The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Educational but Easy Read

Eliyahu Goldratt's "The Goal" introduces and explains Goldratt's Theory of Constraints a way that is easy to understand and relate to. The intention of this book is to make his Theory of Constraints more widely accepted by the manufacturing industry and he does this by explaining his Theory of Constraints in a fictional novel. Goldratt tactfully interweaves his thoery into an interesting story where the reader wants to continue reading to see how the story unfolds about Alex Rogo, the main character, and the problems that he encounters in his manufacturing plant.

Mr. Rogo is the manager of a plant is having problems meeting their demands and quarterly financial goals. If changes are not made and productivity of the plant is not improved, the plant is in danger of being shut down. Mr. Rogo is faced with the almost impossible task of making these changes and in a very short time frame.

In desperate need of help Mr. Rogo turns to his old college physics professor who he had recently run into for help. Johan, the physics professor, now business consultant meets with Alex and gives Alex some guidance, but does not give Alex the direct answers to his problems. In doing this Alex learns how to solve the problems himself with Johan's help and this is how the reader is introduced to the Theory of Constraints.

Through out the book the reader sees how the problems in the plant are solved with Johan's help and how new problems are developed and dealt with accordingly. The main point of the book is how to meet the "Goal" and the book does a great job of using analogies and examples of things that will help make the "Goal" more achievable.

This book is a great read for anyone that is looking to learn about manufacturing process optimization or how to make a manufacturing company more profitable. It introduces and explains how do this in a practical was that is easily understandable and enjoyable unlike may textbooks or manuals that may teach the same information. Overall I was able to learn a lot of useful knowledge from this book and I think that many manufacturing companies and schools could benefit greatly by having employees and students read this book.

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Intriguing, informative read

Although this was a required reading for me, it was a surprisingly enjoyable read. The author does a very good job to intertwine the concepts of Goldratt's Theory of Constraints while keeping the reader entertained through the novel's story. The back story was so well done that I barely realized this was an educational book. I highly recommend it for not only anyone that will be going into a manufacturing environment, but anyone going into a process improvement job that could utilize the Theory of Constraints. This book follows the journey of the main character, Alex Rogo, as he figures out what "The Goal" is and how to go about achieving it. He finds a mentor, Jonah (a representation of Goldratt), who helps him through his journey of fixing his manufacturing plant. However, while being consumed with trying to fix his plant, Alex Rogo's time is consumed in this and the book follows how this affects his marriage and family life. This was the most intriguing part of the book for myself since this aspect of the book made it seem most realistic and easy to connect to.

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A MUST READ!!

"The Goal", by Eli Goldratt, follows the life of Alex Rogo, a plant manager who is told that he will lose his job unless he turns his manufacturing plant around and get it to make money. He enlists the help of an old friend in this endeavor, who teaches and guides him toward his goal, using the Theory of Constraints. Through Alex's struggles, failures, and victories, Goldratt is able to present and define his theory in an easy to understand manner. The book reads like a novel and not like a text book. As such, the book, and with it the various aspects of Goldratt's theory, are much easier to follow and understand. This is definitely a must read.

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Great story about process improvement

This book was read as a class requirement for my statical process control class. The book is written as a novel so it's a very easy read. This is a great way to introduce yourself to Goldratt's Theory of Constraints without having to read a dry boring book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone trying to break into the field of SPC ans SQC.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Learn how to reach "The Goal"

"The Goal" written by Eliyahu Goldratt was a very interesting and intelligent book. This book has excellent topics that are directed towards engineers and engineers in management positions. The topics in this book seem easy and make you think why you didn't come up with them first. Or it could just be how the book is written and how the examples are written, to get the topic through to the audience. The main topic in the book is to learn how to reach their company's goal: to make money. On that journey to their goal the main character in the book, Al, meets a 'guru', Jonah, and learns ways to reach that goal through theory of constraints and bottlenecks. These topics are explained well and he gives good examples to understand them. I thought that this book was well written and easy to read. It was a book based on giving philosophies to the reader and to pass on the Goldratts knowledge. But, it was written like a novel instead of being like a textbook. I thought this was an effective way to get through to the audience. The story was a bit in depth but made you connect and want to read the book. I would definitely recommend this book to people in the engineering profession; and anyone that wants to learn how to improve their manufacturing process and management skills.

