Theory of Constraints Specialists Since 1988

We GUARANTEE Competitive Edge & Bottom Line Results for Qualifying Small- to Mid-Sized Manufacturers

    We bring Focus & Leverage to Improvement Efforts.

Even where – Especially where – Lean or ERP have not delivered the Business Case you were led to expect.

Results are typically Fast, Direct, & often Massive …
… and always reach the Bottom Line.

Routine results since 1988 include:
  • 20% to 40% more products produced and shipped from the same Resources, and with the same or reduced Operating Expenses…
    With…
  • 98% or better On-Time Performance
  • 50% – 75% reduced Lead Time
  • 50% – 90% reduced WIP
  • 25% – 50% reduced Finished Goods
  • Reduced Expediting, Overtime, Operating Expenses

Often:
Initial Results in 10 – 30 days.
Full implementation in 30 – 120 days.

Even if you bring to the table …
  • Disappointing experiences with Lean or other Improvement Technologies despite genuine commitment to the principles.
  • Ongoing ERP frustrations. Including incomplete implementations, inaccurate or unreliable or missing data, workarounds (whiteboards, Excel) being “the norm.”
  • Concern that your workforce is becoming cynical and project-shy. Or that they’re “old dogs” and perceived to be resistant to change.
  • A tough marketplace (low and shrinking margins, fierce competition, no loyalty).
  • Every order custom (and even highly engineered).
  • Massive variability in everything, all the time (in sales volume and sales mix, in vendor lead times, incoming quality, internal processes, process times even for the same processes, skills, manpower on any given day, quality, … you name it).

As our Results, Testimonials & References will confirm …

The “Routine results” listed above genuinely represent what we’ve been helping companies achieve since 1988 — which I hope makes it clear, we’re not “fresh out of college” keeners.

We’ve EACH been involved with manufacturing environments for more than 40 years. With management experience as well as consulting experience. Keeping up to date as various Improvement technologies emerge. We’re not “Either/or” on ANY technology. They all bring value to the table. Why not take advantage of anything that moves a company forward towards its goals? We’re pragmatic. Not dogmatic.

And we’re not just experts at the TOC approach. We’re expert at getting zero-pushback “buy-in” — even from jaded, cynical, project-weary employees who’ve been there for years, know the job, the products, the processes, & the customers intimately. And who are justifiably skeptical at the idea that any outside can just walk in and teach them anything. EVERY client we’ve ever worked with will confirm this.

But — and this is important — yes, we’re good at what we do, but even our nearest and dearest wouldn’t call us geniuses. The power that generates such consistently high results so quickly resides in the extremely PRACTICAL Theory of Constraints TOC Technology. We can point you to published success stories, worldwide, dating back 30 years. recorded by no-name manufacturing businesses to Fortune 500 corporations.

So there’s a rock-solid, decades-long, virtually zero-fail foundation (you can search and prove this for yourself) underpinning what we do.

Does this interest you?

If this interests you, and you’d like to explore it further to validate that it genuinely applies to your business, your products, your circumstances:

Call Steve Jackson or Rod Gelhorn at: 604 – 668 – 3253.

For Example
One recent client — a small metal fabrication shop — had 4 years of Lean-oriented efforts under their belt. While they’d seen some genuine improvements they were frustrated by lousy on-time performance that got worse every time they tried to move towards “one piece flow” — as the experts urged them to. (Realistically, the only reason to do this was that “everyone said” they should. Especially the experts. In fact there was ZERO performance advantage that mattered. That’s not opinion; it’s demonstrable. But of course, no-one is supposed to say that out loud.)

““Worse” as in, 74% on-time. (Fortunately their major competitor was no better.)

30 days into TOC: WIP down 50% and more. In-plant cycle time reduced by more than 50%. Improved productivity in the shape of 15% more product produced and shipped than in any month in their history. And they hit 85% on-time.

90 days into TOC: 98% on-time performance. Best-in-Class lead-time in their local marketplace. Still shipping 15% more than they ever did before TOC.

A current project: they’ve identified their most profitable products using TOC-based Pricing concepts. They are NOT what Cost Accounting suggested. They are adjusting a lot of their thinking and their operation around this realization.

Summary: By adding TOC’s “Focus & Leverage” they routinely shipped more than they ever had, from the same resources. Their competitive performance remains the best in their industry (if they chose to, they could probably promise delivery in 25% to 35% of their competitors’ lead times). And now they know which products genuinely make them the most profit; and they are moving aggressively to win more of that business.

And to illustrate that it’s the TOC PRINCIPLES that matter, not the names of the consultants:
  • A colleague in the USA accepts his consulting fee ONLY in the form of 20% of ADDITIONAL Net Profits recorded in Year 1 of a TOC implementation. A recent Fabrication shop implementation followed 5 years of break-even performance and even losses, on sales of $5MM. Directly attributable Additional Net Profit in the first 6 months of TOC was $300K. Bottom-line results typically come quickly.
  • In fact, there are published TOC success stories going back over 30 years, worldwide, through to 2021. Several of them include massive performance improvement in companies that justifiably have superb reputations for their Lean Operations. Even so, the addition of TOC’s Focus & Leverage enhanced their performance.

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

We have colleagues that implement Theory of Constraints in large organizations, with thousands of employees. 
We have occasionally been involved, usually in collaboration with colleagues.
We’ve been involved with a green-grass start-up.
At the other end of the spectrum, a company where Sales were growing at more than $7MM per MONTH for years.
But our strong preference is to work with smaller manufacturers. Typically companies with annual sales of less than $75MM, although this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.

  • 25 – 150 employees is common. Sort-of our “sweet spot.”
  • Our smallest client ever had 3 employees, performing custom millwork for wealthy local clients in Ohio. This was entirely remote support.
  • A pharmaceutical company grew from $40MM to $75MM with our systems in support, after years of stagnant growth. System inventories dropped from close to $29MM to less than $10MM. We synchronized production AND distribution to be in sync with actual consumption at the point of sale (more than 1000 stores). The consistent 98% availability despite the reduced inventory was more than DOUBLE their major competitor’s level.
  • At a simpler level … we helped a Printer to increase Productivity on their Press (and therefore, in their case, on the operation as a whole) by around 30% while they’ve hit 98%-plus on-time delivery now for years. In that industry, that kind of performance improvement is huge.
  • And we helped a manufacturer in a VERY complicated business, with extremely short lead times on 100% custom products. Every scheduling approach they examined, wouldn’t work. Ours did.

Also … 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.)

Does this interest you?

If this interests you, and you’d like to explore it further to validate that it genuinely applies to your business, your products, your circumstances:

Call Steve Jackson or Rod Gelhorn at: 604 – 668 – 3253.