Current and Past Reading - Business Improvement

* * * * * Reviewed books have a 1 to 5 star rating. * * * * *

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Content:

The Goal
It's Not Luck
Business Process Implementation
Business Reengineering - The Survival Guide

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement *****

Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, 2nd Ed. 1993, Gower Publishing, UK

ISBN 0-566-07418-4 Pbk

For many years I've heard others praising this book and so I have been meaning to read it myself for years. Now I can see why! Once opened I didn't book the book down (except for a meal) until it was finished. Oh, how I wished I had read it earlier.

This is a business book written as a novel such that a technical/scientific subject (the Theory of Constraints) is accessible to all business people. Alex Rogo is a plant manager at UniCo. He is given just 3 months to turn his factory around or have it closed. At the same time his marriage is also heading for the rocks! Alex calls up his old physics lecturer Jonah, who he had by chance met recently at O'Hare airport. Jonah had challenged his use of robotics at the plant because they had made productivity worse not better! Did Jonah have some insight as to why the plant was a disaster? Alex finds Jonah, but all he does is ask more questions. Alex is forced to learn and understand what is happening on the shop floor and in doing so learns about the Theory of Constraints. But as one problem is solved another one surfaces. And then there is the matter of his marriage - he could perhaps save his marriage, or the plant, but surely not both.

Eliyahu M. Goldratt continues to research and consult in this area.

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