Constraint Management: A Description and Assessment

In recent years a growing number of firms have reported dramatic results from an operation's improvement technique called Constraint Management (CM). For example, Ford Motor Company's Electronics division attributes reductions in manufacturing cycle time as high as 89 per cent, 76 per cent fewer product returns, reductions in inventory of 49 per cent and 43 per cent lower freight costs to its implementation of CM. Others such as GM, Grand Rapids Spring and Wire, Valmont/ALS, and Kent Moore Cabinets report similar results. The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a basic understanding of Constraint Management, which has also been referred to as synchronized manufacturing; the Drum, Buffer, Rope technique; OPT (Optimized Production Technology); the Theory of Constraints, and to explore its potential impact on logistics managers.