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Eliyahu M. Goldratt

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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Paperback – January 1, 1992

by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Author), Jeff Cox (Author)

4.6 516 ratings

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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement - 30th Anniversary Edition
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Mr. Rogo, a plant manager, must improve his factory's efficiency or face its closing in just three months

Review

"A survey of the reading habits of managers found that though they buy books by the likes of Tom Peters for display purposes, the one management book they have actually read from cover to cover is The Goal." -- The Economist

"Anybody who considers himself a manager should rush out, buy and devour this book immediately. If you are the only one in your place to have read it, your progress along the path to the top may suddenly accelerate...one of the most outstanding business books I have ever encountered." -- Punch Magazine

"Like Mrs. Fields and her cookies, The Goal was too tasty to remain obscure. Companies began buying big batches and management schools included it in their curriculums." -- Fortune Magazine

"This theory provided a persuasive solution for factories struggling with production delays and low revenues." -- Harvard Business Review

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

North River Pr
Publication date

January 1, 1992
Dimensions

6 x 1 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

9780884270614
ISBN-13

978-0884270614
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0884270610
Publisher ‏ : ‎ North River Pr; Revised edition (January 1, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780884270614
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0884270614
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #263,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #77 in Organizational Change (Books)
- #227 in Production & Operations
- #2,781 in Business Management (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 516 ratings

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About the author

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Eliyahu M. Goldratt

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Eliyahu M. Goldratt was an educator, author, physicist, philosopher and business leader, but first and foremost, he was a thinker who provoked others to think. Characterized as unconventional, stimulating, and "a slayer of sacred cows," he urged his audience to examine and reassess their business practices with a fresh, new vision.

Dr. Goldratt is best known as the father of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), a process of ongoing improvement that continuously identifies and leverages a system’s constraints in order to achieve its goals. He introduced TOC’s underlying concepts in his business novel, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, which has been recognized as one of the best-selling business books of all time. First published in 1984, The Goal has been updated three times and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. It has been translated into 32 languages.

Heralded as a "guru to industry" by Fortune magazine and “a genius” by Business Week, Dr. Goldratt continued to advance the TOC body of knowledge throughout his life, building on the Five Focusing Steps (known as the process of ongoing improvement or POOGI) with TOC-derived tools such as Drum-Buﬀer-Rope, Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) and the Thinking Processes. He authored ten other TOC-related books, including four business novels.

Born in Israel on March 31, 1947, Dr. Goldratt earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tel Aviv University, and a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. He is the founder of TOC for Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing TOC Thinking and TOC tools to teachers and their students, and Goldratt Consulting. In addition to his pioneering work in business management and education, Dr. Goldratt holds patents in a number of areas ranging from medical devices to drip irrigation to temperature sensors. He died on June 11, 2011, at the age of 64.

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4.6 out of 5

516 global ratings

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Juan Pablo Marcantonio

The Bible of the Management Books

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2023

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It's one of those books that has (and should be) been mandatory reading. Essential to know what to do and when.

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Dan

A go to for leadership and business training

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2023

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Good read - needed for a college class

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Keith Smith

A 150-page text squeezed into a 300-page novel.

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2002

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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 hero for the sequel...

30 people found this helpful

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Jason T.

is an excellent an enjoyable read

Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2016

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The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, is an excellent an enjoyable read. It has everything from personal experience, step-by-step discoveries and solutions, misconceptions in the production process, and all the way to inadequate management. Eliyahu also successfully incorporates his own personal life adversity and success while dealing with his professional problems at career.
If you already know the basic definitions for the terms such as bottle necks, efficiency, inventory, and productivity; The Goal has Alex Rogo, the plant manager, discovering these terms and more with a deeper meaning and how they actually relate to manufacturing. For example, at the beginning of the book, Alex was extremely proud of increasing his efficiency and believed it created a positive effect on their overall productivity. After running into an old friend Jonah, which questions his increased efficiency and if they actually increased productivity, Alex soon discovers his misconception of efficiency. Throughout the book, he looks to Jonah like a mentor because Jonah guilds Alex to a deeper understanding of processing product improvement. His long hours and sleepless nights finally lead Alex to understanding the true meaning of efficiency. However, this is only the beginning of the story and Alex has the rest of the book to grasp the full picture of process improvement.
I personal do not read often because I have never found reading as a form of entertainment or enjoyment. With that being said, I surprisingly took a liking to this book and found myself dying to read the next chapter. These lessons that Alex discovered are something that should be learned by anybody studying management, production, process flow, operations, or industrial and manufacturing side or along those lines. I believe these lessons will be extremely useful to me in the future and I know you will feel the same way.

One person found this helpful

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Usercpp

GREAT BOOK!!!! Must read!! You learn a lot about TOC!!

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2014

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Eliyahu M. Goldratt’s The Goal is a fictional story emphasizing the theory of constraints. The setting is in a manufacturing plant known as UniCo where Alex Rogo is the main character and production manager of the plant. The story starts off with Alex being yelled at by the division vice-president because his facility is a huge mess and is not meeting deadlines. Alex is given a deadline of three months to improve his facility or else it will be shut down. To make the story more interesting Alex is also having marriage problems. At the airport, Alex meets an old friend and they begin talking about the use of robots at manufacturing sites. There Jonah, the old friend, begins to question some of the things that are done at Alex’s manufacturing site such as inventory and keeping all the employees. From there Alex begins to ponder as to what the true goal of the company is and comes up with the conclusion that the goal is to make more money by increasing throughput and reducing inventory and operating expense. Slowly Alex begins to implement the theory of constraints into his facility.
Overall the book was an engaging, easy read. I would highly recommend it because it stresses the theory of constraints in very easy and simple terms, making it easy to understand and follow. Personally I believe that the best part is that the book itself is an example of how the theory of constraints is applied. I myself am an undergraduate industrial engineering student and learned a lot from reading The Goal. I know I will be using the theory of constraints throughout my career and thanks to this book I have a better, clearer understanding of it. If you are interested in an educational fictional story then this is a definite must read. Trust me once you start reading the book you won’t stop reading it until you are done.

One person found this helpful

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Enojyed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

If you like manufacturing and open to new ideas then This is a good read

Andre Mikhael

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on August 16, 2018

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Great book, arrived as promised and in very good condition.

DrG

Das Ziel - ein super Roman zur Einführung/Erklärung von Lean Management (und eventuell Agile Software Entwicklung)

Reviewed in Germany on October 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

Habe das Buch gelesen, da wir in der Firma agile Methoden zur Softwareentwicklung einsetzen.
Der Trainer empfahl das Buch - auch wenn es aus der Produktion kommt - um die "Lean" Prinzipien zu verstehen.
Der Roman lässt sich in einem Zug durchlesen - eine echt klasse Urlaubslektüre.
Besonders gefallen die Abschnitte, in der der Held zeitgleich sein Privatleben in den Griff bekommt.
Auf einer Pfadfinder-Wanderung seines Sohnes lernt er dieselben Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten, wie sie in seiner - bisher nicht funktionierenden - Produktion. Und er leitet aus dieser Wanderung weitere Schritte zur Produktionssteigerung ab.
Super geschrieben - echte Empfehlung.

2 people found this helpful

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josecgil

Formato novela no me gusta pero contenido bueno

Reviewed in Spain on August 17, 2016

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El contenido es bueno pero el formato novela no me convence. Para explicar ideas prefiero algo más corto y al grano.

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars