By reading The Goal, you have learned, hopefully, some important concepts and problem solving skills that are useful not only in operations, but also in general management as well. Describe those things you have learned from the book and the related materials.

1. Provide definitions of throughput, inventory and operational expense given in The Goal. How do they compare with traditional definitions? Do you find them useful? Why?
2. Provide another real-life example to describe the phenomena of "dependent events" and "statistical fluctuations".
3. What production scheduling principles are discussed in The Goal?
4. Explain the pitfalls, as discussed in The Goal, of using accounting data to make decisions in manufacturing.