The Goal is a management-oriented novel written by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt. This book focuses on Theory of Constraints, and bottlenecks and applications of these concepts. The Goal is a fiction novel. The main character is Alex Rogo, who manages a production plant owned by UniCo Manufacturing. He saw working very hard to improve performance but factory was heading rapidly towards disaster. At the beginning of the book, Bill Peach, a company executive, tells Alex that he has three months to turn his unprofitable plant operations to being successful. Alex took help from a professor from student days, Jonah, who helps him to solve the company's problems through a series of telephone calls and short meetings. A second story line also describes …show more content…
Alex's team brought in an old machine they received for free in order to increase the capacity of the NCX-10 machine, which had been identified as one of the two bottlenecks. Furthermore, they identified processes at the heat treat, identified as their second bottleneck, that caused massive delays in their getting product through the heat-treat and which had also caused some products to be heat-treated multiple times (to make softer and then harder again) instead of just once or not at all. In the book, Jonah teaches Alex Rogo by using the Socratic Method. Throughout the book, whenever a meeting or telephone call dialogue happens with Jonah he poses a question to Alex Rogo or a member of his crew which in turn causes them to talk amongst themselves to come up with a solution to their problem. When Alex Rogo is with his wife, he finds the Socratic method to be a way to fix his marriage which he then uses, with his crew, to come up with the five steps they should use to fix problems in the plant which ultimately leads him and Lou to think up the three things every division manager, the position Rogo is promoted to, should be able to …show more content…
Alex Rogo and his problems with his production plant. There is also a confrontation between Mr. Rogo and his boss Mr. Peach, the Division Vice President. The dispute is over an overdue order #41427. And Alex has three months to show an improvement or the plant will be shut down. The second chapter is about Alex’s home life. The order #41427 does get shipped, but not very efficiently. In next three chapters, Mr. Peach calls a meeting at headquarters for all plant managers and his staff. At the meeting everybody finds out the given goals to achieve for the next quarter. During meeting, Alex thinks back on a recent business trip where he met an old physics professor, Jonah, at the airport. Jonah asks Alex about the plant. However, Jonah has no knowledge of where Alex is employed but still he predicts the problems of high inventories and not meeting shipping dates. He also states that there is only one goal for all companies, and anything that brings you closer to achieving it is productive and all other things are not productive. Alex decides to leave the meeting at the break and think to understand what the "goal" is. The "goal" is to make money and anything that brings us closer to it is productive and anything that doesn’t isn’t. In Chapter Six and Seven, Mr. Rogo sits down with one of his accountants and together they define what is needed in terms of achieving the goal. Net profit needs to increase along with simultaneously increasing