Aug

Exploiting and Subordinating your Marketing Constraint

A continuation of my blog posts on Using the Theory of Constraints with your Marketing HourGlass. We are concentrating on optimizing the Throughput of the Marketing Hourglass utilizing the Five Steps of Continuous Improvement, Steps 2 and 3.

Step 2. Exploit the system’s constraint

This simply means; Getting the most out of the weakest link or phase. This is a great time to use the Lean tool of Kaizen. Getting rid of all waste associated with the systems constraint is the first step I would take. One of the things that TOC and Lean both encourage is to observe the process with people very familiar with it. They may tell you that this always happens or maybe an obvious statements such as we don’t have enough people. Looking at the waste you will readily identify some crucial changes.

Put a cost to the constraint. If this is your weakest link, improvement in this area will maximize the entire process. So the constraint cost is associated with the entire process. Changing this constraint should show improvement in the entire flow. Understanding the cost of the constraint is imperative in moving forward. Once you have a cost assigned to the constraint, you start looking at improvement slightly differently. Observe how things move through a constraint. Hiring that one extra person, holding additional events, dedicating a phone line or a live operator could make significant differences. Using a tip from Rapid Product Development, you may want to parallel this process. This allows simultaneous actions versus many of the different types of time constraints detailed in or list of definitions.

Step 3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision.

Increase output through the constraint(phase) increases output for the entire system. I sometime use the analogy when a salesman senses an order. He puts everything else on hold and dedicates all his resources to getting that order. It is also very similar to the Lean method of Kanban. Kanban is a method of only releasing parts as needed through the process. A card must be given to the preceding event before that phase can start.

Interesting thought may be as you manage marketing campaigns or events that you only release calls, direct mail based on responses from your prospects. A proactive drip management program may solicit certain key actions before additional material is released automatically.

In manufacturing, I have seen a quality station placed in front of the constraint before allowing parts to move through the process. In marketing, you may add a qualifying step so the constraint or process only receives a more qualified prospect.

The next post will be steps 4 and 5.