ABSTRACT
Finding a physical constraint may be as easy as walking out onto the shop floor and looking for those resources where the Inventory is piled up or asking the expediters where they spend most of their time trying to get parts. However, for many companies it is not quite that easy. Trying to identify the constraint or constraints as well as the relationships between resources in a dynamic environment can be very confusing. Erroneous materials management strategies can cause situations where conditions of resource overload physically move from resource to resource without any logical explanation. Many technical paradigms in manufacturing systems technology such as rough-cut capacity planning, material requirements planning and capacity requirements planning make it virtually impossible to identify physical limitations. It is extremely important that these problems be overcome.
