The Goal: 40th Anniversary Edition: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Paperback – June 1, 2012

When I was first assigned to read this book, I thought it was going to be a purely theoretical material. I thought it was going to be a book difficult to read and/or keep me interested to continue reading. However, this book turned to be a marvelous composition. The reader is always interested in the topic, and one can feel like being part of the plot. This book is a perfect combination of a narrative, and an explanation. The author dedicated the time and effort to make sure that anyone, who grabs this book and reads it, will be able to clearly understand the material presented. As an industrial engineering student, we are focused on improving an existent process and/or system in a facility. Moreover, we are provided with a broad set of techniques that can be utilized in accomplishing this purpose. The Goal by Goldratt is a magnificent piece of literature where industrial engineering student can see how the different techniques learned in class are applied into a real world problem.In The Goal, Goldratt also provides the reader with a description and an example of how to apply the Theory of Constraints. Alex Rogo, a plant engineer at UniCo Manufacturing, is presented with a complex problem; he has several months of orders overdue and his plant is not capable of delivering any order in time. Therefore, Bill Peach, Alex’s boss, tells him that he has only three months to turn his plant around. As a result, Alex and his team start working in finding a solution; however, they are not capable to find it without the help of Jonah, Alex’s Physics professor. Nonetheless, it is important to mention that Jonah does not provide Alex with immediate solutions; instead, he uses the Socratic Method to teach Alex how to be able to localize the bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks of his process and to determine the goal of his plant. Therefore, after spending several days thinking about what the goal is, he is finally able to define it as “Reducing operational expenses and inventory while increasing throughput” (Goldratt 87). Jonah also teaches Alex that in every company there is dependent events and statistical fluctuations that affect the process. According to the Theory of Constraints, one must identify the bottleneck and then work around it; in other words, one must take into account the bottleneck in order to increase throughput and ultimately reach the goal. Jonah, however, after providing Alex with enough help, he takes a step back on his role and forces Alex to learn how to be able to identify the bottlenecks on his own and what approach or process to use to fix the bottlenecks. At the end, Alex finally understands that it is of utmost importance for any individual to be able to answer three questions: “‘what to change?’, ‘what to change to?’, and ‘how to cause a change?’” (Goldratt 337).Overall, The Goal is a magnificent work that I highly recommend to any individual to read in order to understand more about the Theory of Constraints and how to become a better manager. I deeply believe that any individual who reads this book will be greatly benefited from the material presented; in my personal experience, I am pleased that I was able to read this book since I was given the opportunity to add a new technique to my engineering toolbox. I encourage any reader that is uncertain whether or not to buy this book to purchase it. I believe that it is definitely worth the time reading this book; thanks to this book, I feel better prepared as an engineer.

The “goal” is to make money: easier said than done. When I first started to read The Goal, I was afraid of a boring management/manufacturing book; conversely, it turned out to be an interesting novel on real-life manufacturing problems and the steps that Alex Rogo, manufacturing plant manager and main character, and his team take to tackle these problems with the help of Jonah, a physicist and a “guru to industry”. This book is written in a manner that anyone in an industry of manufacturing can relate and reads like a novel that will keep you interested in what’s coming next. Simply stated, any action that moves a company to making money is considered productive, on the contrary any action that leads to company to lose money is unproductive. This can be evaluated by three metrics: Throughput, Inventory, and Operational Expenses. Another main topic of this novel and implied in the sub title is the Theory of Constraints (TOC) or bottlenecks; additionally, Eli Goldratt does an exceptional job at explaining what bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks are and the benefits of them in a company. This leads to another topic addressed in the book: the Drum-Buffer-Rope principle. This is discovered by Alex Rogo at a Boy Scout hike and the different paces each boy has and how to synchronize the pack with few gaps. He applies this to his plant in that some machines produce more parts than others and create “gaps” or inventory while others get backed up at bottlenecks due to capacity. There should be a flow maintained by the plant that is controlled by the bottleneck and customer demands: Drum. Buffers should be placed before bottleneck areas to prevent it from idling for parts. A “Rope” should be placed in the system to control the work in progress (WIP) which will in return reduce inventory. The applications of this novel in any process are invaluable, and the steps to take to succeed in doing so is also defined in a five step process Alex and his team develop along with knowing 3 questions to ask. I encourage every engineer, manager, and workers in all companies that produce goods or services to customers to read this book and take something from it. It could lead to a promotion like that of Alex Rogo’s and/or an overall increase in productivity and toward “the goal” of every company: to make money.