The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jeff Cox (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this intriguing, readable business novel, which illustrates state-of-the-art economic theory, Alex Rogo is a UniCo plant manager whose factory and marriage are failing. To revitalize the plant, he follows piecemeal advice from an elusive former college professor who teaches, for example, that reduction in the efficiency of some plant operations may make the entire operation more productive. Alex's attempts to find the path to profitability and to engage his employeesi n the struggle involve the reader; and thankfully the authors' economic models, including a game with match sticks and bowls, are easy to understand. Although some characters are as anonymous as the goods manufactured in the factory, others ring true. In addition, the tender story of Alex and his wife's separation and reconciliation makes a touching contrast to the rest of the book. Recommended for anyone with an interest in the state of the American economy.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Alex Rogo manages a failing manufacturing plant, and his marriage is on shaky ground due to his long work hours. When his district manager tells him that profits must increase or the plant will be closed, Alex realizes he needs help. He turns to Jonah, a former professor, whom Alex discovers is now a management consultant (although Jonah's field is physics). With the help of the enigmatic Jonah and the plant staff, Alex turns the plant around while at the same time abandoning many management principles he previously thought were ironclad. This multivoiced presentation is lively and interesting and offers food for thought for managers in any field. The performances are natural and unaffected, with sound effects to enhance the illusion of reality. Although it is a novel, this title is more appropriate for business collections.
- Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, N.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: North River Press; 3 edition (July 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884271781
• ISBN-13: 978-0884271789
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (350 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,032 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

277 of 281 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Theory of Constraints (TOC) will change the way you think, February 12, 2006

By	Avinash Sharma "MBA, M.S., Knowledge Worker" (Toronto) - See all my reviews

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" to "make (more) money by..." is limited in its focus. It is concerned with the cost centers internal to a business. Business performance in today's increasingly competitive market depends on a variety of factors that exist outside the business. These include competitors, external opportunities, customers and the non-customers. Executives need to focus on these in order to see the bigger picture.
This book is necessary reading at the best MBA programs. In addition to being a review, this write-up was intended to serve as a summary of the core concepts of this book and TOC. If you are reading this as part of your coursework, please feel free to share the link with your fellow students.

78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Making Informed Decisions, December 16, 1999

By	H. Arsham "Dr. Professor Hossein Arsham" (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Paperback)

In its simplest form, The Goal is about making effective and informed decisions. The author, Eliyahu Goldratt, takes his readers on a very thorough, step-by-step discovery of the many fallacies and misconceptions invading much of the way today's society views and measures the production process. Gradratt conveys his message in novel form by relaying the struggles of a man, Alex Rogo, who is trying to figure out a way to not only save his career but also save his marriage.

Goldratt's brilliance is displayed through his thoughtful description of the production process, the necessary changes to the process and his careful thought processes described in such a way so even a layman could understand. The author stimulates your thought processes and compels you to join Alex Rogo in his search for answers. At first glance, The Goal, seems to be an informative research about how to be successful. However, you quickly realize that you are caught up in the life of Alex Rogue, a plant manager, who does not even know if he will have a job in a few months and you become entranced in the story of his life and you want to continue reading. Alex makes some important discoveries in his journey through the production process that enhances and sharpens his critical thinking skills. These epiphanies are transformative not only to the Alex Rogo but also the reader.

Realizing he had very little time left to make some very important changes, Alex Rogo remembered an old friend of his, named Jonah, which he had recently bumped into at an airport. They had chatted about the problems of the plant and Jonah asked him some very pointed questions that caused Alex to start thinking. Throughout the book Jonah never tells Alex what it is he needs to do, which would seem simple. Instead Jonah guides Alex in the right direction by using questions to keep him thinking along the right lines. Because Alex leads himself through his problems using logic and common sense his answers are simple, so simple he has a hard time finding them sometimes. For example, Alex had a very difficult time figuring out the link between dependent events and statistical fluctuations. However, after a thought provoking hiking trip with his son's Boy Scout troop he discovers some simple processes that he uses to help turn his plant in the right direction. Another interesting discovery he made involved identifying and treating the bottlenecks, secondly he found that he could do something about them. After discovering the bottlenecks and finding that the throughput of the bottlenecks was the throughput of the plant, Alex found ways to increase the capacity of the bottlenecks thereby increasing the bottom line. With some simple changes that went against all the standard universal manufacturing principles he was able to fill all of his late orders and start getting the products to the customers by the specified due date or perhaps a little earlier.