A Unique Blend of Knowledge and Fiction

The novel, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, manages to convey valuable knowledge regarding production processes while at the same time telling a fictional story. The unusual blend of applicable knowledge and a fictional story work surprisingly well together; not only was the novel an interesting read, but it also relayed the lessons about production processes in an interesting manner.

The main character of the novel, Alex Rogo, is the plant manager of a local production warehouse. The orders that he is responsible for are often delivered later than promised. During this time setting, many domestic companies have decided to start ordering parts from foreign companies due to the fact that they can get better deals and quicker response times. Realizing that his entire warehouse is in danger of being shut down, Rogo knows that he must find a way produce items much faster.

Throughout the novel, Rogo systematically re-evaluates what he (and many others in the production process industry) believes to be true, sometimes finding the answers in unlikely places. For example, during his son's hiking trip, he had to determine a method for keeping all of the Scouts traveling in a timely manner despite the fact that some of them move faster than others. He was then able to apply what he did on the hike to his job and was able to fix one problem at his facility.

Overall, this is a fairly good book. I feel that the personal matters that Rogo goes through were not necessary for the novel, but I can understand why they were added. Despite my dislike of those scenes (and there were quite a few of them), I feel that the book was extremely valuable. Anyone that is interested in the production process should read this novel.

An interesting educational book!

This book was a requirement for students who were taking Quality control at Cal Poly Pomona. It's an interesting educational book especially for people who just graduated from college and want to start working in the real world at a manufacturing system. The author will use simple stories as examples, so that readers can easily comprehend the techniques and methods and also the concepts to utilize them in any industries.
This book will teach some fundamental concepts that any engineer will need to understand to analyze the problems which might occur at any manufacturing plants. The point is that it teaches how to achieve high efficiency and how to make the manufacturing process more profitable.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is going to have a career in manufacturing industries and wants to learn more from a person who has had hands-on experience and real-world stories to share.

must read for business people

a good business book. it gets fairly technical at times but he does an amazing job of explaining things simply & in plain english. and just when you think you can't handle anymore talk about bottlenecks and operations management, he reverts back to the personal storyline of the guy & his family. every business person should read this book.

The Goal! a continuous process improvement mentality

"The goal" has a narrative technique to explain how to deal with constraints in a production plant emphasizing the bottlenecks. Goldratt describes not only how identify a bottleneck but also how to improve productivity in terms of making money in a system.
In addition, this book describes some psychological aspects from the manager's point of view dealing with people, and life problems.

Goldratt defines three important concepts which are "throughput", "inventory" and "operational expenses". Having understood these three concepts, Goldratt makes the reader apply common knowledge to solve problems using cause and effect logic incorporating these three concepts. For instance, what would happen to throughput and operational expenses if inventory decreases? So the interactions between those three concepts are essential. Moreover, it gives the idea of just in time by reducing the batch's size. Some of the effects of this idea are the reduction of inventory cost (WIP), lead time, queue time, and waiting time for part to assemble. Thus, reducing batch's size increases production flow rate.

"The Goal" is a great book to read. It is essential to understand how important bottleneck affects the system's throughput. In addition, while reading the book, one can become mentally stimulated to come up with solutions.

In the reading, it describes how managers have to have a positive attitude and team work mentality towards solving problems and improving processes. At the end of the chapter, it explains that the mentality for a successful company is that one has to understand that (in order to be competitive) it takes continuous process improvement and not to wait for a crisis to happen (for instance closing a manufacturing plant) to work as a team and solve problems.

Bookreview of The Goal written by Eli M. Goldratt

As a third year Industrial Engineering student, efficiency in the workplace, bottlenecks of a system, and breakthrough to improve production methods were familiar topics. The work of Eliyahu M. Goldratt, entitled The Goal was pragmatic in its approach to addressing manufacturing problems.

