This is the book that inspired the “Phoenix Project”. I read it years ago (~1998) while I was doing my Masters at UBC. At the time, Tony Eltringham from BHP in Australia, one of the sponsors of one of my colleagues at the time was teaching about this book and was recommending it to every process engineer he met. Although not foccussed on metallurgical and chemical processes, the concepts of debottlenecking applies really well to the heavier process industries.

Over the years, I have read this book several times.

I got a few more books from the same author. The Critical Chain is probably the one I remember the most as it introduces the concept that specific resources need to be monitored closely as they may need to be committed to multiple tasks and thus cannot perform these at the same time.

• The Critical Chain. A book about Project Management
• Necessary but not sufficient. A book about software systems (ERP systems).
• It’s Not Luck.