The Goal: a process of Ongoing Improvement

DW: You said you had 300 employees before and now you’re at 280. Is
that the fault of a bad business climate or a benefit of being more
efficient?
CM: It’s both. The business climate has not been healthy. But at the same
time, some of the changes we made freed up capacity, and as people quit we
didn’t replace them, which built profitability. No layoffs. We just didn’t
replace everyone who left. And we moved individuals around.
DW: Is the constraint still in the presses?
CM: Well, it shifted to the bindery.
DW: What about market constraints?
CM: Yeah, we have more capacity than the market’s willing to give. That’s
an issue. I think we’re prepared to meet the market when and if it comes
back. And in order to do that we have to do three things. We have to fulfill
the requirements of speed and delivery. We have to stay profitable to
maintain our equipment and provide the quality that customers expect from
us. And then, three, we have to have employees who are participating fully,

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who want to come to work every day, and who understand why they’re here
and why they’re doing what they’re doing. TOC has allowed us to do all
three.
Interview with Eli Goldratt continued . . .
DW: I’m back to my previous question. How come most readers of 
The
Goal
 do not rush to implement TOC?
EG: TOC is built on the realization that every complex environment/ system
is based on inherent simplicity and the best way to manage, control and
improve the system is by capitalizing on this inherent simplicity. That’s why
the constraints are the leverage points. That’s why the five focusing steps are
so powerful. But, what we have to bear in mind is that such an approach is a
major paradigm shift. And people will do almost anything before they will
shift their paradigm.
From observation, I can tell you that readers of 
The Goal
proceed to
implement it mainly when three conditions are met. First, there is a real
pressure to improve. But that by itself is far from being enough. The second
condition is that it is obvious to them that there is no remedy within their
existing paradigm. In other words, they had already tried everything else.
And the third condition is that something helped them to do the first step.
This something might be a “how to” book, like 
Production The TOC Way
, a
course, a simulator, or a consultant.