Citation (IEEE): E. M. Goldratt and J. Cox, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. Croton-on-Hudson, NY, USA: North River Press, 1984.
What it argues
A novel about a plant manager given three months to turn his failing factory around. Guided by a mentor who teaches by asking questions, he discovers that a business’s goal is to make money, measured through throughput, inventory and operating expense, and that system output is set by its bottlenecks. The story introduces what became the Theory of Constraints and a process of ongoing improvement focused on the constraint.