The Goal The Process of Ongoing Improvement - Book Report/Review Example

 The Goal – The process of ongoing improvement Summary The book The Goal is about getting things right on track in order to get the best results. The author in the beginning emphasizes on the fact that we alone have the power to get the things done. Our technical knowledge has no part to play in it. He is also of the view that illogically it can be proven that the law of conservation of energy in physics is not possible in the real sense. The author in this book has tried to highlight the meaning of education and how it can help us in the learning process. We only do what we learn during our training. The book concentrates on the different global principles of manufacturing and how to work things out in tough scenarios. The people need to understand what is the factor around which the whole universe operates and how they can make things better for themselves. In general whenever a problem arises, we are always trying to analyze the issue with the help of the ‘cause and effect’ relationship. It helps us to a certain extent by giving us the basics of the issue but that is not the ultimate way out for everything. In the view of the author, science helps in the understanding the ways of the world and why are things happening in a certain manner. All this has been shown with the help of a story of a Plant manager Alex Rogo who is worried about the performance of his plant and he only has 3 months to recover out of it. He is gotten in a circumstance where his plant is losing cash and he just has three months to get it once again on track or they will close it down. At the outset Alex has no clue where he is going to begin or even comprehend why they are losing cash. Everything that he peruses as indicated by the amounts of the organization says that he is running an extremely productive organization. Alex at last recollects running into his old physical science educator from school, Jonah. He had conversed with him about his organization and Jonah pinpointed the issues he was having without much data. So Alex contacts Jonah after he gets some answers concerning the conceivable shutdown of his plant. Jonah provides for him heads then makes Alex evaluate them and get back to him. Jonah first advises Alex to evaluate what profit and the objective of his plant was. Alex reaches him over with replies to those inquiries. Next, Jonah provides for him three accurate estimations with particular definitions. They are throughput, operational costs, and stock. Jonah advises Alex to evaluate what these estimations are proportional to in his plant. Alex contemplates with others in the plant and after that returns once more with replies to his inquiries. Jonah next provides for him three speedy principles which are the inverse of what any other individual in the business has taught him. He keeps on letting him know about indigent occasions and measurable variances. Alex continues trekking excursion with his child and relates these to the line that the young men are in for a finer comprehension. When he comes back from his climbing trek he discovers his wife has abandoned him just to compound the circumstances. After Alex has a reasonable understanding of factual changes and ward occasion he comes back to discovering Jonah once more. Jonah then lets him know about bottlenecks and non-bottlenecks in the plant then obviously advises Alex to return at the end of the day when he has a superior comprehension. They try different things with diverse approaches to supply parts to the bottlenecks and do perceive an expansion in profit, until they run into an alternate issue at the plant. Jonah chooses this time he needs to go to the plant and see what is continuing for him. Jonah strolls through the plant and reveals to them a couple of things and approaches them inquiries to evaluate for them. They in the long run show signs of improvement than any possible plant in the division, perhaps the business. The plant does not get close down and Alex and the greater part of alternate parts of the gathering that spared the plant get advancements. Alex is elevated to the division pioneer and now needs to evaluate an approach to speak to what they have done on paper. The old framework they utilize shows the organization not doing so hot when they are really doing incredible. They consider about this and wind up evaluating they can extend to different nations for an ease and be focused. One more issues that need to be focused on in this novel is the idea of Theory of Constraints which was proposed by the author for a better manufacturing framework. The theory of constraints (TOC) is an administration theory that has been adequately connected to manufacturing procedures and methodology to enhance hierarchical viability. Three TOC ideal models that have developed throughout the most recent twenty‐five years: logistics, worldwide execution measures, and speculation forms (Blackstone, 2001). Recently, Boyd and Gupta (2004) have alluded to these three ideal models as choice making, execution estimation frameworks, and hierarchical mentality, separately. Initially, the logistics ideal model had directors searching for, and raising, framework constraints to expand throughput. This included utilizing drum‐buffer‐rope planning methods and the five centering steps of TOC. In the second ideal model, worldwide execution measures were viably used. These measures, taking into account throughput, working cost, and