International Journal of Business Innovation and Research

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of combining theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) and theory of constraints (TOC) to improve system performance. Several researchers have studied the synergy between TOC and TRIZ tools with a focus on thinking process of TOC. They have not proposed any specific integrated framework to use TOC systematic approach which consists of five focusing steps and TRIZ inventive approach which consist of four steps. This paper proposes an integrated TOC/TRIZ framework and applies this framework to an investment casting company to improve its pattern-making operation. Applying the proposed framework in the case resulted in achieving much benefit from emphasising on global improvement guided by the TOC concept; managers were able to select a continuous improvement project that had greater impact on bottom-line performance. On the other hand, TRIZ provided tools to stimulate idea generation and inject creativity in improving programme.