Rating: 
Summary: Very Informative and Enlightening
Review: Goldratt does a great job of putting together a fable that intertwines concrete lessons for managing a production operation with a story featuring interesting characters. However, while the book focuses on production operations, the techniques in his book may also be effective in resolving service oriented processes as well.The key point to Goldratt's theory of constraints is the identification and dissolution of bottlenecks (constraints) in the system. However, lest you think this all there is to it, Goldratt goes into detail describing how to identify the constraint, how it impacts production, quality, and costs of operations. The book is well worth reading, and seems to suggest a Deming management method whereby the manager should constantly strive to improve quality, processes, and people management. I would recommend the serious reader also read Mary Walton's The Deming Management Method in addition to this book. A similar book, worth reading in my opinion, that deals with the formation of teams to resolve constraints: The Five Dysfunctions of Teams (ISBN: 0787960756).
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Managers and Engineers
Review: Every manager and engineer should be required to read this book. The concepts really aren't new, but the level of focus is the real change. Currently most managers try to do things similar to what is presented, but get lead astray by conflicting theories, metrics, and company policies. TOC cuts through the conflicts to present what is truely important and what is just a distraction from real improvement. This is still the place to start if you want to understand TOC.
Rating: 
Summary: The process is the thing.
Review: This book is written as one person's personal journey of discovery. It is a fast paced novel, almost a thriller, which dramatically demonstrates the power of modern management in the setting of saving a factory that is rapidly heading for disaster. I recommend this book to people in industry who have to deal with manufacturing and quality assurance and to anybody who wants to understand the continuous improvement paradigm for running a business. The book is a pretty fine read in its own right as a novel and it is especially relevant to anyone who wants to improve an operation such as an assembly line or manufacturing plant. As usual here is a quote from the book however this has been edited down a bit from the original to better illustrate the point: "Who is going to set up the other machines in t he bottleneck area?" he asks. "We will pull helpers who know enough to set up their own equipment from non-bottleneck machines" "Well I guess we can try it," says Bob. "But what happens if stealing people turns non-bottlenecks into new bottlenecks?" I tell him, "The important thing is to maintain flow. If we take a worker away, and we can't maintain flow, then we'll put the worker back and steal a body from someplace else."
Rating:
Summary: A Process of Ongoing Improvment in Business and Life!
Review: After picking up The Goal I was impressed with the way it was written. Reading a business book in a narrative format was something I did not expect to see. The narrative format helped to grab my attention and keeping it through the book. It is no wonder that is has sold over a million copies. I have since recommended this book to both family and friends not just as a book about business but it can help in every aspect of life. My manager friends who have started the book say that the approach to keep it away from the traditional business snooze books is great. I loved the fact that he was able to let the reader figure out what Jonah (an oracle like figure) meant before Alex got it. I felt it did take Alex a long time to understand and it did seem there was some basic changes in his plant that the untrained eye could see but over all I have nothing but praise for this book. If it weren't for the fact that Jonah did arrive at the plant it could have almost been thought of that Jonah was the subconscious of Alex Rogo and he had the answers all along. I felt that The Goal did a great job leaving an open ended question, showing that yes, indeed life is a process of on going improvement.
Rating: 
Summary: 20 years and still...
Review: I read the book without knowing that it is 20 years old. Interesting that the situation in most companies is still the same... late shipping dates, bottlenecks etc....
Since in my company most of the keywords are hourly used and presented as the whole idea to get rid of the mis-situation, and I actually found that most of the theories are known and applied.... my conclusion is: there must be something else, why things cannot be that easy: propably: customer satisfaction, competition and quality improvement. The book is obviously just one part of an answer. And it definitely needs some updating.... and a better writer. The story is average, the writing really cheap.
Rating:
Summary: A reminder to use common sense
Review: The book was a required reading in business school for us. The central concept is that bottlenecks (and near bottlenecks) determine the throughput of the manufacturing process. It also shows how accounting can blur the picture of what is going on at a manufacturing plant. The book's story-telling style was a nice relief when other required readings are often dry and impersonal. Sometimes the story slows down and drags a bit too much for my taste, but overall, due to the importance of the message in it, I recommend the book.
Rating:
Summary: The Goal: It's money stupid!
Review: What I like about , "The Goal", is demolishes the traps that all Western, and especially American manufacturers are in. We are slaves to an undeserving god, old style accounting that is putting us out of business. These false gods, are blinding us to the real faith of how good we might become.
Professor Goldratt using science to examine with emperical clarity what the process of manufacturing is. Using mathamatics, not accounting principles, whatever they are, Dr. Goldratt in a novel format takes us through the world of a plant manager, who could be anyone of us, and using the socratic method, unfolds the solutions to many barriers caused by false metrics to see how to really make money and run a world class factory. Please read! The job you save may be your own, or your children's future jobs.
P.S.
The accounting methods we are exposed to are throughput accounting methods.
Rating: 
Summary: My coworker won't stop listening to this book
Review: He's got the book on tape version and is playing it over and over, without headphones. This is the second or third time he's listened to it. I seriously think he needs mental help. Also, why would ANY author name a machine "The Smegma"? Because this author did. I'm rather confused on that point.
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Summary: CD Edition: What were they thinking???
Review: There was enough said about the content of the book. It is, indeed, insightful and well-written. My comments are about the audio edition. This book comes on 9 CDs. However, each CD is not broken up into tracks, so if you want to listen again to a fragment, you have to start from the beginning of the CD! What a waste of time! I wanted to make notes on the main concept of a Goal, and I had to listen to the entire CD three times to get to the section I needed. After the third time, I just gave up and returned the whole book. If this is the way this publishing house formats all audio books, I will never buy another book published by them.
Rating:
Summary: The Goal should be required reading
Review: I had a chance to read the Goal after my employer made copies available to all managers in our organization. Being an automotive manufacturer the book seemed to be a perfect fit for helping us identify our organizations true goals. What I got was exactly what I expected. The book is told like a novel, with characters experiencing the turnaround of their manufacturing plant thru the eyes of the plant manager. During the process of re-organization, the main character, Alex, finds him personal life suffering as well as his managerial control, just like many of us. To resolve his issues, Alex, relies upon an old mentor Jonah to provide wisdom in reducing bottlenecks and increasing profits in the organization.
At times this book drags, but if you are in manufacturing, you will be amazed how true to life this book is and, if you have a short attention span, you will find the book is nicely divided into short chapters to give you a break to digest the information. The Goal: To make money!!
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