The Goal is a story about overcoming manufacturing problems told through the eyes of a plant manager, Alex Rojo. Alex arrives at work one morning only to find that the division vice president, Bill Peach, has shown up unannounced to see the status of a specific customer order number, discovered that the order was incomplete, barked orders at employees to assemble the products and finally informed Mr. Rojo has only three months to improve the performance of his factory before it is closed because the factory fails to deliver orders on time. In fact, the order Bill reviewed was already seven weeks late and the product wasn't even assembled. After Bill leaves, Alex heads to the lounge and finds that Bill's unexpected arrival has created more problems. The foreman Bill had yelled at before Mr. Rojo arrived quit, but only after setting up a machine to complete the seven-week-late order that Bill had asked be shipped today. The machinery, however, forgot to tighten the two adjusting nuts of the machine, so several parts have to be scrapped, but the worst thing is that the machine, which happens to be the only one of its kind in the factory, is broken. Luckily, the damage to the machine wasn't as bad as initially thought, and after everyone at the plant worked overtime, the order was shipped late into the evening. Working overtime is against current division policy, but was necessary to accommodate Bill's request to ship the product today. Next, Alex knows that he cannot dedicate the entire plant to just one order and begins to consider why the plant is underperforming when it has good people, good technology, and a good plant. Alex concludes that the competition is killing him, especially the Japanese competition, who still beats them on price and delivery, although Alex's factory has closed the gap in product quality and design. Alex has already cut costs as much as possible, but its prices are still higher than those of the competition. Additionally, Alex's factory has piles of inventory lying around and despite the materials being released on schedule, nothing is being completed and shipped on time. Rumors are circulating that the entire division will be sold unless performance increases leaving no one with jobs. Alex reflects on a conversation with his friend and physicist Jonah and realizes that his plant is not working as efficiently as he thought because the robots do not decrease inventory and personnel expenses or increase the number of products shipped.