Continuous improvement in a captive shop environment

Summary form only given as follows. This paper documents a process of ongoing, continuous improvement within a captive shop environment using the theory of constraints (TOC). Six cycles of finding and eliminating the constraint to improvement are discussed. The application of the "thinking processes" provided a clear, long lasting focus for Boeing's Printed Circuit Board Center. The improvements collectively contributed to a greater than one hundred and fifty percent increase in throughput, a seventy five percent reduction in lead-time, a sixty percent reduction in work-in-process, and an on-time delivery performance approaching one hundred percent.