preview

The Goal By Eliyahu M

Good Essays

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox is the story of a struggling plant manager, Alex whose back is against the wall and has three months to save his plant from being shut down. Also, due to the stress of the plant’s failures Alex’s marriage is in trouble because he in unable to give his wife any attention. Luckily, with help from his old physics professor, Jonah he is able to make his plant the best in the division. Jonah does this by teaching Alex through the Socratic method which is posing the student the question and having them figure out the problem on their own. To help Alex solve the questions that Jonah poses he forms a team of leaders from the plant, Lou from accounting, Bob from production, and Stacey from inventory. By …show more content…

This leads Alex and his team to come up with the theory of constraints. A theory, which used properly, will let any manager utilize all of Jonah’s concepts correctly and in theory make the company profitable. The theory is broken down into five steps: “1. IDENTIFY the system’s constraint(s). 2 Decide how to EXPLOIT the system’s constraint(s). 3.SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision. 4. ELEVATE the system’s constraint(s). 5. WARNING!!! If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, go back to step 1, but do not allow INERTIA to cause a system’s constraint” (Cox & Goldratt 307).
Today many companies practice the theory of constraints, especially when they are facing tough times. For example, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) a multinational pharmaceutical company based in India was experiencing very tough times in the United States. Just like what Alex was dealing with in The Goal, DRL was facing an extensive number of backorders and their supplier ratings were at an all time low (Sangani Par. 1). Knowing that change needed to be made DRL implemented the theory of constraints with astounding results and in 2013 won an award for Quality leadership. Saumen Chakraborty, DRL 's chief financial officer credits TOC to the success because “Shifting to a throughput based system where we track operating expenses has simplified management accounting and reporting. Ultimately it helps the management focus….The focus is on specifically

Get Access