Production & Operations Books

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 303 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Manufacturing world at a glance 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have just started to read this book, and from the very beginning it feels like you are inside the normal reality of manufacturing.
It is easy to write books about theories, but giving a real feeling of daily manufacturing issues is something new.
I expect a lot form reading the whole, since page by page you discover more as the guy who's involved in story.

Outstanding read 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Great book! I couldn't put it down. Very interesting how the author used a novel to present a breakthrough business theory.

Julie Rogo Knocks It Down One Star 4 out of 5 stars.
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Per my graduate class in quality engineering:

"Read The Goal and provide an executive summary of the book. The summary should cover the main points of the process that Mr. Rogo and his team took to turn around the plant. In addition to the summary, answer the following questions."

Part I -- Executive Summary

The problem of production has challenged human beings since they first evolved. Even hunters and gatherers had to do elementary planning to evaluate local resources and ration their prizes to assure they met the basic needs of the tribe. Moreover, gathering these basic commodities from nature -- wild game, fruits, nuts, roots, stems, berries, and so forth -- constituted only the first step of the tribal production process. A primitive division of labor within the tribe created the equivalent of an assembly line on the micro scale with hunters, gatherers, preparers, tribal elders, caretakers, medicinal specialists, etc.

Over the millennia, this division of labor continued to specialize and to multiply the range of possible productive occupations. This trend exploded with the advent of new individual freedoms after the American Revolution. The resulting Industrial Revolution greatly swelled the diversity, complexity, and specialization of knowledge needed in the rapidly modernizing society. It resulted in the modern fields of engineering and especially industrial engineering, the study of systems that keep industries humming.

Because of their long history of storytelling, humans still show a strong preference for learning through dramatic interpretation. Young people learn moral lessons like the just rewards of industry through stories such as "The Little Red Hen." Such fictional tales of virtue tend not to make their way so much to older generations. A few exceptions exist in novels such as Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a story which illustrates the role of the mind in man's life. A more recent exception comes in The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, a story which illustrates his "Theory of Constraints" dramatically.

Goldratt, a consultant by profession, considers himself a philosopher in his own right. His frustrations in the early 1980s in attempting to convey his new theory of production to his clients led him to write The Goal with the help of professional writer Jeff Cox. Goldratt seeks to show, in the form of a novel, how commonly held yet faulty assumptions about ideal production plant behavior, such as using all processing resources to capacity, neglect integrated thinking at a systems level and lead to net profits far short of potential. To borrow the words of Ayn Rand, Goldratt tells the reader, in effect: "Check your premises." By the end of the tale, protagonists and readers alike have profitably done just that.

Goldratt cleverly tells the story from a first person point of view of its main protagonist, Alex Rogo. The novel opens with Alex struggling to keep his manufacturing plant afloat. As the plant manager, Alex has done his best to apply his degree as an industrial engineer to solve mounting production problems at his plant. But he has had to face the hard truth that his best simply will not do. The plant has fallen into a perpetual "fire fighter" mode in which jobs get "expedited" based on whichever higher manager screams the most loudly on that particular day. Preposterously long work shifts resulting from this modus operandi have placed stresses on his marriage to his wife, Julie, as well as his relationship with their two young children.

Alex encounters Jonah, an old friend and science teacher who challenges Alex on a number of his basic assumptions with a Socratic method of inquiry. "Then, tell me, what is the goal of your manufacturing organization?" he asks Alex after a brief series of opening questions. Although seemingly innocuous, the answer to the question of "the goal" actually opens a floodgate of other questions. These in turn cascade into answers that help Alex and his team of managers to transform the plant from the biggest loser in the company to the most profitable one.

For any plant, of course, "the goal" proves actually quite simple -- to make money. But Alex takes pages and pages of thought and dialogue in the early part of the novel to answer this question, first refuting other common answers such as "to produce products as efficiently as we can" and other misleading slogans before arriving at the final answer to his own satisfaction. His ensuing exchanges with Jonah over the remainder of the novel, combined with many other plot elements, help Alex to work backwards from this goal to the intermediate tasks the plant performs to achieve it. This leads to open challenges and confrontations with management up and down the chain of command in the company as Alex and his new converts strive to drive dogma from the corporate culture and replace it with a well-reasoned production philosophy -- the "Theory of Constraints."

