The Goal is a novel about a manager named Alex Rogo who runs a troubled manufacturing plant afflicted by a number of production bottlenecks, most of which are the result not of real capacity shortages, but of erroneous assumptions and poor policies on the part of management. Rogo's battle to save his plant is two-fold: first, to understand what's truly happening on the shop floor (and how the struggle for "efficiency" is creating a situation very much the opposite); and second, to orchestrate a process of organizational change that extends beyond the plant itself, all the way to corporate headquarters and even to customers.

First published in 1985, The Goal, according to its publisher, North River Press, has now sold more than 2.5 million copies. It captured second spot on 800-CEO-READ's compilation of best-selling business books of the 1990's.

We came across this book a little while ago by accident. Alex Rogo has to solve his production problems by finding answers to questions set by his mentor. In the process he finds novel and very effective solutions.

This mimics the initial development of Match-IT. Our mentors were 7 manufacturers telling us what they needed. From that we developed solutions. It was only afterwards we realised that we'd done something very different. Then we discovered this book. Match-IT implements many of the novel ideas you'll read about.