The Goldratt Institute was founded by eliyahu-goldratt in 1986 as the primary vehicle for educating, certifying, and deploying TOC practitioners worldwide. Its central contribution to theory-of-constraints was the Jonah certification program — named after the mentor character in the-goal — which trained consultants and managers to identify and exploit system constraints using the five-focusing-steps and, later, the thinking-processes.
oded-cohen led educational programs at the Institute, developing structured curricula that translated Goldratt's ideas into teachable frameworks. The Institute produced training materials, workshops, and implementation guides that enabled TOC to spread well beyond the manufacturing plants where it originated. Thousands of certified Jonahs carried the methodology into healthcare, construction, distribution, and government sectors during the thinking-processes-development and domain-expansion-era periods.
The Institute also developed the goldratt-satellite-program, a distance-learning initiative that reached practitioners who could not attend in-person training. This was among the first large-scale uses of satellite broadcasting for professional education in management.
As TOC matured, the Institute's role was gradually supplemented by tocico, which took over professional certification, and by the goldratt-group, which focused on commercial consulting. The Goldratt Institute remained the intellectual flagship of the TOC movement during Goldratt's lifetime and shaped the vocabulary and tools that practitioners use today.