The Goal: a process of Ongoing Improvement

DW: I understand that everybody in your company has read 
The Goal
.
CM: We made it mandatory reading for all our employees.
DW: Top to bottom?
CM: Yes.
DW: So what was the problem you were trying to correct with the help
of 
The Goal
CM: Our main problem was with on-time delivery. We also had problems
with a department-type mentality at the company. People had a hard time
looking beyond their departmental responsibilities. Everybody was functional
in thought.
DW: Were you able to turn things around?
CM: Yes. Before we started, we were at around a 70% on-time delivery.

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After implementing the TOC policies and practices, we got up to around
95%.
DW: Your first step was to have everyone read 
The Goal
?
CM: Yes, that was the first step. The next step was to bring in a TOC
consultant. We put 30 people through a three-day training course on Theory
of Constraints. From there the leadership group identified what we thought
was the constraint and began to follow the Five Steps.
DW: What was the constraint you identified?
CM: In our business we have two areas of major investment. One is in the
press room and one is in the bindery. We basically settled on the press room
as the constraint and began to manage the business with that in mind. As we
focused on the constraint and began to subordinate everything else to that, we
began to break down departmental barriers. It took a lot of education and
training. We developed our own internal course for employees. Basically we
took the three-day course, pared it down to about an hour, and had every
employee go through that. The course dealt with the major concepts of
constraint management, subordination, flowing work, and removing localized
thought processes.