constraintmanagement

Constraint management is the systematic process of identifying and addressing factors that limit a system’s performance. A constraint is any resource, policy, or external condition that prevents a system from achieving higher throughput or efficiency. Effective constraint management aims to raise overall capacity by focusing attention on the limiting element and aligning the rest of the system to support it.

The concept is central to the Theory of Constraints (TOC), popularized by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. TOC holds that a chain’s throughput is constrained by its weakest link, the bottleneck. Managers typically follow a sequence known as the five focusing steps: identify the constraint, exploit it by making the best possible use of current capacity, subordinate other decisions to the constraint, elevate the constraint to increase capacity, and reassess to find the next constraint. Key performance measures in this approach include throughput, inventory, and operating expense.

Constraint management applies across multiple domains. In manufacturing and supply chain contexts, it guides production scheduling, capacity planning, and lead-time reduction. In software and information technology, constraints can be architectural or policy-based limits, and constraint programming is used to solve problems of resource allocation and scheduling by modeling all restrictions explicitly. In project management, constraints on scope, time, and budget shape planning, risk management, and trade-offs. Across these areas, the practice emphasizes continuous monitoring, gradual improvement, and the adaptive reallocation of resources as constraints shift with demand, process changes, or external factors.