The "Theory of Constraints" itself seems obvious by the end of the novel. It simply shows, for example, that the throughput of a plant will remain constrained by the narrowest "bottleneck" in the production line, with that line including the market demand itself. Hence, attempts to use other resources up and down the line from that bottleneck to full capacity result in backlogs before the bottleneck and idleness after it. Other problems, such as excess inventory and untimely retooling, also result from the "full capacity" fallacy. Moreover, as a plant reorganizes its resources to make the plant more effective, thus increasing its overall capacity, it can experience the phenomenon of moving bottlenecks. Alex Rogo and his team of experts deal with just this occurrence as their plant improves and they later document this as a key component of their process improvement strategy. (See Part II Question 1 for the step by step strategy.)

Goldratt keeps the story interesting with side plots to illustrate his theory, such as a Boy Scout hike that stretches or shrinks depending upon the sequence and ability of the hiking troops. He also shows that "constraints" apply beyond manufacturing plants to human relations as Alex struggles to hold his family together under the "constraints" of 16 hour work shifts. By the end of the novel, Goldratt resolves the conflicts among the characters satisfactorily and shows the happy reality of practicing his "Theory of Constraints."

Readers who liked Atlas Shrugged will enjoy The Goal. While much narrower in scope, it nevertheless remains a novel that challenges many widely held assumptions. As did Ayn Rand, Eliyahu Goldratt demonstrates himself a profound thinker who dares all of us to think more profoundly.

Part II -- Questions and Answers

1. Review the step-by-step approach implementing the Theory of Constraints (TOC) approach. In your opinion, which is the hardest step and why?

Per Chapter 37:

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.

In my experience, the overcoming of inertia mentioned in Step 5 represents the greatest challenge to implementing TOC. Comfort embodies the core of inertia. With management content with how a process currently operates, overcoming that inertia can prove almost impossible.

2. The first edition of this book hit print in 1984. Are the lessons still relevant? Explain.

The lessons of this book remain as relevant today as they did in 1984. Although the industrial culture has learned much since then, the principles remain timeless and warrant consistent and unyielding repetition. Only repetition of a principle assures its continued practice.

3. What is your biggest takeaway from this book and why?

First, my personal takeaway: Julie Rogo behaves like a psychotic drama queen from hell, and her parents, lying sacks of garbage. I fantasize a novel called Alex Shrugged in which immature Julie leaves her hard-working, productive husband under cover of her conniving, coddling parents only to return to the house to find the locks changed, the house sold, and her husband, children, and assets vanished without a trace. She would have gotten her just deserts.

Now, my professional takeaway: The largest lesson I took from this book involves the importance of setting forth principles dramatically. The compelling and engaging story complete with plot, theme, character, and style help to illustrate otherwise dry principles. One can say much the same for Ayn Rand's great novel Atlas Shrugged which illustrated the role of the mind in man's life.

4. The author claims that the TOC is hard for management to accept because the result runs contrary to common practice (i.e., 100% utilization may not be good). Which of these results, or measurements, or practices is the hardest to accept for management (in your opinion)? Explain.

I agree with the author that a result such as using a resource at less than full capacity remains the hardest pill for management to swallow. Management mythology suggests the old nineteenth century whip cracking slave driver who gets maximum effort from his minions and punishes those who "slack." Reality shows that slack remains a vital and indispensable part of any good management system.

5. There is an old saying that "if you measure it, they will do it." How does this phrase relate to the TOC approach?

Every measurement implies an acceptable range of performance. When the plant measured efficiencies of individual components in the system rather than the overall performance of the system, the metrics misled management to focus on "improving" those efficiencies at the expense of overall plant performance. Once the focus changed to the right metrics, plant performance improved dramatically.

6. As the demand on the system increased, problems arose in the plant -- first diagnosed as moving bottlenecks. As the demand on any system reaches capacity, what are the keys to implementing TOC?

Per the answer to Question 1, management must follow the process of constraint identification regularly.

7. Would you have accepted the French order for $701 per part (Model 12)? Is the answer the book takes always the correct answer? Explain.

