The Race:
by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Robert E. Fox

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Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of The Race:

Book Review: Necessary supplement
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a book with a difference from Goldratt. The focus is on getting the concepts straight through illustrations and not in the form of a novel.

The goal of all businesses is to make money in the present as well as in the future. We have measurements like Net Profits, ROI, and Cash Flow to assess bottom line performance. We use the cost concept as a bridge to arrive at these measures. The book challenges the cost concept and looks at using Throughput, Inventory and Operating Expenses as the bridges that will lead us in the right direction. These terms or 'Global Operational Measures" are defined in a way that is different from conventional.

-Throughput - The rate at which the system generates money through sales.
-Inventory- All the money the system invests in purchasing things the system intends to sell.
-Operating Expense- All the money the system spends in turning inventory into throughput.

In order to succeed in the market place, six competitive edge issues are identified - Product (Quality and Engineering), Price (Higher Margins and Lower Investment per unit), Responsiveness (Due-date Performance and Shorter quoted lead-time).

Having defined these measures, the book looks at the critical role of inventory (at all stages). The high inventory syndrome leads to a lower performance in all the competitive edges. The manufacturing system then should get into the mode of "Synchronized Manufacturing". This is a unique combination of concepts like JIT, zero-defect and Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) approach. In fact I found that this is the best among all of Goldratt's books to understand the DBR concept. It helps in identifying the Capacity Constraint Resources (CCRs) and balances the entire manufacturing system to towards the globally optimal solution that can achieve our overall goal.

The book contains some interesting exercises at the end to ensue that the concepts are well understood.

A must read for all managers to achieve break through improvements in operations - manufacturing and service. The race is on and is getting hotter than ever. We need to keep pace to remain in this race. The second best may not survive to have another chance.

Summary of The Race:

Management Books

• Subjects > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Management
• Small Business & Entrepreneurship > Entrepreneurship
• Education & Reference > Words & Language