures, owners and review cadence

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Operations Managers — who must increase completed output while controlling work-in-progress and expediting
• Production Managers — who need to schedule constrained resources and improve on-time delivery
• Project Managers — who manage multi-tasking, critical resource conflicts and delayed project flow
• Continuous Improvement Leaders — who must prioritise improvement work by system-wide throughput impact
• Supply Chain Managers — who need to align material release, buffers and replenishment with actual constraints
• Quality Managers — who need to reduce defect-related capacity loss at critical process steps

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should be comfortable reading simple operational data such as daily output, cycle time, queue size, downtime and defect counts, and should have basic spreadsheet confidence for entering formulas and interpreting charts. Experience in operations, service delivery, manufacturing, supply chain or project work is helpful because exercises use real flow decisions. No prior Theory of Constraints, Lean, Six Sigma, accounting qualification, statistical software or programming knowledge is required. A complete beginner can attend and should expect to learn the core terminology before applying it to progressively more detailed cases.

Training methodology

The five-day programme uses instructor-led explanation to introduce each TOC method, followed immediately by applied work with production, service and project-flow cases. Participants map a process, analyse queue and capacity data in Microsoft Excel, build a Drum-Buffer-Rope schedule, and interpret buffer status to make release and recovery decisions. Small groups challenge assumptions behind local efficiency measures and test alternative improvement choices using throughput calculations. The final day is an application-planning workshop in which each participant develops a constraint-focused intervention for their own workplace.

Course outline

Day 1: System Flow and Constraint Identification

• Theory of Constraints principles and the goal of the system
• The Five Focusing Steps for ongoing improvement
• Physical constraints, market constraints and policy constraints
• Current-state process mapping for material, information and work flow
• Work-in-progress, queue time and flow-time relationships
• Constraint indicators in output, backlog, utilisation and waiting-time data
• Local optimisation versus system-wide throughput decisions

Workshop: Participants map a multi-stage service operation and produce a constraint hypothesis supported by queue, capacity and flow evidence.

Day 2: Throughput Measures and Constraint Economics

• Throughput Accounting definitions of throughput, inventory and operating expense
• Throughput contribution per constrained resource minute
• Product and service mix decisions at a capacity constraint
• Cost-world measures versus throughput-world decisions
• Calculating the financial impact of downtime at the constraint
• Quality losses, rework and yield effects on constraint capacity
• Microsoft Excel models for throughput and capacity scenarios

Workshop: Participants build an Excel throughput model and produce a ranked product-mix recommendation for a constrained operation.

Day 3: Exploiting and Subordinating the Constraint

• Exploiting the constraint without major capital expenditure
• Constraint time protection through maintenance, materials and quality readiness
• Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling logic
• Drum design and pace-setting for constrained resources
• Time buffers, stock buffers and capacity buffers
• Release control and work-in-progress limits
• Subordination rules for upstream and downstream functions

Workshop: Participants create a Drum-Buffer-Rope release plan and define buffer locations and operating rules for a manufacturing case.

Day 4: Buffer Management and Project Flow

• Buffer penetration zones and management-by-exception
• Buffer status reporting and recovery priorities
• Root-cause analysis of recurring buffer consumption
• Elevating the constraint through staffing, outsourcing, technology and redesign
• Constraint migration after improvement
• Critical Chain project management principles
• Project buffers, resource buffers and multi-tasking control

Workshop: Participants analyse a delayed project portfolio and produce buffer-based recovery priorities and a critical-resource protection plan.

Day 5: TOC Thinking Processes and Implementation Planning

• The Current Reality Tree for identifying cause-and-effect patterns
• Undesirable effects and core problem definition
• Evaporating Cloud conflict resolution method
• Future Reality Tree for testing proposed improvements
• Prerequisite Tree for implementation obstacles
• Transition Tree actions, owners and sequencing
• Ninety-day throughput improvement scorecards and governance reviews

Workshop: Participants complete a Throughput Improvement Action Pack containing a constraint analysis, buffer design, improvement experiment and 90-day roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Jira Software, Smartsheet

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions