What Your Team Will Walk Away With
The Flow Solutions Workshop is not a lecture. It is a working session. Your team works on your company's actual operation, with guidance from TOC practitioners who have done this with a wide variety of companies.
By the end of the program, your team will have:
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Clear identification of the constraint that is truly limiting your organization’s throughput or project delivery, and, more importantly, how its mismanagement today wastes capacity.
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A practical implementation roadmap to unlock higher productivity, improve on-time delivery, and significantly shorten lead times.
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A focused path to increase Throughput by 20%–50%, not through more effort, but through better alignment around the system’s leverage point.
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A hands-on proof-of-concept plan your team builds during the workshop, ready to be tested in your own environment within 30–90 days.
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A shared leadership language. When operations, engineering, sales, and finance align around the same constraint and priorities, decisions accelerate and execution becomes far more effective.
What is TOC?
The Flow Solutions Workshop is based on the Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework. TOC is a management approach created by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, author of The Goal, one of the best-selling business books of all time.
The core idea is simple: It’s all about FOCUS and alignment!
Every operation, no matter how complex, has one major constraint that limits its ability to produce more.
Most improvement efforts spread attention across the entire operation. TOC takes a different approach. It asks leaders to answer three questions:
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What to change? Out of everything that could be improved, what is the one thing that, if addressed, would move the whole system forward?
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What to change to? What does the improved state look like, and what specific changes will create it?
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How to cause the change? What is the practical plan to move from where you are to where you need to be?
These three questions sound simple. They are not. And answering them wrong is more expensive than not answering them at all, because you end up investing time, energy, and money in changes that don't move the needle.
How is this different from what we're already doing?
TOC is different because it starts with that question. Before asking "how do we improve?" it asks "what is the one thing limiting our throughput right now?" That constraint, and only that constraint, determines how much your operation can produce, deliver, and sell. Improvements anywhere else are real, but they don't translate into more revenue or better delivery until the constraint is addressed.
This does not mean you should stop your other initiatives. It means that once you know where the constraint is, those initiatives become sharper. You can aim them at the right place, in the right sequence, with the full weight of your team behind them.
For companies in the middle of an ERP implementation, the same principle applies. An ERP is a powerful tool. But if it's implemented without understanding where the constraint is, it often automates the existing chaos rather than resolving it. TOC helps you understand what the system needs before you configure the system to deliver it.
If your company has invested in Lean, Six Sigma, or other improvement programs, those investments are not wasted. Lean’s focus on removing waste is essential. Six Sigma’s focus on reducing variation is valuable. But when these techniques are guided by the Theory of Constraints framework, results shift from local to global—and from incremental to substantial.
“I've been to a lot of lean manufacturing, Six Sigma kind of training, and I thought it was going to be a lot of that. In lean Six Sigma, you're trying to eliminate bottlenecks and constraints, and here we're learning quite the opposite in how to exploit that constraint. That was very new for me, and the hands-on exercises, which I really enjoyed, really helped bring it home.
Some of these trainings you go to, and it's just a sell to the next thing, and that was not this. You walk away with day one actionable items that will make your business better. We got to actually hem in on where the actual problems are, where the constraints were, and where we can actually make a difference, and so I think we heard each other in ways that we hadn't before.
It opened a better, more focused dialogue than I think we've ever had.”
David Sanchez - Director, Continuous Improvement, UEM
Machine Shop, San Antonio, TX - Low Volume/High Mix Environment
Before:
Believed the problem was not enough machines. The plan was to purchase additional CNCs.
After
Realized they had enough machines. The real issue was that operators were running 3 to 5 machines at once, causing machines to sit idle while operators retrieved materials, searched for the next job, and handled tasks that should have been staged in advance. The focus shifted from buying equipment to keeping machines running, by stopping operator multitasking and ensuring the next job was ready before the current one finished.
Machine Shop, San Antonio, TX - High Volume/Low Mix
Before:
Believed that running bigger batches was the way to increase efficiency.
After
Identified the constraint as setups. The more setups they could complete, the more orders could flow through the system. They started measuring everything that slowed setups down, and focused on full kitting for the next job so the team could finish one setup and move directly into the next without delay.
Fabrication Shop, Oil & Gas, TX - $10M Revenue, 40 Employees
Before:
Believed the problem was in production and that the team needed to focus on improving production throughput.
After
Realized the constraint was in the front office. Orders were arriving on the production floor incomplete, creating hours of back-and-forth to clarify requirements. By implementing a full kitting process at order entry, ensuring every detail was captured before work was released, they saved significant time on the back end and reduced rework and delays in production.
Automation Equipment Manufacturer, Southwest, FL - Project-based Organization
Before:
Believed the problem was with the market and with unresponsive customers who caused delays by not providing the right specifications.
After
Realized the delays were internal. Three issues were driving project overruns: teams were heavily multitasking across too many active projects, there was no gating process to ensure engineers and assemblers received complete information before starting, and the company was highly dependent on a small number of expert engineers for nearly every decision. The solution started with reducing active WIP, building a process to collect the right information from customers upfront, and protecting the experts' time.
Food Manufacturer, Indianapolis, IN - High Mix/Low Volume Bottling Company
Before:
Believed that increasing OEE was the main goal and wanted to invest in new equipment because current equipment was aging.
After
Realized the bottleneck was not the equipment. Orders were routinely missing one or two ingredients, causing the manufacturing floor to fill up with incomplete orders that couldn't move. This triggered constant expediting of materials and created chaos. The focus shifted to building a full kitting process that ensured all ingredients were staged for the following week's production, which in turn forced better inventory management across the operation.
Print Shop, Reno, NV - High Mix, Quick Turnaround Environment
Before:
Believed the problem was inconsistent orders and a lack of standard procedures.
After
Identified the constraint in the bindery department and realized they were running a high-WIP push system that overwhelmed it. The solution was to control the release of orders and only release work at the rate the bindery could produce, rather than pushing everything in as fast as possible.
How It Works
The program is two in-person workshop days, held several weeks apart, with virtual sessions in between.
Day 1: Your team learns the TOC framework, identifies your constraint, and begins designing a solution to boost performance for your specific environment.
Between sessions: Your team completes targeted homework, applies initial concepts, and works with a Goldratt consultant in a dedicated virtual session.
Day 2: Your team presents progress, learns advanced flow tools for production, project, and supply chain environments, and builds a proof-of-concept implementation plan.
After the workshop: An optional on-site session to customize the approach and build a full implementation roadmap.
Who Attends?
This workshop is built for teams, not individuals. The companies that get the most from it send a cross-functional group that includes the people who own the constraint and the people who influence how work flows to and from it.
Common roles we see in the room: Presidents and GMs. VPs and Directors of Operations. Engineering Managers. Plant Managers. Supply Chain Leaders. CI and OPEX Leaders. Sales Directors.
The most important attendee is the person who can say yes to changing how work is prioritized and released. If that person is in the room, the workshop becomes an implementation launchpad. If they're not, it becomes an education event.
Executive & Senior Leaders
Sales Directors
Project/Ops Managers
Director / VP of Ops
Supply Chain Managers
Engineering Teams
Real Results
These are published results from companies that completed the program and continued implementing.
ACT Test Panels:
On-time delivery improved 10%. Overtime dropped 25%. Revenue and net income grew by double digits. Their VP of Operations said he had never seen such a dramatic improvement in such a short time, across decades of large-scale improvement work.
Teton Machine Company:
Four straight months of above-average sales, with June setting an all-time record. On-time delivery moved from the high 70s to 90%. Late orders decreased 57%. Constraint machine output hours up 33%.
Reno Type:
Simplified 12 workflows (each with 6 to 17 steps) down to 2 workflows with 4 steps each. Throughput increased immediately.
FAMCO:
Improved on-time delivery, operational efficiency, and product availability by reducing multitasking, implementing full-kit readiness, and better managing order flow through the factory.
