The Goal

"The Goal" is a business novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt that explores the theory of constraints, which focuses on identifying and managing bottlenecks in production processes to improve overall efficiency. The story follows a plant manager, Alex Rogo, who must save his factory from closure. Through a series of challenges, he learns to prioritize the throughput of the system rather than merely optimizing individual components. The book emphasizes the importance of aligning all parts of an organization towards a common goal—increasing profit and productivity—by making decisions that enhance the entire system’s performance, rather than just local efficiencies.