Full Summary of the Goal

Full Summary of The Goal Chapter 1 The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is about a man named Alex Rogo and his quest of knowledge to make his company once again profitable. The first chapter begins with Alex coming into work only to notice someone is parked in his spot. He then realizes that the only person who would do this is Bill Peach who is the division’s vice president. Once he is in the office he finds out that Peach is there to figure out the status of the order number 41427 which is seven weeks late.
Then once Rogo and Peach start talking; Peach informs Rogo that his company is loosing money. Next Peach states that he only has three months to turn the company around. Rogo then goes back to the issue at hand number 41427. Chapter 2 Rogo then heads home that afternoon to get something to eat. He meets his wife in the living room. She wants to go out to get something to eat with him, but he tells her he can’t because his problems at the plant he has to get right back. They get into an argument and she cries then he consoles her and tells her he will be back later that night.
Once he gets back to the machine that he learned was down before he left he talks to someone in the plant asking if they are going to make the order and the plant worker said “maybe. ” At 11 pm the order leaves the dock to be shipped they sigh in relief. He leaves work to get a bite to eat with a plant worker to celebrate. Then Rogo remembers that his plant is loosing money and contemplates why. His efficiencies are good but he can not put his finger on what is causing the problem. Chapter 3 He wakes up the next morning and has to go to a meeting that Peach has called, but will not tell anyone what it is about.

On his way to the elevator he begins to talk to Nathan Selwin a co-worker. Nathan begins to tell him quietly that the whole division is going to go down if Peach doesn’t do something about it. During the meeting Rogo decides he should start paying attention so he reaches for a pen, but instead he pulls out a cigar. He doesn’t smoke anymore so he wonders where it came from, and then he remembers! Chapter 4 It was two weeks ago at the airport he recognized his old friend who was a physicist, Jonah. They begin to talk and catch up with what each other are doing these days.
Rogo tells Jonah that he is a plant manager for UniCo and Jonah seems to be more interested in that. They begin to talk about the robots that were recently installed in the plant. Rogo tells Jonah that the robots have increased plant productivity, but after Jonah asks a few questions Jonah disagrees. Jonah tells Rogo he is not running as efficient of a plant as he thinks he is. Jonah tells him to think about what the goal of his plant is before he leaves. Chapter 5 Rogo is still in the meeting thinking it is a waste of time and wonders why he is still there. Rogo bails on the meeting during the break to go back to the plant, but passes it up.
He instead gets food and goes sit on a hill and thinks about what Jonah told him two weeks ago. After pondering a few different things he comes to the conclusion that making money is the goal of the company. Chapter 6 Rogo finally returns to the plant at 4:30 that evening. In his office he inquires Lou the plant’s controller about the goal of the plant. Lou agrees that it is to make money. They continue to talk about the measurements that are used to tell if a company is making money. He finally realizes how late it is at work and calls his wife and they get into an argument again.
Rogo finishes talking to his night time manager then heads to the house. Chapter 7 He gets home to meet his daughter still up to show him her report card which was all A’s. He puts her to bed then begins to think about the business again. He knows he only has a little time to turn things around, but he needs to know so much more. This is when he decides he needs to talk to Jonah again. Chapter 8 Once he gets to work in the morning he finds out Peach is on the phone. Peach chews him out for walking out on the meeting then continues to keep him in meetings on the phone for the rest of the day.
He decides to go to his mother’s house to look for his old contact book to try and track down Jonah. He finally gets a hold of Jonah after talking to many other people. Jonah then gives Rogo 3 measurements with specific definitions to calculate the goal. The conversation gets cut short again and he leaves Rogo to figure out how to define the measurements in terms of his plant. Chapter 9 The next morning he gets to work late and goes straight to Lou’s office to discuss about the new figures Jonah has given him. They then bring in the Inventory manager Stacy and Bob the supervisor in the plant to discuss more about the figures.
