Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world.Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporat Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world.Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage.
He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt. The primary reason for It was written at a point of time when manufacturers were taken by the competitive priorities of Cost- providing low-cost The primary reason for It was written at a point of time when manufacturers were taken by the competitive priorities of Cost- providing low-cost products, Quality - providing high-quality products, Delivery - providing products quickly, Flexibility - wide range of product/customization and Services - Delivery of product and how it is supported.
This book was written before lean came into picture as a concept that can be applied and reaped by larger audience and TOC was established in mid 60's but it was not put up in easy to understand perspective and was in form of journals and papers but this book made it common sense for common man and was pushed by American Manufacturers to their employees, which helped them to define new way of cost measuring and defining the competitive priorities in context to their strategic goals. Secondly the advancement of SPC (Statically Process Control) and Lean puts greater emphasis on TOC, and till now this book has been prescribed by many academia to students for understanding of Lean, Six Sigma, Agile etc. Great explanation of the theory of constraints and operations management. It's a business classic- first published in 1984 - but still relevant as it gets at the fundamentals. I almost removed a star for trying to create a fictional story to tell the book in that was badly told/edited. Did we really need the side story about the protagonists marital issues?One of the biggest takeaways from this book is that it's incredibly important to set the right goals to manage a complex operation. This soun Great explanation of the theory of constraints and operations management.
It's a business classic- first published in 1984 - but still relevant as it gets at the fundamentals. I almost removed a star for trying to create a fictional story to tell the book in that was badly told/edited. Did we really need the side story about the protagonists marital issues?One of the biggest takeaways from this book is that it's incredibly important to set the right goals to manage a complex operation. This sounds obvious and intuitive, however it's actually much harder than most people think, and easy to get wrong. It gets down to the question of: is everyone working on the 'right things'. The things that will lead to the business making the most money.
Book Summary + PDF – The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt Fallacy of Average Production Rates. In manufacturing, a balanced plant tries to match average. Identifying and Improving the Bottleneck. Now that we know the bottleneck is hugely significant. Structuring Around the Bottleneck. Jan 04, 2018 Read our review and summary of The Goal book by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and download The Goal pdf ebook free at the end. The Goal Review: If you are.
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It's too easy to find a things that are easily measurable and saying 'this thing is correlated with our success, so let's focus on it'. It sounds like 'cost accounting' fit into that bucket.So how do you set the right goals? Focus on making money!One of the drivers of making money in any business that creates a product is throughput, or how fast a product can be made. The others are costs/operating expenses, and inventory. One of the key concepts of the book is that focusing on throughput rather than costs will yield much better results.The bottleneck theory, or the theory of constraints, was very useful to think about. My company produces software and not physical products, but each feature we develop definitely has steps it has to go through: creating the concept, research, spec, design, implementation (backend and client), testing, QA, measure results, analyze them, iterate, etc. Focusing on where the bottlenecks are with that process can help us move faster.
And every startup needs to be moving fast - and not just at building - we need to be doing as fast as we can.A consequence of the bottleneck theory that is useful to keep in mind is that in any system only the bottlenecks should be 100% utilized. Every manager will have a natural tendency to want to utilize all their resources to 100% because that just seems. Wasteful if you don't. People should be working full time right?
But a system can only run at the speed of the slowest bottleneck, so non-bottlenecks will by definition have spare cycles, and it's important to keep them open for the important work and not fill it up with unimportant stuff that will bog them down when you actually need them on the important stuff.I've seen this happen many times in software. An engineer finishes a project, and the big important project coming from the design team isn't done yet, so he picks up something small in the meantime. The next day that big important project is ready to go, but the engineer only needs 'one more day' to finish this thing he started. And then that day becomes two and then three (because we didn't count QA). And then we've lost 3 days on our most important project for another project that doesn't matter at all. Add that up across a large number of developers, and you've lost a lot of time.The theory of constraints is not limited to manufacturing, as the author shows.
