Ford Taurus bumper paint line constraint

Second positive ToC example. $200M UV-cure paint line; polypropylene-oxide bumper adhesion problem; throughput controlled by the one paint line regardless of injection-molder capacity.

Another example: I had a Ford student at a Ford plant once, and he was looking at painting of the next generation of Ford Taurus bumper. It was going to be polypropylene oxide as the polymer — very difficult to get adhesion, and he was going to have to work that out. In that plant where they were making bumpers and painting them — automotive paint line, ultraviolet curing of the paint — the paint line was a $200 million investment. They only had one of them. You could have all the injection molders for bumpers, and you could have all the things that might process the plastic surface, but you still had to manage that paint line because that controlled the throughput. So these are two examples where theory of constraints works. But there are many other examples like the F-150 line where theory of constraints doesn't work.