The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, is the story of a man who at his crossroads, and what direction he decides to take. The story is about a plant manager named Alex Rogo. We find Alex six months into his first plant managers position at UniCo, in the UniWare Division. The plant is located in Bearington Massachusetts, where Alex grew up. UniCo is definitely a manufacturing plant, what they manufacture, I still do not know.
             The story begins when Alex's supervisor, Bill Peach, comes into the plant and nearly turns everything upside down. After Alex puts out all of the fires that Bill had set, they sit down in Alex's office and talk. Bill tells Alex that production has gone down in the six months that Alex has been at the helms, and an irate customer, Bucky Burnside, has an order that is fifty-six days overdue, and Alex must get that order shipped before anything else. Bill also says that if the plant does not turn around in the next three months, he will make a recommendation to close the plant. A few days later, Alex hears more of the same at a corporate meeting and figures out why Bill was upset. After the meeting Alex reaches for something and comes across a cigar he received from a chance encounter from and old physicist he knew from his college days.
             While waiting for in between flights at O'Hare, Alex wandered into an airport and found himself sitting next to the physicist named Jonah who worked on mathematical models while he was an undergraduate engineering student. Alex and Jonah start talking, and Alex mentions he is going to speak at a seminar. His topic is "Robotics: Solution for the 80's to America's Productivity Crisis." Alex tells Jonah that his plant has more robots than any other plant in the division. Jonah is not very impressed. Jonah asks how much productivity has improved because of the use of the robots. Alex answers that there is a 36% improvement in one area...