Application of toc for a newly developed shipbuilding industry

The development of production technologies has been very influential in promoting economic growth, inducing changes in both social life and culture. The first wave of technology was organized by the agriculture revolution 15,000 years ago, and the second wave came with the industrial revolution started in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the more recent era, a third wave has undoubtedly been triggered by the advances with development of IT (Information Technology). Moreover, IoT (Internet of Things) will now trigger major technological innovation and shape the face of the industry. But when looking over the world, stagnation of industrial growth can be locally seen in various industry domains. The Theory of Constraints (TOC) may prove useful in examining main causes and mechanism of this phenomenon, and induce some paradigm shifts in the system. But unfortunately, there is no case of applying TOC for innovating shipbuilding. In this paper, the logics of growth and stagnation pertaining to the shipbuilding industry are extracted by applying the “TOC Thinking Process,” The core dilemma restraining industrial development in that industry is clarified and resolved by this process. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the solution is verified by constructing a brief, random simulation model applied to the ship design stage in the upper-level process of shipbuilding, and the ship production stage within the lower process.