Herbie arrives in India!

After a long journey (about 8,000 miles from the Mid-west to Mumbai) our portly friend Herbie, beloved star of the gripping business novel, The Goal, has made it to Mumbai. Fellow Tuckies and other fans of operations management, hold onto your seats because Herbie is in the house, the house of Godrej, that is.

I just sat through a training session on project planning that began by singing the praises of none other than Dr. Eliyu Goldratt and the Theory of Constraints. Having read the book I was asked to relate the central point to a room full of my Indian colleagues who had not been so enlightened. I struggled to tell the story of Herbie in a cross-culturally sensitive way, but eventually switch course and managed to convey the point that the book was about a plant manager realizing that the presence of bottlenecks in his factory was hurting production. I also was delighted to find an answer to the question of how does an operations guru, such as the esteemed Dr. Goldratt, get paid. Half of India’s largest companies including Tata and Godrej, employ this guy as a consultant.

Returning to the main point…Quite understandably, real estate development incorporates many elements of operations management to keep projects on time and on budget. There was a significant discussion of critical path and a related methodology called CCPM (Critical Chain Project Management). Interesting stuff, who knew that I would so quickly be able to apply my knowledge from The Goal in a real world context.

I haven’t seen Herbie, yet. My guess is that he is ensconced at the all you can eat Chicken Tikka Masala, but I’ll let know if I find his fat operations-rockstar ass.