Eliyahu Goldratt biography and books

Eliyahu Goldratt - Toolshero

Eliyahu Goldratt (1947 – 2011) was a lecturer, researcher, scientist and a business management guru. Eliyahu Goldratt became famous with his ground breaking Theory of Constraints (TOC) within management systems, the Drum Buffer Rope method and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM).

Eliyahu Goldratt biography

His scientific background began when Eliyahu Goldratt obtained a BSc. Degree from the University of Tel Aviv. Then he obtained his MSc. and his doctorate (Ph.D.) from Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

After a short academic career and a few practical researches, dr. Eliyahu Goldratt joined an organization called “Creative Output”. This organization sold capacity and software packages and he soon noticed that there were always factors that hindered implementations.

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Solid field research and a pragmatic approach to overcome those hindrances led to the book The Goal (1984). This book was later published by North River Press and it immediately became a best seller. Eliyahu Goldratt developed more useful tools for successful implementations and he decided to leave “Creative Output”.

In 1985 Eliyahu established his own company called “Avraham Y Goldratt Institute (AGI)” and he started promoting his theory about Constraints within management systems all over the world. He developed many tools around that time and he was successfully employed by many multinational organizations.

In 1997 Eliyahu Goldratt retired but he could not sit idle.

In 2000 he established the Goldratt Group including Goldratt Consulting and Goldratt Schools. His objective was to encourage organizations to implement the Theory of Constraints (TOC) within their basic management.

The aim was to teach organizations how to continuously improve and apply improvements. Other theors which he developed are the Drum Buffer Rope method and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM).

Even though Eliyahu died in 2011, the Goldratt Groups still exists and they are continuing Goldratt’s ideals.

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Famous quotes

  1. “So this is the goal: To make money by increasing net profit, while simultaneously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously increasing cash flow.”
  2. “Well, I don’t. Not absolutely. But adopting “making money’’ as the goal of a manufacturing organization looks like a pretty good assumption. Because, for one thing, there isn’t one item on that list that’s worth a damn if the company isn’t making money.”
  3. “More importantly, our software worked. I don’t just mean that it didn’t bump, or that it performed according to the written specifications, or that it was efficient in producing reports. It really worked. Putting it precisely, activating a resource and utilizing a resource are not synonymous.”
  4. “Utilizing, a resource means making use of the resource in a way that moves the system toward the goal. “Activating” a resource is like pressing the ON switch of a machine; it runs whether or not there is any benefit to be derived from the work it’s doing.”
  5. “They’re measurements which express the goal of making money perfectly well, but which also permit you to develop operational rules for running your plant,” he says. “There are three of them. Their names are throughput, inventory and operational expense.”
  6. “The entire bottleneck concept is not geared to decrease operating expense, it’s focused on increasing throughput.”
  7. “What you’re saying is that making an employee work and profiting from that work are two different things.”
  8. “I smile and start to count on my fingers: One, people are good. Two, every conflict can be removed. Three, every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple. Four, every situation can be substantially improved; even the sky is not the limit. Five, every person can reach a full life.”
  9. “Science is simply the method we use to try and postulate a minimum set of assumptions that can explain, through a straightforward logical derivation, the existence of many phenomena of nature.”
  10. “Productivity is meaningless unless you know what your goal is.”
  11. “Since the strength of the chain is determined by the weakest link, then the first step to improve an organization must be to identify the weakest link.”
  12. “For the ability to answer three simple questions: ‘what to change?’, ‘what to change to?’, and ‘how to cause the change?’ Basically what we are asking for is the most fundamental abilities one would expect from a manager.”
  13. “Tell me how you measure me and I’ll tell you how I will behave.”

Books, articles and other publications by Eliyahu Goldratt

  • 2010. The Choice. North River Press.
  • 2010. Theory of Constraints Handbook. North River Press.
  • 2009. Standing on the shoulders of giants: production concepts versus production applications. The Hitachi Tool Engineering example
  • 2009. Isn’t It Obvious? North River Press.
  • 2003. Production the TOC Way with Simulator.
  • 2002. Critical Chain. The North River Press.
  • 2001. Necessary but Not Sufficient: A Theory of Constraints Business Novel.
  • 1996. The Race.
  • 1994. It’s Not Luck. North River Press.
  • 1992, 1984. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement.
  • 1991. The Haystack Syndrome: Sifting Information Out of the Data Ocean.
  • 1987. Computerized shop floor scheduling. Journal: International Journal of Production Research – INT J PROD RES , vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 443-455.
  • 1980. Optimized Production Timetable: Beyond MRP: Something Better is finally Here.

How to cite this article:
Van Vliet, V. (2011). Eliyahu Goldratt. Retrieved [insert date] from Toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/toolsheroes/eliyahu-goldratt/

Original publication date: 06/16/2011 | Last update: 08/23/2023

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Vincent van Vliet
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Vincent van Vliet

Vincent van Vliet is co-founder and responsible for the content and release management. Together with the team Vincent sets the strategy and manages the content planning, go-to-market, customer experience and corporate development aspects of the company.

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