Necessary, but not sufficient - Theory of Constraints THE GOAL: BOOK REVIEWThe Goal is a management book, written in a fast paced novel style, which has transformed ‘management thinking throughout the world. It is a business novel which explains the constraints in a business and the methods which one can adopt overcoming them or using them to achieve the goal. Alex Rogo is a plant manager whose factory and marriage both are failing. He is continuously fighting to meet the output requirements of his plant. There are ongoing conflicts between marketing, accounting and production in the organization. To bring his business back on track, he approaches his past professor, named Jonah. Jonah suggests him to focus to reduce inventory and increase the throughput rate which will ultimately lead to making money, major goal of any business. Alex learns to identify the problems. especially production bottlenecks in the entire system; How to remove them or use them in order to enhance productivity. He focuses on to manage the chain of process involved in the system with ways to prevent lags in those processes. He then develops strategies to overcome those bottlenecks. The Goal points out that every running business has constraints which prevent its management to achieve its goal. This is described as Theory of Constraints (TOC) in the book. The TOC process seeks to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it. It can be done by keeping the constraint running and maximizing output as much as possible. The next step is to get everything to run at a place that keeps up to the bottleneck, to avoid inventory jams. Lastly the throughput of the constraints should be increased, at any cost, because they limit the throughput of the entire system. If any new constraints arise because of the above steps, these steps should be repeated again. By studying and applying these ideas, one can improve organizational effectiveness and productivity, free up capital tied up in excess inventory, reduce customer frustration and reduce organizational anxiety. This book highly recommended as it is an eye opener for everyone and provides the basics for running a business. The details within the book are presented in a simple and clear way, the context of them are transparent to other ‘manufacturing plant, on which the story is based. The Ist person narrative style has a good impact and gives the reader a chance to think the same way even while reading the story. nes of business and not limited to the operations of a