Engineering prof receives lifetime achievement award

Holt receives award
Holt, left, receives award in Germany.

PULLMAN, Wash. – James R. Holt, professor of engineering and technology management at Washington State University, received the lifetime achievement award at the 2013 TOCICO International Conference in Bad Nauheim, Germany.

The award goes to individuals who have a long career in demonstrating the usefulness of theory of constraints (TOC) tools and have made a significant contribution to the TOC community. TOC solves problems within a company by identifying constraints in management or operations that need to change in order to improve overall performance.

Holt played a major role in introducing TOC to U.S. Air Force logistics and maintenance depots while teaching as a faculty member at the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Air Force’s engineering and management graduate school.  

In 1994, he began introducing TOC to numerous students around the world by teaching TOC as a clinical professor in WSU’s online professional Engineering and Technology Management     http://etm.wsu.edu/     program. He went beyond teaching to develop the first graduate level TOC certificate program.

TOC HandbookHolt is an internationally known speaker about TOC and co-authored a chapter, “Theory of Constraints in Complex Organizations,” in the TOC Handbook. He served on the TOCICO board of directors and as its chair for two years. He is a member of the board of directors for the Eliyahu M. Goldratt Foundation, a philanthropic group for development of TOC knowledge.

Holt has a master’s in facilities engineering from the Air Force Institute of Engineering and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering/business administration from Texas A&M University.