Goal

Introduction

The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff is a fictional story based in a fictitious town called Bearington. The story revolves around the life of Alex Rogo, who is the plant manager of Uniware, a manufacturing unit of the UniCo Company. This book explains how the plant has undergone a serious downturn and Alex was given an ultimatum by his superior Mr. Bill Peach, the Division Vice President of the company either to turn it around or it would be shut down. In his search for options to recover the plant, Alex finds answers through his mentor- his past professor and physicist named Jonah, who helps him through a series of challenges and improvements. This leads to the question of “What is the goal of any business?” On the other hand, with the pressure mounting and the work-centric lifestyle he leads, his wife, Julie, walks out on him one fine day. The book is a runs in parallel with Alex trying to save both the firm and his marriage.

The Goal

Alex had to do something about getting the plant to a suitable profitable condition and with his job on the line, he was lucky to meet his former Professor, Jonah, at the airport. He guides Alex in analyzing and identifying what exactly is the goal of the business, which is-to make money.

“If the goal is to make money, then (assuming how Jonah might have said), an action that moves us toward making money is productive. And an action that takes away from making money is non-productive. (Pg. 41)

Additionally, if the goal is to make money, any related action towards achieving this goal is productive while anything that is not moving towards achieving this is non-productive. They realised that the robots in the plants are not actually productive to maximize the profit and started to rely on the non-conventional approaches. They realized that cutting costs, increasing efficiency, reducing wages and other traditional factors were not in the right direction and identified three critical areas that needed to be balanced...