The Goal is a story about overcoming manufacturing problems that is told through the eyes of a plant manager, Alex Rojo. Alex arrives to work one morning only to discover the division vice-president, Bill Peach, showed up unannounced to see the status of a specific customer order number, discovered the order was incomplete, barked orders at employees to assemble the products, and finally informed Mr. Rojo he has only three months to improve his plant's performance before it's closed because the plant cannot get orders out the door on time. In fact, the order Bill investigated was already seven weeks late and the product not even assembled. After Bill departs, Alex heads to the floor to discover Bill's unexpected arrival has created more problems. The master machinest Bill yelled at before Mr. Rojo arrived quit but only after setting up a machine to complete the seven-week-late order that Bill demanded be shipped out today. The machinest, however, forgot to tighten two adjustment nuts on the machine so several parts must be scrapped, but even worse is that the machine, which just so happens to be the only one of its kind in the plant, is broken.
Luckily, the damage was not as bad on the machine as initially thought, and after everyone at the plant worked overtime, the order was shipped very late into the evening. Working overtime is against current division policy, but was necessary to meet Bill's demand about shipping the product today. Afterwards, Alex knows he cannot dedicate the entire plant to just one order and begins to consider why the plant is underperforming when he has good people, good technology, and a good plant. Alex concludes the competition is killing him, specifically the Japanese competition, which is still beating them on price and delivery alt ...