The Goal: a process of Ongoing Improvement

DW: So this is what you do now? TOC-based consulting gigs?
SW: Yes.
DW: Do you offer TOC as one option among many, or is this your
primary approach to problem-solving?
SW: Maybe there’s a third way. If I’m invited to participate in some of the
initial meetings with the client, I may approach it differently than some of my
colleagues. They’ll come in and say: “We have this line of services, which
one do you want?” What I do is ask questions, like Jonah does in the book.
That helps me decide if there is a fit for what I do. Basically, I try to help
clients understand that if you address the core problems rather than the
symptoms so many people focus on, you can almost promise good results.
Interview with Eli Goldratt continued . . .
DW: What are the limits of TOC? Can it be applied also to service-based
organizations?
EG: Yes, but... And in our case the “but” is quite big. Let me start with the
“Yes.” Yes, any system is based on inherent simplicity, in this sense there is
no difference between a manufacturing organization and any other
organization, including service organizations. Yes, the way to capitalize on
the inherent simplicity is by following the five focusing steps; identify the
constraint, decide how to exploit it, etcetera.
The “but” revolves around the fact that it might not be a triviality to figure
out how to actually perform each of the five steps; to figure out the detailed
procedures. In 
The Goal
, I introduced the overall concept and, through the
detailed procedures for production, proved its validity. In 
It’s Not Luck, 
I’ve
explained the thinking processes needed to develop the detailed procedures to
perform each of the five steps. As teaching examples, I showed how the
thinking processes are used to develop the detailed procedures for sales of
several different cases of manufacturing organizations. So, as a result,
manufacturing organizations are not presented only with the approach and the

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concepts but also with the detailed procedures. Detailed procedures are not
available for most types of service organizations. Therefore, in order to
implement TOC in a service organization, one has to follow this generic
knowledge and first develop the specific procedures. This is, of course, a
much bigger task.