Elyes Jaziri, 36, is the manager of Mecanoprecis, a family-owned engineering company that produces steel parts and molds in Bizerte.
The company was founded in 1982 by Elyes' father, Mohamed, out of a small workshop with just five employees. At the time, it was the first precision engineering subcontractor in the region, serving large industrial firms, such as La Société Tunisienne des Industries de Raffinage (STIR) and La Société Nationale de Distribution des Pétroles (SNDP). Over time, Mecanoprecis earned a solid reputation with its clients and achieved strong growth. By 2004, the company was even exporting its products to neighbouring Libya and Algeria.
Elyes jumped into the business at an early age, helping out around the manufacturing unit. Passionate about mechanics, Elyes went on to study mechanical engineering in university. After graduating, he officially joined the company as a methods engineer and sales representative. In 2015, he was promoted to managing director. Under Elyes’ leadership, the company significantly expanded and increased its exports.
During the company’s transitional growth phase, however, staff often struggled to adapt to new management methods, leading to production bottlenecks and long lead times. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic added additional challenges, such as raw material shortages and government-imposed lockdowns that disrupted deliveries. Despite these obstacles, Mecanoprecis remained operational and retained all its employees during the health crisis.
To help Mecanoprecis fully capitalize on its growth potential, JOBS worked with the company to establish clear internal processes and lean manufacturing techniques according to industry best practices. JOBS also helped train employees on the new methods and to design and implement a global dashboard that tracks company metrics to optimize its workflow – and to secure employee buy-in to these procedures.
With JOBS’ technical assistance, Mecanoprecis boosted productivity by more than 30% and improved its on-time delivery by more than 40%. Freeing up capacity, the company then accepted orders from new Libyan and Canadian buyers, leading to a 20% increase in export sales and 25 new jobs.
Building on this success, Elyes now plans to add even more services and to open a new production unit.
"We expect to develop and market our sub-activities, such as custom part design, maintenance services, and consultancy. We will also launch a new production unit to handle fixed orders and dedicate the current unit to urgent orders."
Elyes Jaziri
General Manager – Mecanoprecis
"Thanks to this assistance and the training sessions, our team’s mindset has changed. Exchanges between colleagues have become more productive, which has obviously had a positive impact on our work.”
Latifa Chetouane
Business Engineer – Mecanoprecis