Per Chapter 38:

"We calculate the load that this large deal will place on the bottlenecks -- no problem. We check the impact on each of the seven problematic work centers -- two might reach the dangerous zone, but we can manage. Then we calculate the financial impact -- impressive. Very impressive. At last we're ready."

Yes, I would have accepted the order. Yes, the book offers the right answer under the conditions given. The Goal of the plant is to make money. This decision served that goal.

8. Are there any flaws in this philosophy? State your perceived flaws, if any, and defend your answer.

The philosophy assumes that management can identify and control all constraints. This does not always hold true, especially in an age of intrusive government regulations with origins in political ambitions. The novel could have at least mentioned this externality as a "constraint" to the effectiveness of the Theory of Constraints.

Editorial Review:

A fully dramatized version of the practical guide to business in fictional form offers an ensemble cast, accompanied by sound effects and music, that reveals how businesses can enhance productivity and provide personal fulfillment. Book available.

The Great Crash 1929

John Kenneth Galbraith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Rampant speculation. Record trading volumes. Assets bought not because of their value but because the buyer believes he can sell them for more in a day or two, or an hour or two. Welcome to the late 1920s. There are obvious and absolute parallels to the great bull market of the late 1990s, writes Galbraith in a new introduction dated 1997. Of course, Galbraith notes, every financial bubble since 1929 has been compared to the Great Crash, which is why this book has never been out of print since it became a bestseller in 1955.

Galbraith writes with great wit and erudition about the perilous actions of investors, and the curious inaction of the government. He notes that the problem wasn't a scarcity of securities to buy and sell; "the ingenuity and zeal with which companies were devised in which securities might be sold was as remarkable as anything." Those words become strikingly relevant in light of revenue-negative start-up companies coming into the market each week in the 1990s, along with fragmented pieces of established companies, like real estate and bottling plants. Of course, the 1920s were different from the 1990s. There was no safety net below citizens, no unemployment insurance or Social Security. And today we don't have the creepy investment trusts--in which shares of companies that held some stocks and bonds were sold for several times the assets' market value. But, boy, are the similarities spooky, particularly the prevailing trend at the time toward corporate mergers and industry consolidations--not to mention all the partially informed people who imagined themselves to be financial geniuses because the shares of stock they bought kept going up. --Lou Schuler

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Bryan Burrough, John Helyar

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Big Deal 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Barbarians at the Gate is a classic of the business book genre, and with the private equity boom we have seen in the last couple of years, it is still as relevant as it was when it came twenty years ago. It is the story or some extremely unlikable rich people brought low by equally unsavory, but much smarter rich people, and it gives you an inside feel for the major wall street deal like no other book can.

Barbarians at the Gate is the story of an attempt to take RJR Nabisco private, and then the series of take over attempts that were instigated by the original privatization plan. Johnson, the CEO of RJR, comes off as pompous, full of himself, and not very smart. He's like a frat boy who makes it by glad handing people and buying rounds of drinks. Kravis, of legendary private equity firm KKR, comes off like a financier god. Brilliant, pushy, and beyond your puny human morals. Guess who gets the company in the end.

A must read for anyone interested in modern Wall Street.

Editorial Review:

Barbarians at the Gate has been called one of the most influential business books of all time -- the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's gripping account of the frenzy that overtook Wall Street in October and November of 1988 is the story of deal makers and publicity flaks, of strategy meetings and society dinners, of boardrooms and bedrooms -- giving us not only a detailed look at how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted but also a richly textured social history of wealth at the twilight of the Reagan era.

Barbarians at the Gate -- a business narrative classic -- is must reading for everyone interested in the way today's world really works.

Microeconomic Theory

Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael D. Whinston, Jerry R. Green