They figure out a few things are wrong according to the goal and then Rogo decides to discuss what he has been talking to Jonah about. Chapter 10 Once he has cleared the air about Jonah and explained to him everything that they have talked about they start again. They begin to compare the figures that Jonah gave him to their own company. He tells the workers about how he only has three months to get the plant to make money. They then decide to call Jonah again. Rogo and Jonah decide to meet in New York. Chapter 11 The next morning he meets up with Jonah in the hotel in New York.
They begin to talk about the goal and the problems at the plant again. The next two figures that Jonah tells him about are statistical fluctuations and dependent events. He explains how these affect his plant the runs out of time again and has to leave. Chapter 12 He returns home from New York to find his wife at home who he has been calling like crazy with no answer. They once again get into a heated argument to once again resolve it. Rogo promises to spend the weekend with his wife, but has to return to the plant for the time being. Chapter 13 Saturday morning he wakes up to see his son dress in a Boy Scout uniform.
He remembered that he had promised to go on an overnight hike with him. The troop leader was sick so Rogo had to lead the troops. During the hike he notices the line spreading and closing and relates that to statistical fluctuations and then states that the dependent events of each scout cause them. Chapter 14 The troops decide it is time to stop for lunch. During lunch Rogo makes a game up to experiment with statistical fluctuations. He has the boys play it and he keeps record. He uses this to simulate the assembly line in his plant. Chapter 15 They continue the hike Rogo still comparing it to the plant.
He decides to then change the leader to Herbie who is the slowest kid in the group. He thinks this will cut down the fluctuations in the group. Then they finally get to the campsite and set up camp. Chapter 16 Rogo and his son get home about 4:30 Sunday evening only to find an empty house and a letter from his wife that she had left him. He goes to pick up his daughter from his mothers house where his wife left her and then calls around to find where his wife is, but can not find her. Chapter 17 Rogo starts work on Monday morning to find out that Hilton has left a message.
He needs his 100 parts by the evening, but Rogo doesn’t think he can do it. Then Rogo gets the crew together and starts talking about what he has learned during the Boy Scout trip. They are hesitant to believe him, but he ends up proving himself using the process of the Hilton order as an example. Chapter 18 The next day everyone is already in his office when he gets to work. They are ready to discuss the next step, but they do not know where to go from here. So they naturally decide to call Jonah. Jonah then tells them about bottlenecks and non-bottle necks.
The conversation is quickly ended again then their only choice is to find these in their plant. They find out that their newest machine the NCX-10 is a bottle neck for the plant and also the furnace. Chapter 19 Rogo talks to Jonah yet again, but this time Jonah decides to come to Rogo’s plant. They tour the plant with Jonah and look at all the bottlenecks of the plant. Jonah gives suggestions on how to fix their bottlenecks to keep up with demand. He also shows them how they were calculating the cost per part of the bottlenecks wrong. Chapter 20 The group meets again in the morning.
They have a discussion about what actions are going to be taken with the bottlenecks. They decide on a few things to start implementing in the plant. While these things are happening Rogo goes to talk to his wife which he found out is at her parent’s house. Chapter 21 Rogo gets home and decides to call his wife a make a date for Saturday and she is very happy to agree. He then returns to the plant and meets back up with the regular group. They then decide to implement a tagging system which will let the employees which parts have priority. Then Saturday he takes his wife on a date. Chapter 22
Rogo returns to work to find out that their plan is slowly improving their production. They are catching up on their late work orders. But, it’s not enough so he asks for more suggestions by the Wednesday meeting. On Wednesday Bob shows up to the plant with an old machine used to do what the NCX-10 does to take some of the load off. Chapter 23 Rogo is going on many dates with his wife these days and they are getting along a lot better. In the plant he finds out more about hold ups on the bottlenecks and solutions for them. They keep implementing these new solutions which improve the plants productivity.
Chapter 24 The group decides to celebrate due to the new record they have set in orders delivered for the month. They go out and Stacey drives him home only to find his wife who thinks he is cheating on her, she takes off again. The next day at the plant Rogo is informed that new bottlenecks are forming throughout the plant. Rogo and his wife make up and he calls Jonah to get advise again only for him to say he needs another look. Chapter 25 Rogo picks up Jonah again from the airport for him to investigate yet another problem that the company is having with the bottlenecks.
