June 11, 2015, marked the fourth anniversary of the passing of someone who, although not typically credited as a “lean” thinker, nevertheless had a profound effect on many lean implementers. Eliyahu Goldratt, or Eli, was an Israeli physicist whose Ph.D. thesis on queuing theory led him and many followers on an improvement odyssey based on his first book, The Goal (North River Press, 1984), a work that paralleled and eventually supplemented the lean revolution.

I don’t believe there’s a definitive biography of Eli Goldratt, but there are many individual memories and stories. In 2011, I wrote one on my blog, just two months before Goldratt’s death, titled “Epiphanitis.” This is another remembrance commemorating a great thinker and influencer.

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