The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox
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Book Reviews of The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Book Review: Makes you think and reconsider some "truths"
Summary: 5 Stars
Interesting and at times entertaining "business novel", which presents TOC (Theory of Constraints) in an easy to swallow format. The goal of a business - which is to make money - is broken down in three components (Increase throughput; Reduce inventory; Decrease operating expenses), and the implementation tackled one by one. Along the way flaws of conventional accounting and business practices are exposed (efficiency, cost), and better measurements introduced. I was expecting a plug for time driven ABC (Activity Based Costing), but that didn't happen. Icing on the cake are the last few chapters dealing with fundamental leadership questions (What to change?; What to change to?; How to cause change?). The big emphasis throughout is to get to the right questions to ask to address the root cause of each problem that is presented.Book Review: A story of discovery
Summary: 5 Stars
"The goal" is an allegorical story of a plant manager and how he was retaught that every plant was run according to the same wrong model. "The goal" explains how the classical method of reckoning efficiency of production was wrong, and how it deceived its users that they were making parts cheap when they were tying up money in inventory and how operating expense was not what it cost to turn inventory into product, but a catch-all for people running around and doing what they think makes profit. According to this book, all the actions of this system can be measured in Inventory, Operating Cost, and Throughput. I personally really like this book. It gives dry, otherwise brainbreaking information in a fast paced, fun format, and has a lot of good lessons in it for any engineer or manager.
Book Review: Current MBA candidate - thoroughly insightful and fun to read
Summary: 5 Stars
Although I should have been reading my text books and Harvard Business School case studies, I could not put this book (eBook) down after our Operations professor recommended this book.
Having studied history for my Bachelors, business theories are limited, except for the empirical knowledge I've acquired from work experience and 1yr's worth of classes. The Goal helped me quickly grasp the big-picture issues management face daily and the struggle to implement solutions to complex problems effectively.
The book is fun to read and has a good story... even if you're not a business school student or manager.
A process of ongoing improvement is there to help challenge you to see problems differently to improve your career, your family, and your life.
Book Review: Excellent Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was quite apprehensive before I bought this book because I had heard a few people say that it was a very difficult book to understand and was very hard to read without getting bored. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find out that once I started reading it I couldn't put it down! It reads like a very interesting fictional novel with the Theory of Constraints as its main focus. I loved the fact that the author included a plot concerning the manager of the plant and his relationship with his wife because that also created another interesting aspect and provided quite a few breaks from the more in-depth, conceptual sections. Overall I give this book 5 stars! Don't be afraid if you have to read this book for a college class or some kind of assignment... you will enjoy it!Book Review: Extremely useful manufacturing throughput concepts
Summary: 5 Stars
Goldratt's examination of throughput and cultural belief issues in a manufacturing environment are highly informative for anyone involved with a product slated for manufacturing. He illustrates his concepts with adeptly conceived metaphors and parables which makes grasping them much easier. In fact I would even go so far as to recommend this book to those involved in service industries, where his concepts of throughput and bottlenecks may be applied with great utility.
Additionally, on the financial side Goldratt presents models for cost of inventory which I found illuminating, although I am more concerned with the throughput side of the operation.
An excellent easy read I recommend to almost anyone in business.