With regret, we inform you that Dr. Eli Goldratt passed away June 11, 2011 at his home in
Israel. It was hoped he could get to New York this week for the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization Conference, but that was not to be. He was an inventor with a number of patents, an author, consultant, and teacher. Although trained as a physicist, and perhaps because he was trained as a physicist, he brought a new perspective to our discipline. I saw him at a conference a number of years ago and confirmed that, he could be more than outspoken, perhaps on occasion even arrogant and combative, but passionate and committed to his TOC approach of addressing issues in our discipline. We are richer for his contribution and the poorer for his passing.
Notable among his books is The Goal (with Jeff Cox , 1984), which is still often used as supplemental reading in POM courses. He also wrote: It’s not Luck (1994), The Race (with Robert Fox, 1996) , Production the TOC Way (2003), The Haystack Syndrome (2006), and more.
His TOC approach has make it way into a number of texts including the Heizer Render text with TOC material and problems in Supplement 7, Capacity and Constraint Management.
