David Anderson’s post, Lean vs. TOC - No Conflict, is an excellent addition to the previous post here: Lean Thinking and Management.

David refers to a post, looking for a conflict, that is definitely worth reading:

I like the way the post looks at this question. I must admit, my personally view is that the conflict is not as stark as it may appear. I tend to believe the theory of constraints view is helpful but can be misleading since often the interdependencies within the system mean that it is not true that “optimizing non-bottlenecks will introduce waste” (that may be true but is not necessarily true - that is how I see it anyway).

These are good ideas to be discussing.

Related:

• Theory of Constraints (ToC) articles
• lean manufacturing articles
• How To Compare Six Sigma, Lean and the Theory of Constraints by Dave Nave (a friend who will also be at the Deming Institute Seminar that I am co-presenting in April in Boston - sign up).