METEC

My name is Shmulik Ben-Dror and today I'm the president and owner of Metec Metal Technologies Ltd. situated in the small town of Shlomi, in the Western Galilee.

The company is a subcontractor to the hi-tech industry. We produce the electronic enclosures by high technology processing sheet metal. We are in this business for about 30 years and we employ 75 workers.

I joined the company in the beginning of 1988 as a major stockholder, and since then the company has grown in a very impressive pace until 1992.

That year the factory moved to a spacious new factory and big amount of money was invested on buying the most advanced equipment for sheet metal processing.

However, starting in 1992 the dollar exchange rate didn't follow the real value of the shekel and because we sell items to our customers (Scitex, Tadiran, Orbotek, Teldata, and others) at prices linked to the dollar, the company was losing its profit margins to such a degree, that in 1995 we had suffered a considerable loss (5% of the turnover).

My meeting with TOC:
In September 1995 there was a two day workshop of Dr. Eli Goldratt - "An Overview of the Theory of Constraints for Industry". I have heard about the workshop too late and I was on the waiting list. Fortunately, the organizers raised the number of participants available and I could join the workshop ( I believe that nothing is incidental).

I was fascinated by Eli from the first moment and I felt immediately that this new approach is to the point and provides quick and effective improvement. In comparison to then reigning approaches - T.Q.M and J.I.T, I adopted immediately the new approach. I was looking for a way to make a concentrated effort to pin point company's core problem so its solution will improve the entire company.

I came back to the factory after these two days with Eli's inspiration and I started to look for the problem which if resolved will turn the company from a loss to a profit, in spite of the continuing weakness of the dollar.

The company didn't have a marketing problem, the opposite - the company couldn't keep up its supplying schedules. Very soon I have found the bottleneck in the punching department, that in spite of the two machines working 6 days (the law in Israel doesn't permit working on Sabbath) a week, 24 hours a day, it couldn't manage to supply all the orders. It was obvious that if we raised the punching ability by 25% we will be able to raise significantly the company's throughput.

I gathered the department's workers to raise ideas, which could help to increase the throughput immediately, until another machine could be ordered. In a month we've looked at all the leads and ideas that were raised at the meeting which included, among others preparing raw-materials on time, working during break times, testing new models during idle time and many more.

After a month, the throughput increased by 15% and when we received the new machine a few months later, the throughput increased by a total of 30%. We finished the 1996 year with a 5% profit.

After implementing the method in manufacturing, my goal was to cause a buy-in of the plant's leading team to the new way of thinking, derived from the Theory of Constraints. I wanted to bring about the permeation of this way of thinking and to apply this approach to solving problems in all areas of plant's activity.

In the beginning of 1996 my partner - the head of marketing, and the engineering and plant manager -have both participated in the Jonah Program. I participated in one some two months later.

Unfortunately, my partner didn't really gain much benefit from the course and, consequently, he is not using the T.O.C. way of thinking. However, the plant manager and myself are using the Theory Of Constraints, most probably not enough. This is a difficulty that I would like to overcome, in order to be able to use this effective tool in changing the organization's culture, and in applying it at the different levels of the decision making.

Today we apply it in order to break our constraint - which has moved to marketing, due to significant improvements in engineering and manufacturing, combined with softer market for our clients' products. We do it together with the staff of the Goldratt Institute, that assists us in applying the TOC's Thinking Processes to build an attractive offers to our prospective clients.

I must comment the Israeli Goldratt Institute manager - Dr. Alex Klarman, and Ms. Ayelet Rosenberg, who helped us, time after time, to try to overcome the difficulties of using the T.O.C. tools in our organizational thinking. It was effective, it was professional - and it worked. For this I'd like to express my heartful thanks.

Shmulik Ben-Dror
President of METEC
Tel. (+972) 4 9808146
Fax. (+972) 4 9808125
raya@netvision.net.il