Synchronous Manufacturing Workshop

2-Day Synchronous Manufacturing Workshop

Synchronous Manufacturing is the label given to the application of the Theory of Constraints to an entire manufacturing business - where Sales, Marketing, Production, Engineering, Quality Management, Purchasing, Finance and Accounting, new product ddevelopment and HR are all aligned with a company's competitive strategy to a level that most businesses cannot even dream about.

This highly interactive workshop is consistently described as "The best workshop I’ve ever attended" by managers representing all functions and all levels of seniority. It is our flagship Theory of Constraints workshop.

Our evaluations consistently show that between 75% and 90% of the material we present is new to the participants, while 90% plus of all attendees consider the material they cover in this Synchronous Manufacturing workshop to be "relevant" or "extremely relevant" to their organization. To place this in context, many managers attending our public workshops have already been exposed to Lean manufacturing and other modern concepts, so we consider this a strong endorsement by senior managers.

To place this in a different context ... we occasionally compete with "large" consulting companies where the full extent of the Theory of Constraints expertise being offered by their "expert" is their participation in this workshop while they were previously a manager in a manufacturing company!

To view a Synchronous Manufacturing Workshop brochure in PDF (Acrobat Reader) format: View Brochure

To download a Synchronous Manufacturing Workshop brochure (Zipped PDF File): Download Brochure

The session starts by deriving simple, intuitive measurements that give managers a clear picture as to the benefit (or otherwise) of a decision or action they are contemplating. These are the fundamantal measurements of the Theory of Constraints.

The example used to illustrate the measurements is an enormous eye-opener for managers who have previously trusted "conventional" numbers – especially those developed using cost accounting. Participants quickly understand exactly why cost accounting can never provide managers with useful information in terms of which products are genuinely making them money - and which are not. Managers, in Operations, Finance, and General Management alike, are typically stunned when they realize just how much profit they have left on the table. There is usually genuine excitement in the group by this stage, even though their introduction to Synchronous Manufacturing has only just begun - they already see how the investment in this course will be recovered, possibly in a matter of hours.

The participants develop the rules for managing an organization for maximum profit – which are also the rules for gaining the fastest, largest, most direct performance improvement – in just a few minutes. These rules, which are essentially the 5 Focusing Steps of the Theory of Constraints, appear to be nothing more than common sense.

But is common sense common practice? A simple example that gives participants the opportunity to APPLY their newly developed know-how proves how easily we revert to old habits. Step by step, the group works through the application of the Theory of Constraints rules to different aspects of the company, covering issues of production, sales, marketing, strategic planning, purchasing, cost accounting, capital acquisition, engineering, quality, process improvement, new product development, R&D, and human resources.

By this time, attendees are gaining a "feel" for the TOC approach, and their first glimpse at the degree of company-wide synchronization that comes with the Synchronous Manufacturing approach.

However, when faced with a different environment – a PC-based simulation of a small factory – once again, old habits quickly emerge and people find that they are creating the very symptoms they face every day in their own environments. Inventories expand, lead-times increase, on-time delivery is poor, cash flow is a problem, expediting is "the norm" and crisis management the dominant tactic.

Over the next 1 ½ days of the workshop people learn, step-by-step, how to translate the high-level principles of Synchronous Manufacturing into specific measurements, policies, and procedures on a day-to-day level.

By the close of the session they have implemented Synchronous Manufacturing to a degree that is providing high on-time shipping performance with low WIP, from a fast-flow of materials through the resources of the plant with minimum lead time. They have identified the most profitable product mix (which is NOT that suggested by examining margins on products), developed a strategy for maximum profit, implemented a scheduling and shop floor management approach that has a troublesome shop running like clockwork with almost no management intervention needed, and discovered one of the most valuable side-effects of a Synchronous Manufacturing implementation – time to THINK.

And for the first time, the Theory of Constraints way of thinking will start to be "natural" - participants will be unable to view the operation of their business in the same way when they return to work.