This paper shows the reason why a new business strategy is evolving based on four independent strategies: Theory of Constraints, Blue Ocean, Lean and Six Sigma. The paper shows also a bird’s eye view of the TBLS strategy, how it works and what fundamentally is.

1. The TBLS strategy golden circle.
Ricardo Anselmo de Castro
ricardo.anselmo.castro@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Abstract
This paper shows the reason why a new business
strategy is evolving based on four independent
strategies: Theory of Constraints, Blue Ocean,
Lean and Six Sigma. The paper shows also a bird’s
eye view of the TBLS strategy, how it works and
what fundamentally is.
Key-words: TBLS, theory of constraints, blue
ocean, lean and six sigma
Why?
The reason for creating the TBLS business strategy
is grounded in a belief and a parallelism I
established with Physics. Since mid of last century
physicists struggle for a unifying theory. One single
theory that could explain the beginning of the
Universe or why the atom or the electron has this or
that weight. The pillars of modern Physics are
essentially two: General Relativity Theory and
Quantum Mechanics. Sadly, these two great
theories are applied only in specific contexts. One
deals nicely with big things such as stars and
planets. The other deals nicely with atoms and
electrons. But when it comes to explain
singularities as the Big Bang or black holes
something is missing. This implies that there must
be something imprecise in these theories “lines of
coding”. At present, the strongest candidate for that
unifying theory is the Superstring Theory. We
should remember ourselves that science is all about
increasing our knowledge of how the Universe
works because that will put us in a better position –
at least that’s our belief.
Analogously, also since mid of last century
management has been evolving exponentially.
Several schools of thought have emerged decade
after decade to improve the business world. By
now, it’s common sense that a company in order to
thrive must improve continuously. That’s what
Darwin’s Theory Evolution of Spices claims.
From all the schools of thought I’d like to underline
part of those that had their origin in quality
movements such as TQM – Total Quality
Management – developed essentially by Deming,
Juran or Crosby since the 1950s. As a matter of
fact, the first two headed off to Japan in order to
helping its reconstruction after World War II
(maybe because America didn’t believe in their
theories). The truth is that many of these gurus’
ideas resonated in the Japanese industry to an extent
that it isn’t difficult to identify a similar way of
thinking we find nowadays in Toyota and in its
great TPS – Toyota Production System. In western
world, as we all know, we use the term Lean. With
a bit of sarcasm, I must say that it would be far
from elegant if companies claimed publicly that
their school of though was TPS. In 1988, the word
Lean came to solve the problem.
On the other hand, it’s also known that many of the
Six Sigma ideas are coming from TQM. It’s true
though that Six Sigma has a higher focus in bottom
line results, has its own improvement methodology
or has a better strategy. Nevertheless, it’s no harm
to admit that a great set of quality tools exist since
1920s and some of them were already applied in
agriculture! If it’s possible to find a common
denominator between Lean and Six Sigma (hence
why the two merged in the year 2000), Theory of
Constraints is a different school of thought which
was developed in the late 80s by an Israeli physicist
Eli Goldratt. Without entering in details, and
despite a controversy title, his idea is maybe the
most powerful in the realm of business. The Theory
claims that if there’s nothing to stop business
performance one should see an infinite profit. We
know that such scenario is unreal hence, in a
tautology statement one can claim that there’s a
constraint limiting its performance. As a
consequence, a big part of the Theory is logically
devoted to exploring better the constraint. Finally,
the Blue Ocean strategy was condensed in the
famous book, written at the beginning of this
century, by two well known professors from Insead.
Any classical strategy is mainly focused on what
competitors are doing or seeking for higher market
share. The Blue Ocean strategy has a different
school of thought. The idea is to create value
innovation in a way that generates a whole new
market yet to be explored. In other words, it tries to
catch non-customers.
All of this is to say that each and every one of them
has its own advantages and disadvantages. My
intention is not to make a thorough list of pros and
cons of each. Suffice is to say that their goal is to
make more money through customer satisfaction.
Each strategy has its raison-d’être, given the lived
specific contexts. For instance, the electronic
industry presents great challenges in regards to
quality. I’m certain that it was this particular
context which forced Mikel Harry thinking
differently by developing the Six Sigma DMAIC
methodology in order to eliminate quality problems.
A TOC or Lean strategy would have not produced
the same results. Take another example: the

