INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT - A THEORY-OF-CONSTRAINTS APPROACH

The theory of constraints (TOC) has recently gained much success in it s application to industrial and service organizations. This paper appl ies the TOC principles to the management of information technology (IT ) in the organization. The paper creates a four tiered model for the a pplication of the TOC to IT, starting with TOC's throughput-driven bus iness policy; on with the seven step resource management methodology; through the cost/utilization capital investment technique; and conclud ing with the drum-buffer-rope production activity procedure. We draw a framework and a methodology showing how IT can be more effective usin g the TOC way of management. In order to systematically explore the lo cation of the organization's constraints we adapt to the TOC a synthes is of three established management frameworks: stakeholder analysis, t he value chain and Boston Consulting Group's portfolio analysis model.