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Standing on the shoulders of giants is a metaphor which means "Using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before in order to make intellectual progress".
Before his passing on June 11, 2011, Dr. Eli Goldratt gathered a small
team together in his home in Israel to transfer knowledge and share a
process to "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants." This process will ensure
that the TOC community continues to thrive. Six steps of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: - Identify a "giant", not a chupchick. Intuition will guide you - important enough subject for you.
- Identify the enormity of the area not addressed by the giant. Reality gives the signals that so much more can be done. You are aiming for a broader, not a more confined, area than what was addressed by the giant.
- Get on the giant's shoulders. Gain the historical perspective - understand the giant's solution better than he did.
- Identify the conceptual difference between the reality that was improved so dramatically by the giant and the area untouched.
- Identify the wrong assumption.
- Conduct the full analysis to determine the core problem, solution, et.
Watch Eli Goldratt Standing on the Shoulders of Giants YouTube video by the World of TOC
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In his paper Standing on the Shoulders of Giants - Production Concepts versus Production Applications - The Hitachi Tool Engineering example, Dr. Goldratt credits Henry Ford
(founder of Ford Motor Company) and Taiichi Ohno (creator of the Toyota Production System) for their seminal work:
"The daring nature of Ford’s [assembly line] method is revealed when
one realizes that when the allotted space is full, the workers feeding
it must stop producing. Therefore, in order to achieve flow, Ford had to
abolish local efficiencies." |
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HENRY FORD
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TAIICHI OHNO
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“Ohno demonstrated that the concepts Ford introduced are not restricted to mass production of a single type of product. Even though the obstacles to apply these concepts to a less restrictive environment looked insurmountable, Ohno’s genius and tenacity proved to us, not only that it can be done but how to do it.”
"The answer was given by Ford and Ohno. Through their work they decisively proved that contrary to the common belief, striving to constantly activate all resources all the time is not a recipe for effective operations."
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This article analyzes the methodologies of Henry Ford, Taiichi Ohno, and Eliyahu Goldratt and presents explicitly the four principles of flow management according to these operations management philosophies. The differences among them are related to different instances of the same principles in different environments: Ford in his industry focusing on mass production of few (or one) products, Ohno at Toyota with the Toyota production System (TPS), and Goldratt in a wide range of production environments. The concepts are illustrated and tested in a practical case of implementation in the Hitachi Tool Engineering company. Here, we have the classic case of an unlikely successful attempt to implement a methodology (Lean), and how the Theory of Constraints (TOC) solved this issue. Finally, the limits for the solution proposed by Goldratt for operations management (DBR) are described. 
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| Click here to read TOC BoK papers which follow the six steps of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants process. |
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