Co-existence of paradigms as a manufacturing management strategy

Abstract

In manufacturing management, Goldratt [1] identifies a core conflict between managing according to the cost world (CW) and the throughput world (TW) paradigms. He demonstrates that this conflict is eliminated if operations are managed solely according to the TW paradigm. A current reality tree (CRT) is created for a generic manufacturing system that reflects the chaos associated with managing according to both paradigms. Next, a future reality tree (FRT) is created to ascertain the effect of removing the policies derived from the CW paradigm in reversing the undesirable effects and eliminating the systemic chaos. Although the system is found to be stable as predicted under various simulation runs, chaos returns if the system disturbances are greater than management’s ability to deal with them. A new FRT is then created with both paradigms present and stability returns if TW-derived policies are permitted to take precedence over any corresponding CW-derived policies.