TOC Five Focusing Steps
Updated 2026-08-13
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The five focusing steps are the operational core of the theory of constraints: identify the system's constraint, decide how to exploit it, subordinate every other decision to that choice, elevate the constraint's capacity, and return to the first step while guarding against inertia. The core claim is that improvement becomes systematic when effort is always aimed at the current constraint rather than at whatever stage appears inefficient. The qualification is that the fifth step matters as much as the others, since old habits persist and can recreate the constraint that was just relieved.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Sequence check: work the five steps in order rather than jumping to capacity expansion. - Subordination test: verify that other stages are paced to the constraint, not to their own capacity. - Inertia guard: after breaking a constraint, look for the rules that assumed it still existed.
Anchor fast decisions
Exploiting the constraint means removing the waste that keeps it from running at full capacity, which costs little and yields immediate throughput. Subordination prevents upstream stages from building inventory that the constraint cannot process, and elevation adds capacity only after the cheaper steps are exhausted. Because relieving one constraint exposes another, the sequence repeats, and inertia is the main risk since policies built around the old constraint outlive it.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraintsverified
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