The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

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This book has 3 main ideas , most of which are very basic in today’s manufacturing environment.

Devo ammettere che quando ho acquistato "The Goal" ero abbastanza scettico verso il genere business novel. Le consideravo come l'esposizione di una teoria (magari anche valida) presentata dietro una storia non all'altezza, e anzi creata in maniera forzata per rendere la teoria più facile da comprendere. Questo libro ha distrutto questa convinzione: non tratta i concetti come un asettico elenco di tesi, ma fa li sviluppare in maniera progressiva ai vari personaggi, passo dopo passo. E anche questo sviluppo non avviene in modo perfetto e lineare ma, proprio come nel mondo reale, si deve far fronte a tentativi, a errori e non di rado a dietrofront. La storia si svolge intorno al personaggio di Alex Rogo, direttore di un impianto industriale che ha appena ricevuto l'ultimatum di aumentare la produttività per evitare la chiusura. Nel corso del tempo datogli a disposizione per portare a casa l'obiettivo, Alex inizia ad interrogarsi su cosa significa "produttività". Per il suo impianto "produttività" non significava produrre di più, ma andare verso l'obiettivo aziendale: fare soldi. E ogni passo verso fare soldi è produttivo, ogni passo che non lo aiuta, non lo è. Quindi, individua l'obiettivo di "aumentare il throughput" (il tasso con cui il sistema genera denaro attraverso le vendite) riducendo sia l'inventario (il denaro investito dal sistema per acquistare la materia prima) sia le spese operative (tutto il denaro che i sistemi spendono per trasformare l'inventario in throughput). In questo libro, Eliyahu M. Goldratt presenta la sua Theory of Constraints (la Teoria dei Vincoli) secondo cui, per migliorare qualsiasi catena di processo, è necessario: - trovare il vincolo che limita il throughput - decidere come sfruttare il vincolo - subordinare tutto il resto alle decisioni di cui sopra - elevare il vincolo del sistema Se nel passaggio precedente, un vincolo è stato superato, la TOC indica di tornare al passaggio 1, ma non consente l'inerzia. A partire da questo libro sono state aperte strade infinite nel mondo del Project Management. Una lettura obbligatoria (essendo anche molto piacevole) per chi lavora nel mondo della produzione, a qualsiasi livello.

Excellent book and a must read for engineering professionals. 👍👍

It is a good book !

Recomiendo

When I was first assigned to read this book, I thought it was going to be a purely theoretical material. I thought it was going to be a book difficult to read and/or keep me interested to continue reading. However, this book turned to be a marvelous composition. The reader is always interested in the topic, and one can feel like being part of the plot. This book is a perfect combination of a narrative, and an explanation. The author dedicated the time and effort to make sure that anyone, who grabs this book and reads it, will be able to clearly understand the material presented. As an industrial engineering student, we are focused on improving an existent process and/or system in a facility. Moreover, we are provided with a broad set of techniques that can be utilized in accomplishing this purpose. The Goal by Goldratt is a magnificent piece of literature where industrial engineering student can see how the different techniques learned in class are applied into a real world problem. In The Goal, Goldratt also provides the reader with a description and an example of how to apply the Theory of Constraints. Alex Rogo, a plant engineer at UniCo Manufacturing, is presented with a complex problem; he has several months of orders overdue and his plant is not capable of delivering any order in time. Therefore, Bill Peach, Alex’s boss, tells him that he has only three months to turn his plant around. As a result, Alex and his team start working in finding a solution; however, they are not capable to find it without the help of Jonah, Alex’s Physics professor. Nonetheless, it is important to mention that Jonah does not provide Alex with immediate solutions; instead, he uses the Socratic Method to teach Alex how to be able to localize the bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks of his process and to determine the goal of his plant. Therefore, after spending several days thinking about what the goal is, he is finally able to define it as “Reducing operational expenses and inventory while increasing throughput” (Goldratt 87). Jonah also teaches Alex that in every company there is dependent events and statistical fluctuations that affect the process. According to the Theory of Constraints, one must identify the bottleneck and then work around it; in other words, one must take into account the bottleneck in order to increase throughput and ultimately reach the goal. Jonah, however, after providing Alex with enough help, he takes a step back on his role and forces Alex to learn how to be able to identify the bottlenecks on his own and what approach or process to use to fix the bottlenecks. At the end, Alex finally understands that it is of utmost importance for any individual to be able to answer three questions: “‘what to change?’, ‘what to change to?’, and ‘how to cause a change?’” (Goldratt 337). Overall, The Goal is a magnificent work that I highly recommend to any individual to read in order to understand more about the Theory of Constraints and how to become a better manager. I deeply believe that any individual who reads this book will be greatly benefited from the material presented; in my personal experience, I am pleased that I was able to read this book since I was given the opportunity to add a new technique to my engineering toolbox. I encourage any reader that is uncertain whether or not to buy this book to purchase it. I believe that it is definitely worth the time reading this book; thanks to this book, I feel better prepared as an engineer.