2. particular conditions that Japan was facing after the
war. It would be a kamikaze thinking to follow the
mass production advocated by General Motors
because the market was much smaller and different.
Quickly enough, Ohno, the father of TPS,
envisioned small customized batches, flexible
production and high quality – that is, the Lean
pillars.
What works well in a company, may not work in
some other. Some will benefit more from a Lean
approach while others will find Blue Ocean the way
to go... and time will tell what would have been the
best course of action. The important thing is that a
company should be ready to use what brings higher
returns, now! There are too many case studies of
unsuccessful companies that used individually any
of these four strategies. But there are case studies of
companies that used one of these four strategies
with great success as well. At least, for a certain
period of time. Looks like each has its own arena
and, to a certain extent, will never prove its value in
certain domains or moments in time. Thus, I believe
that in order to attain a sustainable business (my
excuses for this eroded word) we must use the four
strategies in different moments in time, carried out
with method and structure. TBLS has this though at
its birth, but it’s much more than the linear sum of
the “big four”. The idea is not to through them into
the same bag, rather integrate them logically.
Reminding ourselves the Superstring Theory, TBLS
unifies these four schools of thought in one. For
that accomplishment we must understand when
each strategy is put
into practice.
A legitimate
question though is
why this specific
group of strategies
T + B + L + S? If
this was so crystal
clear others would
have already
thought about it.
Maybe. I can only
reinforce that their
purpose is well
defined and fit as a
glove in a single
strategy – the
TBLS. For
instance, the main
virtue of TOC is to
have a focusing
mechanism that
tells us where the
company’s efforts should delve in order to create
maximum return. Lean is wonderful to design
horizontal processes which are essential to perceive
the business through the lens of customers. It
creates faster processes and eliminates waste. Six
Sigma is the way to dramatically improve the
products and services’ quality. Please note that
these three always have been oriented to existent
markets. In contrast, Blue Ocean is focused on a
marketing idea of value innovation towards non-
customers. In concise terms this is how one can
extract synergies of these strategies so that key
problems can be addressed effectively and
efficiently.
I believe that the best companies in the world will
use TBLS as their own future. We’re still far away
of attaining this level of maturity, especially in
Portugal. Have you ever wondered how many
companies TRULY use lean thinking, or any other?
And the answer is: few. And how many companies
integrate at least two of these strategies? Again:
Too many…few. What about mingling three of
them? I know no company of this kind in Portugal.
And four? Maybe in my dreams. Not even planetary
speaking. At least for now. As I emphasized, the
TBLS purpose is to evoke the strengths of each at
the right moment. TBLS offers us a holistic
integrated approach of how companies should be
managed, if you will. With no surprise, the odds of
achieving unprecedented competitive edge should
be very real. Still, it’s usual to testify and even
understandable that companies exposed to this field
TBLS Strategy – Bird’s Eye View
Elevate the
constraint
Define the goal
and its metrics
Define the
system
Identify the
constraint
Explore
the constraint
Subordinate
the constraint
TOC
Integrate the
implementation
into the strategy
BLUE OCEAN
Design
the strategy
Identify the
market new
frontiers
Turn the
strategy viable
LEAN
Mapping the
value stream
Identify what is
value to the
customer
Create flow
in the value
stream
Fighting
for perfection
Implement a
pull system
Measure
the process
Define the
problem
or process
Analyse
the process
Control
the process
Improve
the process
DFLSS
Characterize the
new product
r process
Identify what is
value to the
customer
Optimize the
new product
or process
Validate the
new produto
or process
SIX SIGMA

3. of knowledge will ask: are there any practical
examples? Could you show me some evidence of
companies that adopted TBLS? A question coming
from who wants to be a leader in his industry! A
leader doesn’t assess where others are and then
moves forward. A leader leads. He shows the way,
takes risks rationally and, if things go according to
plan people will follow.
How?
Following the bird’s eye in the previous page, one
has to identify the constraint first and, only then
decide which «candidate» is better positioned to
solve the problem. TBLS starts off with TOC
because before addressing any question one has
first to describe the system, its goal and its
measuring system. However, the way the constraint
is explored is dependent on problem’s nature. For
example, if the constraint is in the market, maybe a
Blue Ocean strategy is the best answer. Hence why
the figure suggests an opening mechanism to
choose the best solution. Once the constraint is
explored, we carry on with the TOC approach until
a loop is made. This is the way of a never-ending
continuous and breakthrough improvement cycle.
In regards to the how, the core idea of this paper
lies in the fact that TBLS is the first strategy that
unifies these “big four” and, in addition, sets them
in parallel, not sequentially as some may defend.
There’s no reason to (and some of the times doesn’t
work), for example, applying first Lean and then
Six Sigma. Let’s say that the sequential “static”
approach seen in web pages refers to a particular
case of the scheme shown. In opposite, TBLS has a
broader applicability and a higher probability of
success.
But that’s not the end of the story. We also must
turn explicit the chain of ideas and events up to the
moment that we reach the “explore the constraint”
phase. That blueprint is described in the paper
“How to implement the TBLS strategy?”.
What?
TBLS IS NOT a business strategy where the goal is
to solve 99% of company’s problems, though it has
the tools that enable it. In turn, TBLS IS a strategy
that leverages your business in 99% of the time.
CONCLUSION
At present there is sufficient evidence to state that
any of the four strategies works. Still, none of them
works in every context, every time they are called
upon. On one side we can claim that unsuccessful
implementations are due to top management lack of
commitment and leadership but on the other side
it’s also undeniable that the nature of the problem
we’re trying to solve dictates the strategy to be
used. The TBLS business strategy works best than
any of these strategies individually. Not only its
high reliability is due to the unification of the “big
four” schools of thought in one, but also given the
fact that provides a unique blueprint for its correct
implementation.
References
[1] Castro, Ricardo A. (2014) Doubting. Leanpub.