Eliyahu Goldratt tactfully disseminates the common beliefs about today's production process. He demonstrates the side effects of these practices and illustrates the necessary changes in order for success. For example, when Alex and his staff realized that cutting the production lot size in half not only decreased inventory and increased throughput but also increased sales, they could promise shorter delivery times.

One of the most amazing things about The Goal, which was aggravating at first, was that Goldratt never communicated the product that was being manufactured. This was a clever way of encouraging the reader to focus on the process and the decisions being made rather than the product itself. The author was communicating that these transformations can take place in any process by using informed decision making skills instead of relying on a current process. The previous decisions and processes that Alex Rogo was making were based on tradition not critical thinking. As he saw his job and the jobs of many others start to deteriorate he started thinking through the process very carefully and he found many errors and misconceptions in the current systematic approach. Alex proved to his company that common sense is certainly not to be ignored for the sake of tradition.

Business students taking Operations Reseach/Management Science courses, will find The Goal to be very encompassing, bringing to light many unclear ideas about the production process as well as leaving them with enhanced critical thinking skills. The author conveyed, without expressly stating it, that it is important that you analyze why and how you are doing it and not to rely on the process to always be right. Most of the book I found myself contemplating the very issues in question, wondering if there really was an answer that would solve the problem or problems. And after a discovery would be made I would say to myself, of course! How could I have forgotten about... . Eliyahu Goldratt led me through the thoughts of Alex Rogo and I made the decision breakthroughs with Alex and became excited in the findings. I found this book to be a captivating reading assignment that sparked students interest and they many valuable lessons about managerial decision making.

125 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkably Effective Novel for Learning Management, December 7, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Paperback)

This novel succeeds in being outstanding at so many levels that it could receive a multiple of five stars. It is hard to imagine a management book in novel form ever approaching this one in usefulness. Most people will learn more that they can apply from this book about management than many people learn to apply from an M.B.A.

The basic story is built around the dilemmas facing Alex Rogo, a newly-appointed plant manager. The plant can't seem to ship, it's losing money, and bad things can happen to good people if all this doesn't change soon. Alex is at a loss for what to do until he pulls out a cigar that Jonah, a physicist from Israel, had recently given him. That cigar reminds him to contact Jonah for possible help. From there, the path to recovery begins.

Let me describe some of the many levels on which this novel is valuable.

First, the book explains how to see businesses as systems as well as any other book on this subject. It compares favorably in this area to such important works as The Fifth Discipline and the Fifth Discipline Handbook. The metaphor of how to speed up a slow-moving group of boy scouts will be visceral to anyone who has done any hiking with a group.

Second, the book helps you learn how to improve the performance of a system by providing you with a replicable process that you can apply to analyzing any human or engineering system. The primary metaphor is improving a manufacturing process, but the same principles apply more broadly to other circumstances.

Third, you will experience the power of the Socratic method as a way to stimulate your mind to learn, and to use Socratic questions to stimulate the minds of others to become better thinkers and doers.

Fourth, the authors also use problem simulation as a practical way to help you experience the learning process they are advocating.

Fifth, the book is unusually good in bringing home the consequences of letting your business process run in a vicious cycle: Your family life may also.

The pacing of the book is especially good. You are given time to stew with issues and come up with your own ideas before sample answers are provided by Alex and his staff in the novel.

Unlike many books that take complicated ideas and oversimplify them so the ideas lose their meaning, this book simplifies ideas in ways that enhance their meaning by making the ideas easier to see and employ.

If you do not understand all of the ins and outs of typical factory accounting, you may get a little lost from time to time. But that's not a problem. That accounting just distorts common perceptions of what needs to be done. You can safely skip anything you don't understand if you don't have to deal with such issues.

While I did not observe any overt errors in the book, companies that do not put an asset charge on operational assets could make the mistake from this book of seeking too little profit. You need to earn on-going returns that exceed your cost of capital, too.

You will get the most from this book if you read The Fifth Discipline following it (if you have not read that book already). The discussion of the beer game simulation in The Fifth Discipline will add to your understanding of system dynamics.

Following that book, I suggest that you then read The Balanced Scorecard and The Strategy-Focused Organization for ideas about how to use goals, measurements, and rewards to concentrate attention onto the highest leverage areas for your system.

After you have finished employing what you have learned and helping others around you to learn more also, I suggest that you think about how to optimize the full upside potential more rapidly through the use of irresistible forces and 2,000 percent solutions to speed your progress. That should leave you with even more success and more time to enjoy it.

Unblock the constraints on your progress!