APPLYING THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS-THINKING PROCESSES IN LOGISTICS INDUSTRY: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Maritime transport is one of the most important elements of the logistics sector and its importance is increasing day by day in our globalizing world. As a result of companies moving their trades to international dimensions, the increasing global transportation demand encourages the continuous development and growth of maritime transport. In this study, Theory of Constraints -Thinking Processes (TOC-TP) were applied to container terminal process which is one of the most important nodes of maritime transport.TP is an approach that aims to systematically reveal any limitations that prevent the existing system from functioning more efficiently, and to remove these limitations by generating reasonable and logical solutions.TP uses the techniques of Current Reality Tree, Evaporating Cloud, Future Reality Tree, Prerequisite Tree and Transitional Tree to accomplish these goals. It was aimed to increase the efficiency of container terminal processes by applying TOC-TP. For this purpose, problems were identified by analyzing the existing situation with the Current Reality Tree technique first, and then the Evaporating Cloud technique was used to define injections for removing the problems called undesired effects. The new situation that is expected to be achieved by applying the injections defined for solution of the problems was shown by using Future Reality Tree technique. Finally, the application prescription of the recommended injections to remove the root problems detected in the container terminal processes of the port operation was presented using Transition Tree technique.