Dar-El Ezey

Ezey Dar-El was born (1930) and raised in Mumbai India. After finishing high school he studied at the University of Melbourne in Australia. He earned his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1952 and his M.E. in Industrial Engineering in 1960. He obtained his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, also from the University of Melbourne, in 1970 under the guidance of Peter William Whitton. He also worked at the university for several years in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Ezey joined the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor in 1970, when he, his wife and children made aliyah. His work in industrial engineering both domestically and internationally never stopped.

At the Technion he was the leader in industrial engineering. In 1979 he became the first person in Israel to be appointed to the rank of Full Professor in Industrial Engineering.  Ezey also held the Harry Lebensfeld Chair in Industrial Engineering. In addition, he was also the first Director of the Faculty’s Research Center in Industrial Safety and Ergonomics.

Ezey’s position as the leading figure in Industrial Engineering was felt not only at the Technion, but also across the country. He served as the Director of the Israeli branch of the World Council of Productivity Sciences, as a Board Member of the Israeli Productivity Work Institute, and on the Management Board of Israel’s Institute of Safety and Industrial Hygiene. He was instrumental in establishing the Industrial Engineering programs both at Ben Gurion University and Tel-Aviv University. Ezey did not slow down even after he obtained the rank of Professor Emeritus in 1999. He continued to publish research papers and advise research students. At the same time he also joined the Ruppin Academic Center as an advisor to the Dean of the School of Engineering (which included Industrial Engineering of course). He became the Dean of Engineering in 2002, a post he held until 2005. In that year he became the Chair of the Academic Center’s Promotion and Appointment Committee. He retired in 2007.

Ezey’s presence on the international level was no less felt than in Israel. He spent numerous sabbaticals at the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department of Virginia Tech, developing strong research links. Ezey served on the Editorial Board of several journals. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) and the International Federation of Production Research (IFPR). Ezey was also an Executive Board Member of the IFPR. He was an internationally known consultant and, at one time or another, worked with over 60 companies from all over the world including Australia, Israel, England, the U.S.A., Italy, The Netherland Antilles and Peru.

Ezey brought honor and recognition to Israel when he chaired the 13th International Conference on Production Research (ICPR), which was held in Jerusalem in 1995.

Ezey Dar-El is known internationally for his pioneering work on assembly line balancing and assembly line design, with particular emphasis on mixed-model sequencing. He also published extensively on other topics including job shop and flow shop scheduling; project control; project scheduling; FMS scheduling; industrial safety; work measurement; R&D quality and productivity; gain sharing; productivity development and industrial learning. Ezey’s work on industrial learning is of particular importance since his research has enabled engineers to estimate manufacturing times for new products without the need to physically produce manufacturing prototypes. Ezey wrote a milestone work on Gain Sharing and was recognized as a leading researcher in this area. Together with his work on ‘employee involvement’, his 1986 book predated the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement which later took the industrialized nations by storm.