The Goal | Eliyahu M. Goldratt

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox & David Whitford

About the Book: The Goal

Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal, a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world. It is a book to recommend to your friends in industry—even to your bosses—but not to your competitors.

Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster.

So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a professor from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.

The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading.

It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas, which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC), developed by Eli Goldratt.

One of Eli Goldratt's convictions was that the goal of an individual or an organization should not be defined in absolute terms. A good definition of a goal is one that sets us on a path of ongoing improvement. Pursuing such a goal necessitates more than one breakthrough. In fact it requires many.

To be in a position to identify these breakthroughs we should have a deep understanding of the underlying rules of our environment. Twenty-five years after writing The Goal, Dr. Goldratt wrote “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.”

In this article he provided the underlying rules of operations. This article appears at the end of this book. The 30th Anniversary edition represents the first time the narrative in The Goal has been substantially updated.

Goldratt's Five Focusing Steps have been added, and his essay, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,” is included.

Summary of The Goal:

The Goal is a management-oriented novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a business consultant known for his theory of constraints and Jeff Cox, the author of several management-oriented novels.

The Goal was originally published in 1984 and has been revised and republished.

About the Author: Eliyahu Goldratt

Eliyahu M. Goldratt is an Israeli physicist, inventor, and philosopher whose unconventional approach to business management has made him one of the most sought-after consultants in the world today.

Through his lectures and writings, as well as his work with such corporations as General Motors, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, and AT&T, Dr. Goldratt continues his crusade to teach businesses to re-examine their basic assumptions in order to compete effectively in the new global market place.