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Many instructors of microeconomic theory have been waiting for a text that provides balanced and in-depth analysis of the essentials of microeconomics. Masterfully combining the results of years of teaching microeconomics at Harvard University, Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael Whinston, and Jerry Green have filled that conspicuous vacancy with their groundbreaking text, Microeconomic Theory.
The authors set out to create a solid organizational foundation upon which to build the effective teaching tool for microeconomic theory. The result presents unprecedented depth of coverage in all the essential topics, while allowing professors to "tailor-make" their course to suit personal priorities and style. Topics such as noncooperative game theory, information economics, mechanism design, and general equilibrium under uncertainty receive the attention that reflects their stature within the discipline. The authors devote an entire section to game theory alone, making it "free-standing" to allow instructors to return to it throughout the course when convenient. Discussion is clear, accessible, and engaging, enabling the student to gradually acquire confidence as well as proficiency. Extensive exercises within each chapter help students to hone their skills, while the text's appendix of terms, fully cross-referenced throughout the previous five sections, offers an accessible guide to the subject matter's terminology. Teachers of microeconomics need no longer rely upon scattered lecture notes to supplement their textbooks. Deftly written by three of the field's most influential scholars, Microeconomic Theory brings the readability, comprehensiveness, and versatility to the first-year graduate classroom that has long been missing.

Operations Management for Competitive Advantage with Student DVD

Richard B Chase, F. Robert Jacobs, Nicholas J Aquilano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Good book but lacking a little quality... 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a very good book required by many MBA programs. The book contains much useful information with detailed analysis and examples. The biggest problem I have with this book is the use of the word "it." I find it hard to figure out what "it" is. "Rule 3. Merge Information-Processing Work into the Real Work That Produces the Information. This means that people who collect information should also be responsible for processing it. It minimizes the need for another group to reconcile and process that information..." There are countless examples of the use of "it." In the same section (Principles of Reengineering) the authors make note that "it" refers to the actual rule 3, while in rule 4, "it" is noted as the result of the rule. The authors could have chosen an alternate phrase instead of confusing the reader with the lack vocabulary. Although, I have the problem with pronoun usage, the book is very well laid out and flows greatly from operations strategy to supply chain planning and control. The supplements that are available with the book include financial analysis tools, operations technology tools as well as sample problems.

Editorial Review:

Chase, Jacobs and Aquilano: Operations Management for Competitive Advantage, 11/e (CJA) provides a current and thorough introduction to the concepts, processes, and methods of managing and controlling operations in manufacturing or service settings. The text provides comprehensive coverage, from high-tech manufacturing to high touch services with a balanced treatment. Chase, Jacobs, and Aquilano also thoroughly integrates and discusses current issues such as globalization; supply chain strategy, E-business, and ERP. The concepts are illustrated by using abundant real world examples, articles, illustrations, problems and cases. Technology is integral to the success of this course, as such, CJA also provide students and instructors with an innovative array of leading edge technology learning and teaching tools.

Lean Production Simplified

Dennis Pascal

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

2006 SHINGO PRIZE WINNER for EXCELLENCE in MANUFACTURING RESEARCH

Lean Production Simplified, 2nd Edition is a plain language guide to the lean production system written for the practitioner by a practitioner. It delivers a comprehensive insider's view of lean manufacturing. The author helps the reader to grasp the system as a whole and the factors that animate it by organizing the book around an image of a house of lean production.

Highlights include:

A comprehensive view of Toyota¹s lean manufacturing system

A look at the origins and underlying principles of lean

Identifying the goals of lean production

Practical problem solving for lean production

Activities that support involvement - Kaizen circles, suggestion systems, and problem solving

This 2nd Edition has been updated with expanded information on the Lean Improvement Process; Production Physics and Little's Law - the fundamental equation for both manufacturing and service industries (cycle time = work in process/throughput); Value Stream Thinking - combining processes required to bring the product or service to the customer; Hoshin Planning -- using the Planning and Execution Tree diagram and Problem Solving -- including the "Five Why" method and how to use it.

Lean Production Simplified, 2nd Edition covers each of the components of lean within the context of the entire lean production system. The author's straightforward common sense approach makes this book an easily accessible on-the-floor resource for every operator.

Microeconomic Analysis, Third Edition

Hal R. Varian

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Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Microeconomic Analysis has been a fixture of graduate programs in economics for fifteen years. It has held this position because it has the authority, the clarity, and the breadth necessary for a classic text. This new Third Edition continues to supply the building blocks of microeconomic analysis: a thorough treatment of optimization and equilibrium methods, coupled with numerous examples of their application.