They suspect that there is another bottleneck forming in the plant, but Jonah thinks otherwise. Jonah explains how bottlenecks feed non-bottlenecks and vice versa and that is where their problem lies. Chapter 26 At home again Rogo is thinking about how to apply what he has learned from Jonah. His children asked if they can help and they do in fact more than they think. The group got together with Jonah and devised a new schedule that would predict when items would be finished and when some needed to be released. Then Rogo brings Jonah back to the airport. Chapter 27
Rogo is in a meeting with Bill Peach and others from UniCo when they say that his division is the only one profiting now. He meets with Bill in the office one on one and they decide that if Rogo raises his bottom line 15% more than Bill will not shut him down next month. He decides to go to visit his wife and kids since he has not seen them in a while. They get in another argument about their marriage and then make up. Chapter 28 He gets home only to the phone ringing, its Jonah; he says that he will not be able to talk to Rogo for a few weeks so he needs to talk to him now.
Jonah suggests cutting the batch sizes in half. They discuss this suggestion over a nice meal. Rogo then has a meeting with Johnny johns telling him how much faster he can produce products and he needs more contracts. Chapter 29 Rogo wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare all he can think about it the plant and how the figures make it look like cost is going up when actually they are doing the opposite. Lou comes in his office the next morning saying he can solve the cost problem to buy them a few months, but it’s not valid according to the accounting department so it would be a risk.
Jons calls him back with an offer to do 1000 model 12’s in 2 weeks, but Rogo decides that it is impossible, but they could do 250 a week for 4 weeks and they get the account. Chapter 30 At the beginning of the new month they are having their meeting and Lou comes in with the figures and states that they have hit the 15% mark plus a little more. Rogo goes away for two days and comes back to find they are shooting a TV program about their robots. He slips up about the new batch sizes and the figures to Hilton and begins to get audited by the company. During the meeting a helicopter shows up its Mr.
Burnside who had the big order he wanted to congratulate everyone in the plan for doing such a great job. After all this he decides to go visit his wife and they decide to get back together. Chapter 31 The meeting is held to determine whether or not Rogo’s plant was going to be shut down. In the meeting Hilton does not listen to what Rogo has to say and condemns his plant. Rogo out of a last hope goes to Peaches office and tries to convince him when Peach had already made up his mind that it was going to stay. Also, Rogo was going to get a promotion to Peaches position and Peach was moving up also.
Chapter 32 Rogo and his wife sit down at dinner to celebrate his promotion. They talk about how he worked hard with Jonah’s help, but they couldn’t help but wonder why he couldn’t do it on his own; it all seemed like common sense. Chapter 33 Rogo goes back to his old plant in his new position. He first talks to Lou, then Bob, next Stacey, and last Ralph. One by one he is giving them promotions. Chapter 34 The group once again gets together. This time it is different though now they are talking about how they are going to take action toward the whole division instead of one plant. Chapter 35
They continue to discuss the topic at hand this time comparing it to the scientist from history, Mendeleev. Then the goes home to talk to his wife who has been reading Socrates. Chapter 36 They meet once again trying to put what they did in the plant to rules they can follow. They develop a five step process of evaluating and fixing problems in the divisions. Chapter 37 They continue to make changes and developments to the rules that they have made getting them ready for action. Chapter 38 Rogo is asking Johnny for more sales for his plant to see if everything they implemented is working correctly.
They now decide to expand their market to Europe at a cost lower than they are selling here. Chapter 39 Rogo gets a call from Peach to discuss his new actions and to discuss the fact that he knew Hilton’s plant was going to lose its bottom line. He also can not understand how Rogo’s system works so he has him come down to teach him. Chapter 40 They all go to head quarters to tackle the issue at hand. Rogo figures out he is on his own now. He can’t ask for Jonah’s help or else he would never be able to go through the thinking process for himself.