After providing the understanding of the need for change, the author raised the question of how to achieve a goal? Ofcourse, the answer to this question was within the pages of the book - right? Yes, however, the book was not about achieving quotas, providing numbers, or changing headcount. The book was about understanding the reasoning or forces behind the need for change. Understanding the relationship of the forces to define the constraints of a system at work and home provided the basis for the structure of the book.

The main character of the novel was Al Rogo. Al faced the challenge of a new position that required him to bring his plant back on track. If he could not make profits for his plant, then the future of the plaint was doomed. Working late at work, neglecting time spent with his family and worrying about the fate of the plant; Al Rogo had to consider the sacrifices that challenged him with dire consequences.

All in all, Goldratt provided an insightful lecture within his narration that was worthy of note taking because the novel expressed concepts of teamwork and effective communication to address problems in both business and personal life.

A great book to learn Theory of Constraints

The goal is a novel book that explains on how to manage a production system. The main character of the book is Alex Rogo; a plant manager who struggle to save his plant and his marriage life. Alex has ninety days to save his plant. His plant is not producing money since it could not send orders on time. He does not know what to do, and decided to call Jonah, an old acquaintance, for help. Jonah then introduces the Theory of Constraints to him.
The book introduces Theory of Constrain by asking three questions that are important for an ongoing process improvement:
1.What to change?
2.What to change to?
3.How to cause the change?
Jonah helps Alex to understand that the goal of a plant is not to increase efficiency, reduce wage, or other measurements that people normally thinks but it is simply to make money. Jonah introduces three measurements:
.Throughput
.Inventory
.Operational Expense
The book has unique definitions for the three measurements. It defines throughput as the rate at which the system generates money through sales, inventory as all the money that the system has invested in purchasing things which it intends to sell, and operational expense as all the money the system spends in order to turn inventory into throughput. Alex learns that in order to make money, he has to increase throughput while reducing inventory and operational expense.
Jonah also teaches Alex how to deal with bottleneck, dependent event, and statistical fluctuation. The book has a nicely written example about these topics. Alex went hiking with his son and few other kids. He experiences problem with the pace of the line where one is walking faster than the other and creating gap between each person. He implements what Jonah taught him, and able to understand what dependent event and statistical fluctuation are.
The book introduces five steps on how to deal with constraints:
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
This book is a well written management book that explains readers about production system and how to deal with the constraints. The book is very interesting and easy to understand. I would recommend this book to everyone who are involved or will involve in a production system.

Very good entry level book on Theory of Constraints

The Goal is a business novel on the Theory of Constraints (TOC). I read it years ago when my focus was manufacturing systems. It is very well written and the idea of putting business theory into a novel was a unique idea.
It walks the reader through an assumed literal case of looking at a manufacturing plant with problems and how the characters solved the bottleneck issues in the facility, improved throughput and saved the plant. There are numerous management and trouble shooting techniques in the book that can be applied to any business, even if the senior management team of the facility does not understand or believe in the Theory of Constraints.
I would recommend reading this book prior to Critical Chain, Goldratt's excellent book on applying the Theory of Constraints to project management.
The only detractor to the book is the somewhat corny story line and drama of the main characters. I am personally not into that and prefer the facts. But this is a very small negative point.

Book's story format helps you retain knowledge

I read this book in college over 10 years ago. I now work in the field of Information Technology and have nothing to do with manufacturing. Our IT department is trying to find ways to improve our business processes and prioritize those improvements. As we are beginning this process, I am starting to recall things I learned from reading this book and applying them to our present situation. I don't remember much else from that college course, but the story format of this book has helped me remember the principles that it teaches. It's applications reach far beyond manufacturing!

The Goal

A general summary of ¿The Goal¿ is Alex Rogo 'the main character', receives a notice from his manufacturing company that the profits must increase or the plant will be closed. Alex is then at a crossroads between his family and his job. The process of how to find the right goal is very interesting to read. I recommend this book to the students who are in the field of Industrial Engineer. The topics that are covered thorough out the book that correspond to industrial engineer are bottleneck and theoretical constraints. This book discusses some of the real life situations that an industrial engineer encounters in their every day job.

