ABSTRACT
Tube Forgings of America, Inc. is a family-owned business manufacturing welding fittings such as long radius elbows, short radius elbows, reducing elbows, caps, reducers, crosses, bends, tees, and 3R elbows. The company serves customers in oil refining, chemical, petro-chemical processing, gas transmission, power generation, shipbuilding, and commercial construction industries. Located in Portland, Oregon, it has been operating since 1955 and is part of the Zidell Group of Companies. Tube Forgings’ annual sales continued to grow at an unpredictable rate. After spending almost ten years using the in-house developed ‘worksheets’ to implement constraint theory into their production processes, in 2007, Tube Forgings restarted their journey to upgrade their theory of constraint processes into what would become their demand driven material requirements planning process by acquiring the services of Constraint Management Group. The initial upgrade emphasis was inventory management and resource management.
