The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Rating:
Summary: Great book - reminds you to always remember the fundamentals
Review: This book teaches something very simple: always remember your goal. Entertainingly disguised as a novel, this book presents a manufacturing operation gone awry. Managers are short-sightedly cutting costs, measuring ``efficiencies,'' etc., until one manager remembers the whole point of the plant: to make money. Using this as a starting point, he revolutionizes the operation of the plant. The book lucidly presents the basic stuff about managing constraints in the factory, but the material is crammed in too tightly at the end - some material is just too complex to fit into a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Unlike JIT or MRP, TOC lets you look at the big picture
Review: In a typical modern manufacturing environment, we run MRP (Materials Requirements Planning) to load (push) the factory. Or in a more advanced plant, we run JIT to let the market 'pull' inventory. Mr Goldratt outlines an in-between which is based on the bottlenect of the plant: Operations in front of the constraint is being 'pulled' by it; and those behind it are being 'pushed' by it, and the pulling process is synchronized by the constraint so that no unnecessary WIP is released to the floor. With a QC process right in front of the constraint, we can make sure that the factory is not losing non-recoverable valuable time and materials. This book forces you to see the bigger picture and forget about individual resource centers. If you are running at a less than desirable inventory turnover rate, this book will enlighten you. - Ignatius Wong

Rating:
Summary: Sets a new direction for manufacturing, but wait a minute-
Review: The Goal is an excellent way to throw out the bath water of old management techniques and look at things through clear lenses. The first read is entertaining, but by the fifth read, there a great deal of hidden content that is coming out. This hidden content is where the real power of The Goal comes into play. The Goal is very good for getting a new perspective on managing a commercial enterprise, but also is a great guide for building relationships in professional and personal areas. This is a MUST READ book for EVERYONE!!!

Rating:
Summary: Goldratt's "Goal" is to change the way business works...
Review: Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" isn't really a novel even though it is disguised as one. What it is, is a serious philosophical treatise on a radical business theory called "Theory of Constraints". Goldratt originally wrote the book in the late '80's and it has become a cult classic in b-schools, and especially on the plant floor. If you are seriously interested in the way companies "should" work in the 21st century, you must read this book...and be sure you "get" it. It is on my short list of books I'd want to be locked into the plant with, along with "In Search Of Excellence" and "High Probability Selling". What is the link? All three books are paradigm-breakers, and new-paradigm-creators. Read the book. Make your business work better. Make more money.

Rating:
Summary: Get enthusiathic about Theory Of Constraints
Review: This book teaches you the ideas and knowledge for the Theory of Constraints. This is a method to improve (production) processes. It also can show you to better manage a department, shop etc. The nice thing however, is that it is not written as a scientific book, but as a novel. The plot is simple. Alex Rogo -plantmanager- has to improve his business in a limited time. If he fails, the plant will shutdown. Together with his staff, he succeeds to turn the downgoing line, and make the plant a good running one. In this book, you can read all about constraints, buffers etc. And you get it wrapped in a 'love'-story...

Rating:
Summary: Easy read, but tends to drag at end
Review: Straight forward & easy to follow reading. The Theory Of Constraints portion was a bit dumbed down and a the romance thread was a little tiresome, but all in all it was a decent read. The last 50 pages are a complete bore...just kept dragging along so I suggest you close the book once you think the hero has saved the town - you won't miss a thing.

Rating:
Summary: Concepts from The Goal
Review: The author of this business novel thinks he's the Messiah. The gist of the 384-page book could have been expressed in a page, and some of it is obvious. But it may be useful anyway, and it's an entertaining read.

His schtick is that one can achieve great gains by identifying the bottlenecks ('constraints') that are blocking improved performance toward your goal, and then doing anything necessary to unblock those constraints - even if this means inefficiently using other non-bottleneck resources.

He says that one should think of the cost of each resource as including its effect on the whole system. So if a machine costs $1K/month to operate, but its rate of production is preventing the business from accepting or fulfilling extra orders that would represent $10K/month in profits, then the true cost of the machine is $11K.

