Join Richard Zultner for a TOCICO Academic Spotlight featuring his paper, The Eras Tour of TOC: Constraint Thinking Before, During, and After Eli Goldratt.

This session traces constraint thinking across three eras: the classical era, represented by Justus von Liebig; the traditional TOC era, shaped by Eli Goldratt; and an emerging modern era in which TOC-based thinkers are combining established constraint principles with new approaches.

Richard will introduce the paper’s “Parable of Two Chains”: one chain representing the traditional TOC focus on the weakest link, and a second representing the strongest links—the system’s greatest leverage points. The session will explore the idea of using both perspectives together: improving what limits performance while also capitalizing on what the system does exceptionally well.

The discussion will also consider why this combined approach may be especially useful when organizations face demand constraints and other challenges that are not solved solely by increasing internal capacity.