The “goal” Executive Evaluation Brief

MGT 5230 – Operations Management

November 24, 2018

The “Goal” Executive Evaluation Brief

The main purpose behind “The Goal” is to explain the Theory of Constraint and provide real life examples to make it easier to digest. This theory identifies the most critical limiting factors “bottlenecks” that stand in the way of achieving the goal and discovers various ways to eliminate them. The ultimate goal of any manufacturing plant is to make profit and the book does an outstanding job of providing a helpful set of tools to achieve this goal.

The book is filled with examples of pitfalls created by the lack of an ability to see a big picture. To make his plant successful and profitable, Alex had to ensure that it functions in unison and all lines of business are working towards the same goal. In the beginning, it seemed that fixing issues as they arise and concentrating on improving efficiencies was working, but those were only short-term solutions and they did not raise profits for his plant. Similarly, the same concept can be applied to Alex’s marriage. Alex’s failure to see the magnitude of issues within his marriage almost caused his wife to leave him for good. He kept thinking that he’ll be able to make it up to her but did not recognize and acknowledge their underlying problem.

The business model outlined in the book is based on two main principals. The first one identifies measurements that should be applied to measure if the plant is making money – Throughput, Inventory and Operational Expense. Throughput is directly tied to the Design of Goods and Services and Process and Capacity Strategy Operations Management Decisions as it is an output of the decisions that determine how goods and services are produced and which resources are required for the production. Inventory correlates to Supply Chain Management and Inventory Management as decisions need to be made regarding what is required to be purchased, how it should be purchased and how to best optimize inventory. And Operational Expense is associated Location Strategy, Layout Strategy, Scheduling, Maintenance and Managing Quality as all these decisions deal with money that are needed to turn inventory into throughput.