The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Book Review Sample)

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Name Institution The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement This book titled The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement is a novel that is intended to provide insight into manufacturing management. The book authored by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox was first published in 1984, with subsequent revised editions published in the following years. Prior to becoming a business consultant, Goldratt, an Israeli by origin, was a renowned physicist. The authors employ a narrative approach to convey across the importance of realizing and understanding the intended goal or objective of a company in order to maximize its productivity. This is illustrated through the story of the main protagonist, Alex Rogo, who is an operations manager at a large manufacturing plant called Unico. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the book, and evaluate its success in light of its purpose, which is how to employ the theory of constraints introduced by the authors by managers who intend to maximize their company’s productivity. Alex Rogo is a man who, despite his hardworking nature, is troubled by two things: his work and marriage. At work, he faces constant pressure from his superiors who blame his tactics as a plant manager at the Unico manufacturing company for the poor performance in terms of productivity, meeting clients’ needs, and remaining competitive in the industry. His boss gives him an ultimatum to get the plant back on its feet or risk closure by the end of three months. To add to his troubles, Alex’s marriage is failing back at home, as his wife feels neglected since he spends most of his time at work. While pondering about his troubles, Alex encounters his former physics professor, whom he decides to confide in. This man is named Jonah and just turns out to be his guru who would lead him on a path out of his troubles. After Alex presents his predicaments, Jonah enlightens and broadens his perspective by assisting him to determine first what productivity meant for the company. He suggests that he defines the principle goal of the company. Later he introduces him to other concepts, which are constraints, bottlenecks, non-bottlenecks, dependent events, variability, and statistical fluctuations, explains their significance in achieving intended goals and instructs him to identify them in his plant. In addition, he shows him how to manage strategically throughput, operational expense, and inventory which are the metrics of productivity. Afterwards, Alex has somewhat an epiphany while on a hiking trip with his son in which Jonah’s concepts manifest themselves and later he discerns how to employ them in the company. Within no time, things begin improving at work. They are able to optimize their throughput, while reducing their inventory and operational costs. Ultimately, Alex earns a promotion to division’s manager. Based on his new insight, he fights for his marriage and wins his wife back and they become one happy family again. The authors are exceptionally brilliant at bringing out the faults and oversights managers often perform while running their companies. These flawed thought processes such as in the case of Unico that minimizing operational costs per unit and increasing efficiencies improves productivity are regarded as old-fashioned assumptions and reprimanded. On the contrary, they encourage managers to concentrate on measures that increase the profitability of the company. In the book, Jonah helps Alex recognize the ultimate goal of his company, which is to make money. This is obviously the primary objective of any company, and the most imperative thing that every manager should bear in mind. Another flawed perception that is elicited in the book in the case of Unico, is their view of improvement. Alex’s superiors believe that cutting down on operational costs is a good measure of improvement. Jonah, however, disregards this notion by asserting that despite the benefits of operating at low costs, failure to increase throughput parallel to operational cost reduction is futile as no sales increase. In addition to reducing these costs, it is also important to reduce inventory so as to increase the company’s savings. Goldratt and his colleague use the events that happened on the hiking trip to demonstrate the importance of a leader learning and understanding his team. During the trip, after wondering why the line keeps lagging behind and breaking, Alex identifies the constraint and controls the bottlenec...