It follows that anything one can do to remove that bottleneck would be worthwhile, provided it adds less than the amount saved to the cost and doesn't introduce a new bottleneck. It's fine if you have to overpay for other resources or use them inefficiently as long as you accomplish this.

It then becomes a matter of analyzing and brainstorming all the ways that bottleneck can be reduced. For instance:
- Can extra capacity be added, even if it is less efficient or uses antiquated equipment or is outsourced to a vendor?
- Can you prioritize the use of the bottlenecked resource so that high-profit and time-sensitive work comes first?
- Can you divert work that doesn't need to go through the bottleneck, even if it would then go through another more cumbersome process?
- Can you prevent work from reaching the bottleneck if Quality Control will eventually reject it?
- Can you increase the rate of output of the bottleneck resource by doubling up batches?

This logic applies regardless of the nature of the bottleneck - whether it relates to a machine (production capacity), marketing effort (how much business is coming in), or any other element of one's environment.

To help identify the bottlenecks and judge tradeoffs, one should identify one's goal as a measure (in a business context this is generally profits or ROI), then identify the factors that influence that measurement and create an equation. For instance,
Profits = Sales - Cost of Inputs - Cost of Transforming Inputs
or,
Return On Investment = (Sales - Cost of Inputs - Cost of Transforming Inputs) / Money Trapped In Unfinished Goods And Inventory

Essentially, his thesis is that by focusing on these bottlenecks, and analyzing and brainstorming their solutions, one takes advantage of the 80/20 rule by prioritizing those few factors that most greatly impact one's performance.

The most rewarding part of the book are the examples in the Testimonials section at the end. The testimonials describe creative solutions to tough bottleneck situations. The book doesn't help the reader come up with this type of creative solution - it only mentions where to look for the problem. Here are the memorable examples he cites:

1. A large office supply company (similar to Staples) was losing business to companies that were charging very low prices. Investigating this marketing bottleneck, they determined that from the customers' perspective, the larger problem was the overall cost of stocking and procuring and purchasing and tracking the office supplies.

Rather than competing on price, its owner fixed the Sales bottleneck with an innovative concept, where they arranged to place fully stocked cabinets filled with office supplies throughout their client companies, just like a hotel minibar. They'd visit each week, restock any items that were used, and charge the company for the items that were removed, thereby saving the company the aggravation and cost of even having to purchase or account for office supplies. They also supplied each customer with detailed information regarding what was used, when. In exchange for this unique convenience, they charged higher prices and achieved large profit margins.

2. A printing company, constrained by the number of presses available to print jobs, made more efficient use of its presses by routing jobs to different types of presses in a way that would maximize the total output of the presses.

3. A manufacturing company's output was limited by a saw that cut pipes. They dug up an old, inefficient saw, put it to work to remove that bottleneck, and increased output and profits significantly.

4. In the book itself, the protagonist's factory increased its Return On Investment (profit/money tied up) by shortening the time it took for a product to be manufactured (as doing that reduced the money tied up, hence increased ROI). This was accomplished by removing delays that were keeping costly unfinished products sitting around the plant. For instance, by reducing the 'batch size', a product would wait less time for its batch to be complete, allowing it to move to the next step of production sooner.


Rating:
Summary: one of the greatest business books ever!
Review: This is an easy to read business novel. No dry theory. Goldratt used his background in science to formulate and solve problems in manufacturing. His ideas are simple and at the same time brilliant. I recommend this book to anyone who is involved in manufacturing or supply chain management. The Goal gave me more insight into what is going on in a factory than half a dozen management courses I took in college.
Warning: This book is not for literature snobs. You must have some interest in manufacturing processes to find this book interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I must admit I was quite skeptical even after I read all the reviews on the book. This was recommended by our Operations prof at MBA school.

The book is an extremely easy read, fast paced and well written. He does a great job to illustrate the essence of the theory of constraints using real world simple examples.

Strongly recommend to anyone remotely interested in process engineering or even just general reading. (The concept is probably being subconsiously used in your everyday life to help prioritize your tasks)

Rating:
Summary: heroic
Review: Great and unexpected. Like the novels of Ayn Rand, this book is a vehicle for worthy ideas about the real world. Entertainment that rearranges your brain. Wish there were more books in the world like this.