The Goal is to find the Goal

This is an easy to read book that keeps the reader hooked as the story develops from beginning to end. Even though this is a business book it was written more like a novel, with the main character revealing the struggles and tribulations as a manufacturing plant manager and as a husband and father thus allowing the reader to relate on many levels to him. This is a must read book for all professionals in any field.

A great novel to learn Industrial Engineering fundamentals

This book is not only entertaining and educational, but in actuality represents some of the manufacturing organizations today. It teaches many lessons and fundamentals that one can apply to improve his company. It touches on topics that are highly practiced on the field of industrial and manufacturing companies such as bottleneck operation, process scheduling, theory of constraints, and batch processing. The book transitions from a division plant being in trouble of closing down to its complete turnaround to become not only the most productive division plant, but the plant that saved the company. I thoroughly enjoyed the way Goldratt systematically went through the process of improvement and methods that the plant manager utilized to turn around his division plant. Having studied these topics that the book touched upon prior to reading made it easy for me to see the relevance of what was going on through out the novel. I strongly feel that the insight this novel gave me in regards to the process of ongoing improvement is something that I will be able make good use of in my career.

Quite a Read!

This book is not only entertaining and educational, but in actuality represents some of the manufacturing organizations today. It teaches many lessons and fundamentals that one can apply to improve his company. It touches on topics that are highly practiced on the field of industrial and manufacturing companies such as bottleneck operation, process scheduling, theory of constraints, and batch processing. The book transitions from a division plant being in trouble of closing down to its complete turnaround to become not only the most productive division plant, but the plant that saved the company. I thoroughly enjoyed the way Goldratt systematically went through the process of improvement and methods that the plant manager utilized to turn around his division plant. Having studied these topics that the book touched upon prior to reading made it easy for me to see the relevance of what was going on through out the novel. I strongly feel that the insight this novel gave me in regards to the process of ongoing improvement is something that I will be able make good use of in my career.

book review by Dian Koeswandi [IME 415]

The book talked about how to solve problems that I believe many companies face on their production line. I believe this book is very good book for not only people in industries but also for students to learn and see how they can use their knowledge to solve problems that industries faced. This book talks about theory of constraints which is the core problem of many companies along with bottleneck situation. By reading this book I know can see it clearly how all the classes that I took in school are so related in the real life. This book is awesome. Recommended not only for students and industries, but also for those who want to add knowledge to them.

A must read, period.

This is the thoughts of an early senior manufacturing engineering student at Cal Poly Pomona. FYI, I am an international student who did not use any English at all 4 years ago. This book is a required reading for my class ¿Quality Control by Statistical Methods.¿ I also heard that it is also a required MBA reading. After reading the book, I understood the reason why. First off all, ¿The Goal¿ is very easy to read, period. For an ¿English as a second language¿ speaker like me, this book is very reading friendly. I could understand the book like 98% without using a dictionary. Mr. Goldratt used simple, yet sophisticated enough vocabulary to tell a story of a manufacturing plant ¿Uni Co¿ where Alex Rogo was the plant manager. Mr Goldratt was also a non English speaker from Israel. I guess that is the reason why his writing is straight forward and get to the point. Secondly, because Goldratt told his ¿Theory of Contrainst¿ concept in a form of a business novel, it is not getting boring. In fact, this is the most interesting book I have ever read in my life. Most of us often struggle through dry business texts that are generally uninspiring. This book is presented with a storyteller's passion for detail, while still driving the key learning points of the theory. As a result, sticking with it to the end is much easier, which is important, as several key concepts are not revealed until the final pages. I wish they made a movie based on this book Besides the business stories, I also enjoyed Rogo`s personal life as his marriage was about to be broken. Although not critical to the main points of the book, it does make for an interesting read while not bogging down the main idea. It also gives the book an inspiring and warm human characteristic. In conclusion, I highly recommend ¿The Goal¿ to everybody, not just Business or Engineering students. Everyone who reads it will understand and fall in love with it. A must read, period.

A classic and must read!

This book was surprisingly an easy read for a subject as mundate as manufacturing and operations management. Easily understandable for even the novice of B-students, but clear in it's overall message.