- Dec 12, 2000
- 25,603
- 10,297
- 136
This book has become required reading in Operations classes (including mine) and I read it over the break. I just skimmed it again this weekend because I have an operations midterm on Tuesday.
The book is basically a novel about a plant manager named Alex who runs into an old professor who seems to know more about the problems at Alex's plant than even he does. Intrigued, Alex asks him questions, to which Jonah (the prof) responds with questions of his own. Through this Socratic dialogue, Alex realizes that the plant is using all the wrong measures of performance and that is why they are not profitable. By refocusing on throughput, utilization and capacity of each resource, Alex begins to turn the plant around.
Its a pretty interesting book for anyone interested in manufacturing. The funny thing is that it almost seems like common sense, and yet the impact of this book was Biblical during the 80s--it really helped American manufacturing become competitive again.
The book is basically a novel about a plant manager named Alex who runs into an old professor who seems to know more about the problems at Alex's plant than even he does. Intrigued, Alex asks him questions, to which Jonah (the prof) responds with questions of his own. Through this Socratic dialogue, Alex realizes that the plant is using all the wrong measures of performance and that is why they are not profitable. By refocusing on throughput, utilization and capacity of each resource, Alex begins to turn the plant around.
Its a pretty interesting book for anyone interested in manufacturing. The funny thing is that it almost seems like common sense, and yet the impact of this book was Biblical during the 80s--it really helped American manufacturing become competitive again.
Facebook
Twitter