The Goal:

The Goal, despite being written by Goldratt, in a novel form, gives several messages for planning, scheduling & control of the manufacturing firm. The goal of a manufacturing company is to make money and everything else we do is a means to attain the goal. The success of the manufacturing business comes from determining the aim of the business and then dealing with the constraints, which make the goal harder to achieve.

Two points are significant here:

1. The goal (that means. to make money) can be achieved in short-term but it can be counter-productive in long-term. A simple example is: produced money by selling plant or equipment. However, this would be detrimental in long run. Thus, the emphasis must be on the goal of "making money now as well as in the future".          

2. To achieve The Goal, i.e. to make more and more money, one must try to :

 i.  increase throughput,

 ii. minimize operating expenses, and

 iii. minimize inventory.

What may we do about above three paths? We may reduce operating expenses and inventory to a certain extent. In any case, these may not be less than zero (which is the ideal case). As we cannot endlessly decrees the inventory or operating cost, the focus shifts on looking at the possibility of increasing the throughputs. The elements which restrict the expansion of throughput are termed as constraints in TOC.

Table: Three Common Terms in The Goal