What is the goal of a manufacturing plant? To make products? To produce value? To maximize efficiency?

Those are some of the answers you might have come up with. If you did, you and Alex Rogo would have a lot to talk about, because those are the things that first came to his mind as he drank a sixer of bud in his car contemplating the same question.

Here’s the situation: “Corporate” is going to shut down Alex’s plant in 3 months if they don’t get their shit together. Orders are constantly late, inventory is sitting everywhere wasting space and money, and worst of all, the plant is not making money.

That’s it! Making money! The goal of a plant is to make money!!

Alex reaches this conclusion early in the book, so if you were looking for a cliff-hanger, this is not going to be your book. The goal of a plant is to make money.

This is confirmed by Alex’s mentor/guide/guru/yoda Jonah, who some people suspect is supposed to embody the actual author of the book, Eli Goldratt. Jonah plays Socrates to Alex, asking the right questions in order to lead him on a journey of industrial awakening. Read this book and you too shall voyage to the promise-land of problem-solving enlightenment

So there you have it: the goal is to make money. But there’s a little bit more to it. More on that next…