The Goal

A thinly disguised novel about process control. Well done. (From GreatBooksListAlistairCockburn)

"While the book focuses on production operations, the techniques in his book may also be effective in resolving service oriented processes as well. The key point to Goldratt's theory of constraints is the identification and dissolution of bottlenecks (constraints) in the system." -- Amazon review by Ron Atkins

"The goal of a manufacturing organization is to make money. And everything else we do is a means to achieve the goal." (pages 40, 59)

See also: ExtremeBudgeting

A dreadful book! The production methodology described is about as popular in the manufacturing world as SSADM is in IT. And about as effective.

[I think that because it lacks heavy mathematics and the concepts are far different from those preached in "mainstream management", it's not that popular among industrial engineers. Just like XP is yet to be popular among software engineers. They are fairly effective, though. Both are so lightweight to implement that you can see its results in no time.]

It's a well written book that lulls the reader into an over simplistic view of the manufacturing process. (How many IT methodologies and books copy that?) The fact it is well written, and Eliyahu is an excellent public speaker, is the reason for its popularity. It is the triumph of presentation over content.

At best his system can be used for a few simple manufacturing processes. Most modern manufacturing is based on MRPII for macro level planning, and more simple methods (JIT & Kaizen) + human common sense (wahoo!) for day to day running.

[Sorry, but your manufacturing management concepts are somewhat wrong! Kaizen is part of JIT and (at most) you only plan your purchases using MRP on a true JIT environment. And traditional JIT is not very suited for high product/demand variability mftg environments.]

Final thought: It all sounds good on paper, but the real practice is much more complex.

I think "dreadful" is over-doing it. If you actually base your manufacturing process directly on it, you deserve what you get. However, I still think it's a good book at raising issues and communicating some methods/ideas. And it's a lot easier to read than most text books, so perhaps more people would actually read it.

I find it's read by two categories of people. Firstly those who have nothing to do with manufacturing, who think it's great. Secondly those who do manufacturing, who are realize that it's a nice story and nothing more. That's all it is to me - a nice story. Little basis in real world manufacturing.

[Maybe that's because today's "real world manufacturing" should not be a basis for "good manufacturing". In the 70's, working with very little inventory was not "real world manufacturing" but Toyota did it. Common sense is not the same as good sense.]

Since I read it and like it, and fit in your first category of readers, can you say a bit more about what has replaced it... which of its recommendations are wrong or out-of-date? Here are the ones I saw:

The "speed of the bottleneck is the speed of the plant"
The "don't run for individual station efficiency"
The "allow yourself to be less efficient at non-bottleneck stations"
The "shorter runs lead to greater profits"
Excess inventory is a liability not an asset.

See: SolutionsToBottlenecks

Bottlenecks often move - they don't sit still on one machine. Even in a highly repetitive manufacturing process, which are few and far between. Even ones that appear repetitive often aren't as repetitive as you may think.

[Wandering bottlenecks happens when you have large batches of work. But, as you have enough protective capacity on non-bottlenecks, it should deliver the goods on time. TOC's concept of bottlenecks has a medium-term perspective]

If a machine has a backlog of work then people don't just sit and watch it build up. They can sub-contract for instance. Whether they do or do not depends on a large number of factors. The manufacturing process is like the software process - complex and not easily modelled.

I can't remember the other points in the book too well. I'd have to read it again or be reminded. I don't want to upset anyone but basically the book is a series of over-simplifications. I believe Eliyahu was a scientist, rather than someone with a lot of experience, and quite frankly I think it shows. His model of the process is too simple. It's like the waterfall model for software - way too simple.

[It is simple but not simplistic (like the waterfall model). Goldratt's ideas implementation (called DBR and Buffer Management) is fairly complex and takes a while to master. People consider it simplistic because it does not require a complex computer system in order to run (so, taking a lot money out of consultants)]

Nothing has replaced his system, since it was never adopted to any great extent. MRPII+JIT are popular at the minute, but most manufacturing engineers use a bit of theory + a lot common sense.

Don't the current ERP and MRP tools incorporate Goldratts ideas regarding inventory levels and attention to the bottom line? I'm finding the criticisms a little light. For example, some could say that many of ideas in The Deadline were simplified, but that doesn't mean they weren't inspirational or leading down the correct road.

CategoryBook CategoryManufacturing