ABSTRACT

An Israeli physicist, Dr Eli Goldratt, who had been researching into random events in radioactive nuclei, turned his attention to the problems of production control and quickly realised that an effective control mechanism has to take into account random variations in performance. People and machines do not always produce at their average rate. In some periods they will exceed the average, in others they will fall behind. Based on his analysis, Goldratt developed Optimised Production Technology, known as OPT for short. This is both a philosophy and a software package to assist the application of the philosophy. The ideas involved are described in The Goal (E Goldratt and J Cox, Wildwood House, 1989). Although many of the OPT principles are not novel, they appear to have been forgotten or neglected by many contemporary managers, and this excellent and entertaining book is recommended reading for all interested in operations management.