TOC Five Focusing Steps

What it is and when to use it

Most operations spread improvement effort evenly across every station, which feels fair and produces almost no change in total output, because only one point in the system is actually limiting it. Theory of Constraints starts by identifying that one constraint, then works through five steps in order: exploit it without spending capital, subordinate every other step to its pace, elevate it with investment only once exploitation is exhausted, and repeat — because once a constraint breaks, the next one is already waiting somewhere else. Skipping straight to “elevate” (buy more capacity) before exploiting what's already there is the most common way to spend money on a problem that free scheduling changes would have fixed.

What goes on the sheet

1. System/value stream being analyzed, and its current total output or throughput
2. Constraint identification: the step or resource limiting the whole system, with the data that proves it (not the loudest complaint)
3. Exploit actions: how to get maximum output from the constraint without capital spend (protect it from starvation/blocking, eliminate unnecessary setup on it)
4. Subordinate actions: how every other step adjusts its pace to the constraint, even if that means visible idle time elsewhere
5. Elevate options considered, only after exploitation is exhausted, with cost and expected throughput gain
6. Result: measured throughput before vs. after, on the same basis
7. Next constraint identified after this one is broken, so the cycle repeats instead of stopping

In a business like yours

• Car wash: drying is the bottleneck, so speeding up the wash only makes the line longer.
• Restaurant: the grill limits covers per hour, so the rest of the kitchen works to its pace.
• Contractor: the permit step caps jobs per month; hiring more crews does not help yet.

Illustrative examples, not client cases.