EM 534 Contemporary Topics in Constraints Management

Eli Goldratt says, "a Nice and very needed initiative."

Back to Dr. James R. Holt's Home Page
Email: jholt@wsu.edu
Home Office Phone: 503-669-6676
WSU Engineering Management Department.

 Class Syllabus

Next Course Offering Fall 2008!

For Fall 2008, the focus will be: Holistic TOC! (sufficient to prepare the TOCICO Business Strategy Case) and Implementing TOC (a detailed study of level 5 of the S&T Trees). We will also review and analyse Eli Goldratt's New Book,, Inherent Simplicity. The Fall 2008 will be taught over Centra from 4:15 PM to 6:30 PM on Thursday Evenings, August 28-December 11, 2008.

On-Line Internet Class: Live lectures are once a week in the evenings from the End of August to Mid December 2008.

Fall 2008 is the fifth offering of EM 534 Contemporary Topics in Constraints Management . Those you participated previously may enroll in this course and will find a wide variety of new material.

This course is for students who already know the Goldratt Thinking Processes and the Theory of Constraints Proven Solutions. Students should also have tried to implement a TOC solution. This course is for those looking to renew their Thinking Process skills, to extend their understanding and to learn the newest in TOC applications. This is a follow-on course for student who have earned their Constraints Management Certificate and seek continued TOC education. However, this graduate course is open to all with an adequate level of TOC Experience (if you have not completed EM 526 Constraints Management and EM 530 Applications in Constraints Management, you will need Dr. Holt's approval to enroll).

This class will be taught to the typical distributed locations in the Washington State University network. This means, the class is delivered with live, interactive streaming video to students over the Internet at any location with a broadband connections. Students may also view archived streaming video lectures (available about 24 hours after the lecture) if the class times are not convenient. Cours materials, individual study assignments, discussion groups, homework submissions and classroom interaction will all be managed by WebCT .

Dr. Eli Goldratt asked that I post the following materials publicly so everyone can learn to create Strategic and Tactic Trees:: The Strategy and Tactics of Making TOC a Mainstream Management Tool with an example of the Strategy-Tactic of Moving TOC to the Mainstream

Dr Goldratt allowed posting these Viable Vision Strategy and Tactic Trees (to Level 4):
Rapid Reliable Response (Zycon Solution) Strategy and Tactic Tree
Project Management Strategy and Tactic Tree
Consumer Goods Strategy and Tactic Tree

 Guest Lectures: We will have several guest lectures to bring the newest and best TOC material into this course. Some of the lecturers from previous courses: 

Eli Schragenheim: Handling TDD and IDD Supply Chain Measures
Bill Dettmer: The Management Interactive Case Study Simulator (or other topic of interest)
Charlene Spoede Budd: The newest TOC Measurements
David Bergland: Triz and TOC: A Breakthrough in Creativity
Danny Walsh: Update on the Marine Corps Depot Inegrated Solution
Bob Fox (TOCC): Fast Implementations
Eli Goldratt: The Strategy and Tactic Tree.

Students registering for this Internet course must have computer capacity and communications speeds that meet or exceed the minimum hardware requirements. You can find out more about WebCT on these orientation pages.

This is a graduate class (and a tough one at that). Those wishing to enroll must qualify as graduate students. They must be able to read, write and present in English. The course schedule is quick. Students will complete a full TP analysis, write two papers, make a presentation and have other minor homework during the 15 class sessions. The class schedule is scheduled with Critical Chain; aggressive times with project buffers.

While there is no requirement for group projects in this course, good communication between class members and with the instructor is strongly recommended. This can be by email, discussion groups (asynchronous), chat room and whiteboard(synchronous), and traditional telephone and fax.

Student Presentations: Each student in EM 534 makes a class presentation. While they are all good and most excellent, here are two which are of general interest an of value. These presentations shared with the student's permission.

Andres Hurtado: Students are challenged to create an Evaporating Cloud every day. Andres took the challenge seriously and commented upon his study of the TOC Thinking Process and the impact on his life. You may find his comments insightful. Andres Hurtado's Cloud-a-Day video. 

Dr. Gary Wadhwa, an Oral Surgeon, tried to improve his clinic in upstate New York. When he found TOC, he applied the basic principles and achieved a Viable Vision in short order. In EM 534, he decided to create the plan for his second viable vision. Using Eli Goldratt's Reliable Rapid Response template, he layed out his plan in detail. His presentation includes much about his first and second viable visions with additional insights: Gary Wadhwa Presentation. Slides to accompnay the presentation: Wadhwa Presention Slides

These video stream run in RealOne. The free basic download is available in the top right hand corner of: http://www.real.com/ (the free basic RealOne Player is sufficient).

Registration:

Students registering for this course must be qualified graduate students. The enrollment cost varies from just under $1200 for instate students and those qualifying for tuition relief to around $2,800 for corporate and Internet students. Registration for this course will be controlled by our program secretary.

Engineering Management Program Secretary
Patti Elshafei
Dana 101
PO Box 642700
Pullman, WA 99164-2700
email to: pelshafei@wsu.edu
Office (509) 335-0125
Fax (509) 335-4725

New students with undergraduate or graduate degrees earned in the US, should apply by July 15, 2008.

New students with undergraduate or graduate degrees earned outside the US should apply by May 1, 2008. There is an Application and a Registration process. They must send official transcripts immediately as it takes a while longer to process the application.

Continuing or previous student may register in the normal way using DDP.

Help with Admissions: http://www.engrmgt.wsu.edu/Admissions/index.html

Help with Registration: http://www.engrmgt.wsu.edu/Registration/index.html
Special Abbreviated Registration Process for New Students: http://www.engrmgt.wsu.edu/Admissions/Accelerated.html

All student should check out their ability to receive WebCT courseware by visiting WebCT Orientation. At this site, there are links where you can give your browser a WebCT Tune-up.

You may wonder what an On-Line class is like and if you have the computer capacity to receive the course material. I'm including here links to snippits from some old archived streaming video from our EM 530 Applications in Constraints Management course. These are public links. The actual course material is offered in a secure fashion through WebCT Internet Courseware. This particular public video is older when compression technology was not as good so the image is a bit fuzzy. Our current technology is better than this streaming video. But if you can get this old clip, you will do even better with newer video streams.

Class Syllabus

Help on Preparing your Class Presentation

Book Review Necessary But Not Sufficient

Book Review Inherent Simplicity

The Delay Spiral
Countering the Delay Spiral
On Being Fast!

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Dr. Holt's EM 526 Constraints Management Home Page 

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