Update on Novamerican

In my November 2008 post, I observed Novamerican had added board members Martin D. Powell and Oded Cohen, both TOC gurus. Here's a quick follow up:
In February 2009, Novamerican changed their name to Barzel - they also changed their ticker symbol from TONS/TONSW to TPUT/TPUTW... They have committed to The Decalogue (TM) operating methodology developed by Oded and Dr. Domenico Lepore which "brings together the ideas of Dr. W Edwards Deming's Theory of Profound Knowledge and Dr. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints, and facilitates their application through a set of logical thinking tools and statistical methods." (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/10-q-barzel-industries-inc/story.aspx?guid=%7B864A1A9E-B28E-4EA2-94AC-0FCB7BAFA1EE%7D&dist=msr_1)
Barzel is suffering along with the rest of the economy, and according to the first quater 10-Q, they have been forced to reduce labor expenses including layoffs. They seem cautiously optimistic about the future - stating that shorter lead times and faster inventory turnover will mitigate the negative effect of declining steel prices on their published quarterly reports.
They are in the early phases of "Adopting the New Philosophy" (Demings 2nd key principle) - I wish them luck and eagerly await the 2nd quarter report.