A concept of organizing the TOC knowledge in a comprehensive logical diagram of TOC entities that participate in the analysis of the current reality and the construction or usage of the solution to create an improved future reality.

The U-shape was established to organize, store and easily retrieve the TOC knowledge. The U-shape is used for the generic TOC solutions such as: MTO, MTA, CCPM, and Distribution. It is also used for developing marketing offers. The U-shape concept is valid for developing and understanding of any solution.

The U-shape can be used to demonstrate the questions of improvement:

• why change,
• what to change,
• what to change to,
• how to cause the change, and
• how to sustain the change.

Source: Oded Cohen and Jelena Fedurko, Theory of Constraints Fundamentals, 2012