Calendar of Events

DAVID UPDEGROVE is a Theory of Constraints (TOC) implementation expert, author, and teacher.  He is certified in all TOC disciplines including Production, Project Management, Supply Chain, Finance & Measures and Business Strategy.  He has 35 years’ experience in TOC-based Performance Improvement, and has led or participated in some of the most successful and enduring TOC implementations in the world.  Prior to becoming an independent TOC consultant in 2000, Mr. Updegrove spent 20 years at the Boeing Company, working as a Senior Industrial Engineer in both commercial and defense divisions.  He did his first TOC implementation at Boeing in 1988, and went on to do several factory production implementations and become an internal TOC consultant, training hundreds of Boeing engineers in the Theory of Constraints.

After Leaving Boeing, Mr. Updegrove worked as a TOC consultant for a Throughput Accounting software company, and then spent three years implementing Drum-Buffer-Rope Production and Critical Chain Project Management at several U.S. Defense Department facilities as well as many private companies.  In 2004 he became a founding member of Afinitus Group, LLC, where he continued to implement TOC in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and around the world.

In early 2010, due to repeated requests from Dr. Eli Goldratt, Mr. Updegrove joined Goldratt Consulting and worked directly with Dr. Goldratt in the U.S., Israel, India and elsewhere until his death in 2011.  He left Goldratt consulting at the beginning of 2012 to become President of Being Global Services, LLC, a Critical Chain software distributor.  At the end of 2012, Being Global Services was merged into Being Company, Ltd. of Japan, and Mr. Updegrove returned to consulting.  He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization (TOCICO).

He is internationally recognized as a leading TOC and Critical Chain Project Management expert and is the author of “The Critical Chain Implementation Handbook.” (2014) He has also recently published a book on Systems Thinking titled “Breakthrough to Clear Thinking and Innovation.” (2022)