The Theory Of Constraints: A Comparative assessment

The worldwide economic reorganisation of the last decade has regularly been accompanied by appeals to concepts of lean manufacturing and flexible systems. These generally imply a scaling of productive and operating capacity to match demand and current throughput levels. The issue of how to manage scarce capacity has risen in priority both because of a constant search for greater efficiency and because of imbalances between the supply and demand of many resources. Multiple constraints have emerged throughout the Irish economy for individual firms, and for entire sectors. In “The Goal” Eli Goldratt reinvigorated traditional optimisation insights by presenting them in the repackaged form of the Theory of Constraints (Goldratt and Cox ,1993). This management best seller took the form of a thriller following the struggle of plant manager with 90 days to save his loss making operation from shutdown. In it Goldratt and Cox attack cost accounting as the “enemy number one of productivity” and instead called for a holistic process of ongoing improvement integrating techniques such as MRP, Just in Time and Statistical Process Control. This paper examines in detail the relative utility of the Theory of Constraints compared to traditional management accounting approaches to resource utilisation in aiding decisionmaking. It also considers the propagation and evolution of the Theory of Constraints and critically examines the response it has generated in the accounting and management literature. The continuing survival of cost accounting in the face of frequent assaults similar to Goldratt’s may in part be due to the ability of the discipline to adapt its practices to integrate the mandated improvements into practice and educational curricula. The paper reflects on the process by which new ideas are assimilated into the conventional management wisdom based on this example.