In the end, he is advocating it as a method or process of learning. The best process improvement novel I've seen, this classic work explains the all-important Theory of Constraints through real life examples and a surprisingly good story. Most books of this nature are exceptionally unrealistic, but this one manages to keep the reader engaged, which is key for an instructional text like this.The book's lessons have some practicality in normal, everyday life, but its greatest utility is for those involved in process improvement in industries such as manufacturing, The best process improvement novel I've seen, this classic work explains the all-important Theory of Constraints through real life examples and a surprisingly good story. Most books of this nature are exceptionally unrealistic, but this one manages to keep the reader engaged, which is key for an instructional text like this.The book's lessons have some practicality in normal, everyday life, but its greatest utility is for those involved in process improvement in industries such as manufacturing, distribution, services, and retail.
All industrial and systems engineers need to read this book, as do all managers of processes. This is to Systems Thinking what The Five Dysfunctions is to management: A peachy piece of fiction, packed with applicable lessons in the most enjoyable format you can imagine.
While other systems thinking books are somewhat dry, this one is filled with life, even romance, and well-grounded in reality. While five stars normally for me would mean 'life-changing,' in this case I can't resist because of a rare and wonderful balance between enjoyment, levity, and insight. This type of book, to me, i This is to Systems Thinking what The Five Dysfunctions is to management: A peachy piece of fiction, packed with applicable lessons in the most enjoyable format you can imagine. While other systems thinking books are somewhat dry, this one is filled with life, even romance, and well-grounded in reality. While five stars normally for me would mean 'life-changing,' in this case I can't resist because of a rare and wonderful balance between enjoyment, levity, and insight. This type of book, to me, is way better than crime fiction or fantasy. I wish business fiction was a genre with endless options.In The Goal, a dysfunctional manufacturing plant is transformed after the protagonist has a chance encounter with his physics professor in an airport lounge.
Through an unlikely rekindling of the relationship, the professor shows him simple systems thinking principles that are gradually incorporated at the plant. These principles completely transform the site. Through continued improvement, it turns traditional accounting and productivity practices upside down and soon outperforms all other plants in its industry.If you're bought into the whole idea of learning to think in mental models, as Dalio describes in Principles or Munger in his Almanack, you'll love this book to see how it's applied in action. If not, perhaps this story will show you the usefulness of it in an entertaining, light-hearted fashion. The book will give you some hope that a hopeless situation can be turned around with a little ingenuity. 2nd read-through: I still love this book.
Primarily because of its collaborative solution finding process and its vocalness against local optima. Also from a didactic perspective I think this is something we (as people leading teams) should strive for: Enabling peers to make better decisions by themselves via good process.The references in 'The Phoenix Project' pushed me towards reading this one as well. I really enjoyed listening to the audible 2nd read-through: I still love this book. Primarily because of its collaborative solution finding process and its vocalness against local optima. Also from a didactic perspective I think this is something we (as people leading teams) should strive for: Enabling peers to make better decisions by themselves via good process.The references in 'The Phoenix Project' pushed me towards reading this one as well.
I really enjoyed listening to the audible version of this book and I would also argue that there's a lot to take from this book, even if you've already read 'The Phoenix Project'.In a world where so many people are talking about scaling Agile, this is one of the books that gave me a lot more insights in the underlying principles of lean. The last chapters are especially great ammunition for folks that have to deal with By-The-Book advocates of certain methodologies. Separating the application of a principle (together with the assumptions) from the principle itself is a great way towards more insight and a more meaningful implementation of whatever methodology in the context of your environment/company.Next stop is 'Beyond the Goal'P.S.: Started to listen to 'Beyond the Goal' and realized that Jonah (from the audible version) sounds exactly like Goldratt himself. I think not:-).
Over 4 million copies sold! Used by thousands of companies and hundreds of business schools! Required reading for anyone in the Theory of Constraints. This book, which introduces the Theory of Constraints, is changing how America does business. The Goal is a gripping, fast-paced business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money. You will learn the fundamentals of identifying and solving the problems created by constraints. From the moment you finish the book you will be able to start successfully addressing chronic productivity and quality problems.This book, which introduces the Theory of Constraints, is changing how America does business.
The Goal is a gripping, fast-paced business novel about overcoming the barriers to making money.