[4] Bill Peach, a company executive, tells Alex that he has three months to turn operations at his plant around from being unprofitable and unreliable to being successful.

Jonah (a physicist), whom many believe represents Goldratt himself, helps him solve the company's problems through a series of telephone calls and short meetings wherein he explains many fundamental business concepts.

The book goes on to point out the role of bottlenecks (constraints) in a manufacturing process, and how identifying them not only makes it possible to reduce their impact, but also yields a useful tool for measuring and controlling the flow of materials.

Alex and his team identify the bottlenecks in their process and immediately begin to implement changes to help increase capacity and speed up production.

Throughout the book, whenever a meeting or telephone call dialogue happens with Jonah, he poses a question to Alex Rogo or a member of his crew, which in turn causes them to talk amongst themselves to come up with a solution to their problem.