Archives: Strategy
Corona constraints
As we all face the unprecedented challenges of a world constrained by the COVID-19 virus, how can we mitigate the effects of the pandemic? I offer a view shaped by the Theory of Constraints (TOC).
Solve your inventory problem
How do you make sure you have the right amount of inventory to service your commitments, without tying up any more cash than you need to? This problem lies at the heart of distribution and replenishment. Luckily, there’s an unconventional solution.
Controlling contractors
When you’re buying services from a contractor, you want to minimise your risk at the lowest possible cost. If you’re the contractor, you want to minimise your risk while maximising your revenue. This adversarial tension is the core reality of most contracts. What to do?
mediumProjecting projects
Think of your life as a project. You’re born, get educated, go to work, typically start a family and want to make a difference before you hop the twig. But what difference can you make with your remarkably fleeting biblical allotment of three score and ten years? What motives sit beneath the activities you manifest
The Rising Tide of Productivity
‘Productivity isn’t everything,’ wrote economist Paul Krugman, ‘but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.’ Productivity is simply a ratio of outputs to inputs. We would all like to learn how
Systems thinking: the primacy of the whole
Recently, I wrote about Asset Constraint Management and the capabilities required to achieve remarkable results. None of that will amount to much if you don’t encourage a systems thinking mindset with behaviours to match. Systems thinking is at the heart of what we do, encapsulated in our mantra: ‘know the whole, focus on the constraint’.
