Guaranteed Business Performance Improvement for Small and Mid-Sized Manufacturers using the techniques in "The Goal"

As our Results, Testimonials & References will confirm … this is the nature and scale of business performance improvement we enable our clients to enjoy.

Routinely. Often with everything in place, and major improvements on the scoreboard, in 45 – 90 days.

Incidental benefits typically also include reduced overtime expense, less expediting, improved quality, and the exposure of a lot of floor and shelf space. And a tightly focused approach to continuous improvement.

Now, we’ve been doing this since 1988.

And doing it successfully despite the special challenges posed by many small and medium manufacturing businesses – unreliable or even non-existent data, inadequate computer systems (where they exist at all), employees who managers assure us are “too set in their ways to change,” and a very thin layer of management that is so stretched with just day-to-day “stuff” that people barely have time to think, let alone get involved with performance improvement projects.

How do we do it?

I wish I could claim we’re brilliant, but even our nearest and dearest wouldn’t grant us that.

We do it by using a long-proven, common-sense, and extraordinarily effective approach to business performance improvement called Theory of Constraints, or TOC. You may not have heard of it, even though the book that introduced it – The Goal, by Eli Goldratt – has been a best-seller for a long time. And even though TOC is used by organizations world-wide, many of them household names.

But we (Synchronix) specialize in small- to medium-sized manufacturers.

Our smallest client ever has 3 employees, performing custom millwork for wealthy local clients in Ohio.

Our largest, more than 300 employees producing pharmaceutical products sold in thousands of stores.

And our approach is fully applicable to Job Shops. With no work-arounds needed. (In fact, one feature of the Theory of Constraints  essentially hands the owners of some job shops a license to mint money; not all job shops, but some.)

What’s the Secret to generating such large results, so consistently?

Simple.

The reason that manufacturers re-live the same problems month after month, year after year is because the fundamental rules that they follow don’t really change, as they try to achieve performance improvements. Out of those rules evolve policies, procedures, measurements and behaviors. And if the rules don’t change, the behaviors won’t change, and if behaviors don’t change then outcomes won’t change.

We do see a few – a very few – companies genuinely try to make fundamental changes at the core “rules” level … but it isn’t easy unless you know how. In fact, it’s probably the single most difficult thing you could attempt, unless you know how. (Of course,  continuous improvement is a step up even from this).

Well, … our secret is that by using the Theory of Constraints we help our clients to play by an entirely different set of rules – different from their traditional practice, and different from their competition.

There are two parts to this.

1. Work out the new rules. We KNOW what these rules are, generally speaking … but we work in such a way as to help your people “invent” them and develop them for themselves … then adapt and shape them for your unique circumstances. That way your people understand them and OWN them, and they’ll fight for them.
2. Cause people to adopt the new rules without resistance, without bloodshed. How do we do this? See #1 again. When people invent the rules for themselves you don’t have to worry about resistance. You need to be more concerned about getting out of their way.

The Good news is … performance improvements achieved in this way are fast, and your competitors will find it almost impossible to match you.

Depending on a number of factors, we can have the “engine” of the new way of working in place in 60 – 90 days. We’ve done it in as little as 14 days but for most small to mid-sized companies, 90 days is comfortably do-able. Sometimes 120 days if we have to do a lot of digging to get the data we need.

And the 90 or so days aren’t “lost” … we can be putting elements in place and seeing whole-business performance improvements emerge from the process improvements almost immediately we get the go-ahead. Certainly in 30 days but often sooner.

Regarding your competitors … if they had to, your competitors can match your prices in minutes, add products similar to yours perhaps in weeks, or months. But changing the fundamental rules … that’s on a different level. Chances are they won’t even try for a year or more because they’ll be convinced you’re insane, anyway.

If your competitors cannot match your performance improvements, they have only 3 places to turn.

1. Lean Manufacturing.
2. Six Sigma (or Total Quality Management).
3. A new computer system … probably ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), possibly a stand-alone scheduling package.

You should do your utmost to encourage them to do at least one, even better 2, or preferably all 3 of these. They’ll be handing you the keys to the kingdom. THEIR kingdom.

Let’s be clear here: I am NOT knocking Lean, Six Sigma, or computer systems. All have value. I wish many of our clients were more skilled in Lean, and Six Sigma, and had better computer systems. They’d be better off for it. And if a company is already “into” Lean or Six Sigma, we can capitalize on it. It’s not wasted. Management shouldn’t be concerned about mixed messages, either. The consistent message should of course be “continuous improvement,” not “we will define ourselves by the improvement technology we choose to use, and limit ourselves to what one improvement technology can achieve.”

But Theory of Constraints isn’t simply “another improvement technology.” For example … how would you like to see YOUR Lean results amplified by a factor of 15? That’s what this US corporation experienced, over 2 years.

Check the case study … the experiment started with the  Corporation deciding to test and compare the three different performance improvement technologies in 21 plants.  11 of those plants applied just Six Sigma, 4 plants applied just Lean, and 6 of them applied Theory of Constraints  as the “strategic” or high level improvement technology, but also pulling in Lean and Six Sigma WITHIN the framework of the TOC implementation.

The 6 plants (of the 21 total) where TOC was involved recorded 89% of ALL the benefits demonstrated by ALL 21 plants. No misprint … EIGHTY-NINE PERCENT.

That’s pretty phenomenal.

In terms of the key measured benefit, contributions to savings, on a per-plant basis the plants with Theory of Constraints out-performed the corporation’s Lean-only plants by a factor of fifteen over 2 years, and out-performed Six-Sigma-only plants by a factor of twenty-three over 2 years.

Performance improvement differences of that scale are not an accident. (and of course, with TOC there’s the potential for focused continuous improvement almost as a side effect).

Check our testimonials and you’ll see further evidence in support of the effectiveness of this approach, and our success with it.

You’ll also see a reference to a book which examined 400 published case studies using the Theory of Constraints technology. The average results are stunning. Solid testament to the power of this technology.

How about the other side of the coin? Failures?

Well … Google “Theory of Constraints” failure … with the technology name in quotes, then a space, then the word “failures” without quotation marks. Try “failed”, too. “Disappointing.”  Examine the results … you’ll find that none (or virtually none) of the results refer to TOC failures. Now try it with “Lean manufacturing” and “failed” or “failure” etc.  The difference is startling.  This isn’t a knock on Lean … you could do that search with almost ANY improvement technology or improvement tool and find failures. Many of which are, of course, human failures and not the fault of the technology. But humans are also involved in Theory of Constraints implementations of course … yet you find no history of failures. Startling, isn’t it … until you understand how TOC works.

Now, we (Synchronix, i.e. Rod Gelhorn and Steve Jackson) have been doing this for almost 18 years.

We work with very few companies at any time, and some of our clients prefer not to be identified publicly … but they are more than happy to provide private references. You’ll find them to be passionate about what we helped them achieve, and how we did it. We are not conventional consultants.