The Third Edition expands on the earlier editions in two ways. First, the existing coverage has been rewritten and rearranged. Second, new chapters have been added on game theory, oligopoly, asset markets, and information economics. The rearrangement follows the model of Hal Varian's Intermediate Microeconomics: a number of short chapters, each devoted to a single topic. In fact, the topical division is as close as possible to that of the undergraduate text. This makes it easy to review undergraduate material before moving on to graduate material. The new chapters highlight significant developments in microeconomic theory in the last ten years at a level that is accessible for first-year graduate students.

Classic features:
* Emphasis on the dual approach to consumer and firm behavior.
* Integration of the modem analytic approach with classical price theory
* Analysis of economic behavior using classical methods of comparative statics, duality, and nonparametric methods.
* Emphasis on analytical techniques that are useful in applied research.

Highlights of the revision:
* New chapter on game theory that provides an appropriate introduction for first-year students.
* New chapter on oligopoly that features many of the recent developments in this area.
* New chapter on asset markets that describes "what every economist should know" about the theory of financial markets.
* New chapter on information economics that provides a unified treatment of incentives and markets in the presence of information asymmetries.

Operations Management and Student CD and Student DVD Package (9th Edition)

Jay Heizer, Barry Render

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Editorial Review:

KEY BENEFIT: This text allows students to apply what they’ve learned to real company challenges and best practices by offering a multitude of problems in the text and integrated case studies on video.
KEY TOPICS: Its coverage includes an extensive amount of service applications and firms to give students an in-depth look at operations in the real world.

MARKET: For general business students interested in operations management and gaining the fundamental working knowledge of a firm.

Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production

Taiichi Ohno

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The source material on TPS but sadly disappointing 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

"Toyota Production System" was published in 1979 in Japanese and, in English in 1988. It is the source material on the toyota production system and, in my view, it is often good to go back to the source. Sadly, I found this book disappointing. The writing style is clunky (perhaps a poor translation) and the book lacks structure; being more of a semi-random collection of points than a development of ideas. Nevertheless there is some interesting stuff in here. The honesty that this is a long slow process (taking Toyota 30+ years) is refreshing, and I hadn't realised that Mr Ohno ranked kanban (with quick changeovers) as the core of the system and essential to success. Often in lean kanban seems to be a bit of a side issue: here it is vital. Also there is an interesting analysis of some of Henry Ford's early writings compared to TPS. This would be good material for a student essay. However, for the philosophy of TPS you will get much more out of "The Toyota Way" or "The Toyota Way Fieldbook"; and for the tools of lean go to "Lean Production Simplified" or the many other books in this area. Overall this book is a bit of a let-down I am sad to say.

Editorial Review:

In this classic text, Taiichi Ohno -- inventor of the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing -- shares the genius that sets him apart as one of the most disciplined and creative thinkers of our time. Combining his candid insights with a rigorous analysis of Toyota's attempts at lean production, Ohno's book explains how lean principles can improve any production-oriented endeaver. A historical and philosophical description of just-in-time and lean manufacturing, this work a must read for all students of human progress. On a more practical level, it continues to provide inspiration and instruction for those seeking to improve efficiency through the relentless elimination of waste.

Project Management: A Managerial Approach

Jack R. Meredith, Samuel J., Jr. Mantel

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Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Know how to respond when things don't fall into place.


Skydiving has its inherent risks. Even though a professional team, like the one depicted on the cover, can make skydiving seem perfectly choreographed; there are always uncertainties. Whether it's getting a skydiving team into the air or a new product off the ground, no project has ever been completed exactly as planned.


With Meredith and Mantel's Sixth Edition, you'll not only learn how to select, initiate, operate, and control all types of projects; you'll also learn how to manage risks and uncertainties. Written from a managerial perspective, the text equips you with the quantitative skills, knowledge of organizational issues, and insights into human behavior that you need to do project management effectively.


Updated and revised, this edition features current coverage of topics such as:
* Risk management
* Lifecycle costing
* Real options
* Organizational process assets
* Non-technical project terminations
* The phase/quality-gate process
* Requirements formulation analysis


Free trial version of Microsoft Project(r) and Crystal Ball(r)

This text includes a CD-ROM containing a 120-day trial version of Microsoft Project(r) and a student version of Crystal Ball(r). Microsoft Project and Crystal Ball screenshots appear where relevant throughout the text. Additionally, a number of end-of-chapter exercises encourage you to apply these computer software packages to project management problems.