The Goal By Eliyahu M

It is stressed in the Goal that there is a massive difference between throughput and efficiency. The novel makes the case that having an efficient operation does not equate to profitability. What does equate to profitability is to increase the throughput of any given operations system. Jonah tells Alex, “Throughput, is the rate in which the system generates money through sales.” (Goldratt, E.M. (2014), The Goal, pg. 60). Jonah goes on to explain to Alex that inventory is all the money that was invested in purchasing things that the system intends to sell. (Id). Furthermore, operational expenses are those costs that are required to turn inventory into throughput. (Id, at pg. 61). The definitions of these three measurements are not standard definitions for an MBA student. It is an interesting perspective on how to view operations.

At this point, before we explain further about how the two (Billy and Peter) develop their strategy to decrease risk and increase revenue; it is worthy to mention that the prelude of Billy and Peter relationship is similar to what we learnt in the course as “Theory of constraints”. As the book explains TOC is “a process for creating processes of improvement”.

One of the best aspects of the way the time-driven ABC system was put into place at Kemps was how efficiently and accurately management determined the main issues with the current cost system and responded with appropriate and relevant solutions. For example, one of the greatest problems the company was facing was that many of its operating costs were spread out equally over a customer base that was growing more diverse and demanding more personalized and varied service, effectively cutting or potentially eliminating entirely Kemps’ profit margins for a product. Therefore,

To resolve this problem, Firstly I will analyze gaps in system in terms of cost allocation, revenue sharing , transfer price and create a strategy to address gaps, motivate teams across divisions to work towards company objectives.

Alex comes up with the consensus that the “Goal” of his business and many others is to increase net profit while simultaneously increasing return on investment and their cash flow at the plant. This basically means to make money. These three measurements can be achieved by looking closer into his second set of measurements. Alex specifically must find a way to increase throughput while at the same time decreasing it inventory and operational expenses. All three of these measurements must be cautiously monitored since they all rely on each other to be obtained in balance. Factors that cause throughput, inventory, and operational expenses to become unbalanced are excess manpower and balance capacity of the demand of resources in the market.

All businesses face constraints. The limiting factors of time, influence, money, and labor play a factor in economic decisions. At some point, a short term working plan is developed from the perspective of “what can we do with what we have currently”? Should we stay the course, or make some adjustments? These decisions are important to the health of the organization. Saturation points become very important considerations. Just like a pitcher of water can sustain only so much sugar in a solution before sugar crystals will fall

People: The emergence of the triple bottom line has led to companies becoming more aware of how their decisions affect not only employees and customers but those within the community they operate in. To achieve this in an ever changing global world a company needs to create policies and guidelines on how to select suppliers and evaluate performance.

The Goal, by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, is a fictional management-oriented novel that demonstrates Goldratt’s, “Theory of Constraints” via resolving the personal and professional problems of the story’s main character. The story is about a plant manager named Alex Rogo, as he is six months into his first plant manager position at a UniCo manufacturing plant. The plant is located in Barrington, Massachusetts, where Alex grew up. Throughout the book, Alex discovers several concepts, theories and definitions, with the help of his mysterious mentor, Jonah, by which he can evaluate the problems in his life and then implement the necessary changes in order to improve or diminish his professional and personal issues.

The main character in “The Goal”, Alex Rogo, manages a production plant that is unprofitable and not efficient with its resources. Alex is given a short amount of time to turn the operations at the plant around and make it an efficient, successful production plant. Throughout the book, Alex Rogo speaks to Jonah a number of times and learns a great amount of information from him. The first significant time that Alex and Jonah spoke was during their chance meeting at an airport lounge. During this conversation, Alex learned a great deal about productivity and goal setting. Jonah explains to Alex that a company has one goal and that the manager must be open about the goal. Jonah then discusses the definition of productivity with Alex and tells him that the true definition is bringing a company closer to its goal that it has set. Among these concepts that Alex learned, he also learned more about his own management style and how it could be improved. Alex learned that he must question common concepts regarding managing and that he must think differently in order to be successful.

Throughout the entirety of the book, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, author Eliyahu M. Goldratt focuses on demonstrating the importance of the Theory of Constraints and what corporations should do in order to increase profits. A major term used throughout the novel is “throughput,” which according to the text, is “the rate at which the system generates money through sales” (Goldratt 60). Once a bottleneck machine in a production process is identified, there are multiple ways to increase throughput without expanding the physical capacity of the machine.

Managers make many decisions every day. Thankfully there are many tools available to a manager as they make these decisions. Tiffany is a General Manager of a franchise in the quick service restaurant industry. She is faced with decisions dozens of times in one day. A large portion of the decisions that she is faced with are made to solve structured problems, however, sometimes an unstructured problem does arise that she needs to address. As well as solving problems Tiffany must also make plans to in order to have structure and organization to achieve the goals set forth by herself and the company that she works for. Looking at some of the decisions that Tiffany has had to make recently it can been seen how she goes about solving

In the case we can see the use of ‘self management and transparency’, as Callahan does not exploit the fact that he is the managing director to get things done (his position of power), instead relying on the people whom he has hired, ‘getting the right people in the right place at the right time is key to PAs success’. (Case Study)

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is about a plant manager named Alex Rogo and his quest of knowledge to make his company profitable again. Alex does this while battling family issues at home with his wife. In the beginning, Alex has no idea where he is going to start or even understand why they are losing money. Everything that he reads according to the numbers of the company says that he is running a very efficient company.

I read the fictional book called, The goal: A process of ongoing improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff cox. Goldratt has an extensive history of writing novels about business problems and their solutions. His list of work includes; The race, The haystack syndrome, What is This Thing Called Theory of Constraints and How Should it be Implemented?, It’s not luck, critical chain, and necessary but not sufficient. With his most recent work being in 2009 called Isn’t it obvious focusing on retail. The authors purpose for writing this book would be to educate and show examples on how to think outside the box or solve solutions, possibly even save companies. In his own words, “This book is an attempt to show that we can postulate a very small number of assumptions and utilize them to explain a very large spectrum of industrial phenomena” (Goldratt, Intro to revised edition page 2). He states he wants to show that these methods aren’t fantasy and have been/are working in pants around the world, and says that, “Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to show that we can all be outstanding scientists. The secret of being a good scientist, I believe, lies not in our brain power. We have enough. We simply need to look at reality and think logically and precisely about what we see” (Goldratt, Introduction page 2). This story is about a failing or close to failing manufacturing plant in a place called Bearington. The novel begins with the main character Alex Rogo, a

Dr. Eli M. Goldratt started his career as a scientist and later became a business leader. “He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from Tel Aviv University and his Masters of Science, and Doctorate of Philosophy from Bar-llan University” (Theory of Constraints). He was a thinker who strongly encouraged others to inspect and review their business practices. “Dr. Goldratt created and developed the Theory of Constraints (TOC), an overall framework for helping organizations and individuals to determine: What to Change – find and use the leverage point. What to Change to – create the simple, practical solutions, How to Cause the Change – build a secure and stable improvement environment” (Theory of Constraints).