Biographies of the Principals in Synchronix Technologies, Inc.

Steve Jackson

In 1988 Steve Jackson was one of the first independent consultants in the world to be invited to receive “Jonah” training by Dr. Eli Goldratt, author of The Goal and originator of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) technology.  Steve has specialized in the TOC ever since.

In 1988, with an engineering degree and more than 15 years of manufacturing and systems experience already behind him, Steve worked alongside Dr. Goldratt, his partners and Associates for six years to further develop and to disseminate the Theory of Constraints body of knowledge across North America. This will have meaning for anyone who has read Eli Goldratt’s book “The Goal” …  Steve was certified to the level of “Jonah’s Jonah,” meaning he taught managers to think like “Jonah,”  on behalf of the Goldratt Institute.

Independent of the Goldratt Institute since 1994 Steve today is one of the most experienced TOC educators and consultants in North America, with know-how (and do-how) gained from hands-on involvement in a wide variety of implementations. He is one of the few TOC consultants Certified as “Expert” in all six TOC fields by the TOC International Certification Organization, TOC-ICO.

A popular speaker and educator, Steve has developed and delivered a wide variety of seminars and workshops to groups of up to 300 managers.

In 2004, Steve was invited to work with Eli Goldratt’s organization again on a new program, called “Viable Vision.” While this program has taken on new shapes, the essence of a Viable Vision in its original form was to provide the know-how to ensure that a company’s Net Profit in 4 years time exceeded their revenues at the project outset; a majority of the consulting fee to be paid as bonuses dependent on results having been achieved and banked.

Steve was a member of APICS for 20 years, and served as President of the local Chapter.  He is still an occasional presenter at APICS meetings.

Rod Gelhorn

Rod is without equal when it comes to finding ways to schedule a shop floor, often in adverse conditions,  for example working with overloaded resources with no time to spare, inadequate computer systems, missing or unreliable data, etc.  Even in such environments he never fails to find a way to schedule a plant in such a way that real people (including “old dogs”) finds it easy to understand, maintain and execute realistic schedules that provide major boosts in productivity, and major boosts in on-time delivery, along with substantial reductions in lead time and work in process inventory.

Rod abandoned a degree mid-stream to instead get one of the most practical college qualifications available at the time — Building Technology. He is simply one of the most practical, pragmatic, hands-on, get-it-done types you’ll ever meet. He’s also a stickler for doing it right. Whatever “it” is. And he’s detail-oriented, as a matter of habit.

Rod has a decade of Plant Management in food packaging, hardware packaging, and window manufacturing where he was responsible for the start-up of a new plant literally from green field to full production.

He made the conscious choice to learn Total Quality Management (TQM) as a practitioner in a thin-film extruding plant before being invited to work with a leading TQM consulting company as a full-time consultant and educator. Since co-founding Synchronix, Rod’s focus has been 99% on Theory of Constraints while never losing sight of the value of the Total Quality tools in targeted situations. It can be a valuable asset to have a resources with Rod’s breadth of knowledge – Theory of Constraints of course, a specialist in scheduling, an expert to the level of Train the Trainer in the TQM approach around the Shewhart Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act), and as comfortable teaching as using or implementing Statistical Process Control (SPC).

As much at home on the shop floor as in the front offices, Rod’s focus is most often on helping clients develop the practical day-to-day operational aspects of their Synchronous Manufacturing implementations, including extending the implementations along the supply chain in both directions, working with the TOC Distribution and Supply Chain application. He has helped a variety of businesses develop their day-to-day shop scheduling systems, sometimes with an implementation time measured in days.

Rod served on the board of the Vancouver Chapter of APICS for several years, and is a past chair of the Vancouver Section of the American Society of Quality (ASQ).