stock, permit administrators to effortlessly evaluate the effect of any given choice and help the chief to concentrate on the corporate objective. Most as of late, the reasoning methodologies (rationale trees, vanishing mists, and so forth.) have come into a more broad utilization. The value of TOC in the manufacturing environment is overall recorded by Rahman (1998). A meta‐analysis by Mabin and Balderstone (2000) discovered TOC usage lessened process durations 58%, lead times 69%, and stock levels were decreased 50%. Therefore, organizations were better equipped to meet guaranteed client conveyance dates, enhancing their conveyance date execution by 45%. Enhancements were likewise seen on the budgetary side of the organizations with income, throughput, or profit (contingent upon the reporting measure) expanding by 75%. A personal experience The story of the Goal can be related to one of my experiences in work. Back then I used to work in a healthcare organisation. We were basically a healthcare service provider. The business was growing gradually and the marketing team was constantly coming up with advertisements to spread the presence of our company. I was partly responsible for marketing as well as the operations. Operations in this scenario would mean the efficiency in patient handling. The idea was a patient suffering would come down to our clinic after taking a prior appointment and the date and time was told to them. On the specified day the patient would turn up and the doctor would do the complete check up. Once the check up was done, the doctor would sit down with his consultancy and explain the problem to the patient and how much time will be needed to solve the problem. After the consultation got over the patient would be suggested the course of the treatment and the charges for the same. Then the patient would decide on whether he or she will go ahead with the treatment or not. The problem surfaced when the patients used to agree. Once the patient agrees, technically the person should be able to start with his treatment then and there. But the problem here was the patient had to wait till a suitable time slot was found for him or her. This resulted into a big problem later on. The new patients kept on coming for their checkup and we were not able to give them with the beds for their treatment. This was resulting into a negative branding for the company. The director realized the problem at a later stage and we had to go for a meeting with him to come up with a solution. During the meeting we discussed the issue of the huge waiting list of the patients for treatment. This was unacceptable in a healthcare industry. The problem lied somewhere in the system. We had to identify it in order to come up with a solution. We looked into each of the aspects of the flow of treatment. The first issue was in the placing the patients in the treatment timetable. There were two types of time slots for the patients, the one hour slot and the two hour slot. One issue which came up was that there was bottleneck situation in the one hour slot treatment and somehow the treatment was taking more than an hour to complete. This again was creating a problem with the patients waiting time. The solution in this scenario was to increase the time slots accordingly. We had to come up with a completely reformed chart. The one hour slots were increased to two hours and the two slots had to be increased to three hours. I came up with another idea of dividing the rooms for treatment and fixing a bed for each of the patients. This would result in better operation as the patients would be aware of their own bed and time. Once we put this in place, we noticed that this implementation cleared up a lot of backlog. But there was still an issue lying with the number of beds for treatment. This could only be solved with the opening of another clinic in order to accommodate more patients. But opening up one more clinic meant that we needed to train new therapist for the treatment and at the same time the construction of the clinic would also consume a lot of time. But this had to be done in the future so the director decided to go with it. In the meantime it was decided that we would shift our patients to different clinics if beds were available in that particular clinics. In case the patient did not want to change the location of their treatment then he or she would have to wait till the time we get an empty bed for them. This procedure was well accepted by most of the patients and they were satisfied with the fact that we were coming with another clinic for their comfort and treatment. With this experience of mine, I realized the issue of bottlenecks and how it can result in slowing down the operations in an organisation. Identifying them and efficiently removing them is the best way to come up with a successful solution and running the unit in a better manner. References Blackstone, J. (2001). Theory of constraints-a status report. Taylor \& Francis. Boyd, L., & Gupta, M. (2004). Constraints management: what is the theory?. International Journal Of Operations \& Production Management, 24(4), 350--371. Goldratt, E., & Cox, J. (1984). The goal (1st ed.). Aldershot: Gower. Mabin, V., & Balderstone, S. (2000). The world of the theory of constraints (1st ed.). Boca Raton: St. Lucie Press. Rahman, S. (1998). Theory of constraints: a review of the philosophy and its applications. International Journal Of Operations \& Production Management, 18(4), 336--355. Read More