The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

A mentor requested that I Order and Read this book, and was excited when I received it in the mail….. But, despite buying a “Good” copy of the book, the front cover has a nasty yellow substance on it, the pages are wrinkled, the book looks “dirty” and unkempt. Not really happy with the purchase, even with just a $5 price tag.

A fun way to learn about manufacturing methodologies and work life balance. Altogether a fun story!

Whether you are a student of science, a project manager or working in manufacturing organizations or IT - the Theory of Constraints has its application in every field. The style is engaging and although it's a bit dated in terms of technology (telephone slips?), the underlying business ideas of increasing efficiency/effectiveness and the challenges most managers feel in balancing personal and work commitments are timeless.

Eliyahu Goldratt's "The Goal" is an entertaining novel and at the same time a thought provoking business book. The story is about a plant manager, Alex Rogo, whose plant and marriage are going downhill. He finds himself in the unenviable position of having ninety days in which to save his plant. A fortuitous meeting with an old acquaintance, Jonah, introduces him to the Theory of Constrains (TOC). He uses this new way of thinking to ... TOC postulates that for an organization to have an ongoing process of improvement, it needs to answer three fundamental questions: 1. What to change? 2. To what to change? 3. How to cause the change? The goal is to make (more) money, which is done by the following: 1. Increase Throughput 2. Reduce Inventory 3. Reduce Operating Expense Goldratt defines throughput (T) as the rate at which the system generates money through sales. He also defines inventory (I) as everything the system invests in that it intends to sell. Operating expense (OE) is defined as all the money the system spends in order to convert inventory into throughput. The author does an excellent job explaining his concepts, especially how to work with constraints and bottlenecks (processes in a chain of processes, such that their limited capacity reduces the capacity of the whole chain). He makes the reader empathize with Alex Rogo and his family and team. Don't be surprised if you find yourself cheering for Alex to succeed. The importance and benefits of focusing on the activities that are constraints are clearly described with several examples in "The Goal". One example from the book is the one in which Alex takes his son and a group of Boy Scouts out on a hiking expedition. Here Alex faces a constraint in the form of the slowest boy, Herbie. Alex gets to apply two of the principles Jonah talked to him about - "dependent events" (events in which the output of one event influences the input to another event) and "statistical fluctuations" (common cause variations in output quantity or quality). He realizes that in a chain of dependent processes, statistical fluctuations can occur at any step. These result in time lags between the processes that accumulate and grow in size further down the chain. This leads to the performance of the system becoming worse than the average capacity of the constraint. It is interesting to note that TOC practitioners often refer to TOC concepts in terms of references from this book. For example, a constraint is often called a Herbie. The Goldratt Institute (goldratt dot com) has illustrated TOC Analysis in the form of five steps used as a foundation upon which solutions are built: 1. Identify the constraint 2. Decide how to exploit the constraint 3. Subordinate and synchronize everything else to the above decisions 4. Elevate the performance of the constraint 5. If, in any of the above steps the constraint has shifted, go back to Step 1 Although this book is excellent in the context of Operations, the "Goal"

In "The Goal," Eliyahu Goldratt has written what has to be one of the most-read business books in existance. It's an introduction to his "Theory of Constraints" (TOC), but it's presented in a radically different form than the traditional business book. Most business books are either substantial, yet dry, text books or more engaging, but less substantive, anecdote-filled treatises. "The Goal" is a novel. About a Plant Manager. Who learns about the Theory of Constraints. While saving his plant. Sounds electrifying, huh?My first reaction when I heard about it was: "A novel about a plant manager? And people actually paid money and read this?" Part of me wanted to read it for the sheer novelty of it. And part of me was interested in some of the buzz I'd heard about TOC. And here's the weird part; the book actually works. It's engaging, particularly if you've ever worked in or around a plant (and know how intimately your personal success is tied to the success of nebulous factors that no one seems to understand). It gradually introduces you to the concepts of TOC in a way that gives you a decent handle on them without mining them to the point of mind-numbing boredom.What is TOC? Well, without re-writing the book here, it's about changing the focus of the organization to understand that the overall flow of work is more important to the success of the organization than the contribution of single parts. That is, managing the manufacturing capacity of the process is more important than ensuring that each manufacturing machine is producing at optimal capacity. In this sense, it's a lot like mathematical optimization, but TOC presents this in a fashion that's much more intuitive (it almost kills me to say that, as I spent a lot of my life gathering math degrees). If you're interested, Goldratt explains all of this in a much shorter book, The Theory of Constraints; however, it's much less interesting than The Goal. And as it basically covers the same information, I'd recommend The Goal before The Theory of Constraints.There are no explosions. No one dies, and there are no conspiracies. At the end of the story, the hero (Alex Roge) doesn't end up in a nail-biting shootout with the enemy (although that might be a nice touch). It's a simple manufacturing plant in a company town that's doomed to extinction (the town and the plant), if things don't improve and improve quickly. And you find yourself pulling for Alex and his team as they honestly try to save the company and the town.As a novelist, Goldratt will certainly never be mentioned in the same breath as Hemingway or Steinbeck. But don't sell the book short; it communicates a fundamentally different business point of view in a quick and effective fashion. And it does it in a way that has the reader anticipating the next development, rather than having to force themselves to slog from chapter to chapter. In the end, I'm glad I read it, and I recommend it highly.Now if he could just turn Alex into an action her

First, I would commend Eliyahu M. Goldratt for getting "the Goal" right. In this age of political correctness and "good to the community," this is the only management book that states the goal of businesses is to make money. Bravo!Secondly, as a process guy, I would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about how to make processes better. The author does this in a special way, by relating in ongoing improvement in terms of the aforementioned goal. Goldratt's relates his process "theory of constraints" and "bottlenecks" in in a holistic way to the overall running of a business. Again, this is the only place I have seen this idea as well articulated and connected to strategic business goals.Finally, I would recommend this book since it presents the information in one of the best ways, through a story. If you enjoyed Blanchard's "One Minute Manager," Johnson's "Who Moved My Cheese," or Cox's "Zapp!" this might be a good book for you. I will warn you though, this book is considerably thicker and heavier reading than the above three books. It still makes for an easy read nonetheless! There is also the side story of Alex Rogo's deteriorating relationship with his wife to keep the story going. Although not critical to the main points of the book, it does make for an interesting read while not bogging down the main idea.In summary, this is an insightful, interesting book about the real nature of business and improving processes. I definitely recommend it for all the reasons stated above. And, since there is a definite, warm "human side" to the story, it is a book that would count as much toward pleasure reading as it would a serious book about business. A must for the boardroom table as well as the bedside nightstand!

I've read every book Eli Goldratt has written and am waiting for his newest. This is not a boring business processes book--it is one you will learn from and it is written in a way you will remember it like a good movie. Believe it or not, there are times when you must create a constraint in order to make your business more profitable--even if that means slowing down productivity in some areas while focusing on others. This guy is nuts you say--but this book will make you believe it. I was skeptical at first--but one year later I was speaking at a national convention with six other speakers presenting how we used the knowledge to turn the Titanic. Continuing to use this knowledge lead to corporate awards, to include a close finish for the Vice President Al Gore Award, for making awesome changes and delivering results no one else in the 85 unit company could do--the company CEO said "we were the model". I attribute a majority of the success to "The Goal" and the rest of the credit goes to my supervisors who also read "The Goal". It will change the way you think.