Utilization of the Theory of Constraints

Utilization of the Theory of Constraints Guest was Dr. Lisa Lang

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Dr. Lisa Lang is considered the foremost expert in the world in applying Theory of Constraints to Marketing and currently the President of the Science of Business. She recently served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr Goldratt who is the father of Theory of Constraints and author of The Goal. Dr Lisa has a PhD in Engineering and is a TOCICO certified expert in Theory of Constraints. She is currently serving on the TOCICO Board of Directors.

Dr. Lisa offers some great ideas on how to market utilizing the Theory of Constraints and creating that all important "Mafia Offer." If you would like to learn more about the Mafia Offer, go to Dr. Lisa's website the Science of Business.

Dr. Lisa is the author of 3 books: Maximizing Profitability, Achieving a Viable Vision, Increasing Cash Velocity, and Mafia Offers is due out in May 2010. Science of Business specializes in increasing profits of highly custom businesses and applying Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to sales and marketing, having developed the Mafia Offer Boot Camp, Velocity Scheduling System, and Project Velocity System.

Before becoming a consultant, Dr Lisa was in operations, strategic planning, purchasing, R&D, and quality while working for Clorox, Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing. She is known for having developed the Anheuser-Busch plastic beer bottle. In addition to consulting, Dr Lisa is a highly sought after Vistage/TEC speaker on “Maximizing Profitability�. Dr Lisa also provides professional keynote speeches and workshops for organizations like: TLMI, ASC, NTMA, MCAA, NAPM and private events for corporations like: TESSCO, Bostik, GE, Pfizer and Sandvik Coromant.

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Joe Dager: Participating in our program today is Dr. Lisa Lang, the president of the Science of Business, a consulting firm specializing in helping companies to achieve bottom line results. She has served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr. Eli Goldratt, father of the Theory of Constraints and author of "The Goal," and is the foremost marketing expert when it comes to applying the theory of constraints to marketing.

Dr. Lisa, could you tell us how you got involved with the Theory of Constraints and where your company is today?

Dr. Lisa Lang: Of course, it starts back in 1989. "The Goal" was originally published in 1984, and I didn't discover it and read it until '89, and at that time I was in graduate school. So I read it, I was in engineering school, and it just immediately connected for me. As an engineer, you read something like that, and you go, "Oh, finally! Something that makes sense and that I can really connect with!" So my journey really started way back then. The problem was, back then, there wasn't much material available, there weren't very many people talking about it. I read the book, but it pretty much ended there, at least for a period of time, until more books came out and we started having conferences. I became quite involved once there was a community and there was something to be involved with.

I started consulting on my own back in 2002, and prior to that I had worked with a lot of big companies: Anheuser-Busch, Clorox. And I was applying these concepts across my area of responsibility and focus, so in a more limited scope. What I really wanted to do was help companies more holistically. So the vision was to work with small and mid-size companies where you could take a more holistic approach, which the Theory of Constraints is really about a holistic approach, and have a really big impact. I started doing that in 2002, and I had quite a bit of success actually, marketing and selling Theory of Constraints and my services, which got Dr. Goldratt's attention, and then he asked me to be his global marketing director.

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I struck a deal with him where I worked for him for about three years and then went back to running my company and doing the things that I do now. Science of Business, we still have the same mission. We still work with small and mid-size companies, and we try to make it very affordable so, for companies that get started, it's very inexpensive. And then our long-term goal, from those companies that get started with us, are to pick out a few that really want to turn their company around, and then we do 100 percent results-based with those handful that we see coming through our various online programs.

Joe: When we talk about the Theory of Constraints, we always talk about finding the Herbie. Anybody that's read "The Goal" recognizes who that is right away. But finding the constraint and identifying it -- can you really do that in companies when you first walk in as a consultant? Is it obvious when you walk through the process? Or, what steps, I guess; do you take as a consultant when you first engage a company?

Dr. Lisa: Certainly in the size companies we work with, the small and mid-size, when you walk through the plant you can generally tell, if there's a constraint, where it is. If you're talking about a bigger facility, sometimes it can be a little more challenging.

However, you can usually just ask a few questions and narrow it down pretty quickly. We work with a lot of custom job shops, which are fairly small. So we're talking about, a big job shop would be $10 million in sales. These size shops, typically, we can walk into, we can tell where the constraints is, if they have one.

In the last few years, everybody's really had a market constraint. But if you have an internal constraint, and even if you don't have an internal constraint, you should still have an internal control point. Usually we can walk in and pretty quickly diagnose. You can even do the diagnosis fairly quickly, even just with a few questions.

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One of the questions I ask is, usually first I want to know, do they have a market constraint, or do they have an internal constraint? So something as simple as, "If tomorrow we waved a magic wand, and your sales would increase 20 percent, could you guys handle it, still be on time, and without increasing your lead time?" If the answer is yes, then we probably have a market constraint. If the answer is no, then it's going to be very important to find that internal constraint or create an internal control point and then work from there.

Joe: What do you mean by an internal control point?

Dr. Lisa: So Herbie is the constraint or the bottleneck, and that is really where your constraint tends to appear. So it is where it is, if you will. As you start to implement Theory of Constraints and you get familiar with it, you really don't follow what is laid out in "The Goal" and I think if Dr. Goldratt rewrote "The Goal" right now, he would change those five focusing steps a little bit. In other words, the five focusing steps talk about identifying the constraint, exploit, subordinate, elevate, and then find the new constraint.

Because if you essentially go through those five steps again and again, what you would be doing is chasing the constraint around. As you look holistically, and as you look long-term, certainly we don't want to be chasing the constraint around, because every time the constraint moves, our policies, procedures, and measures would have to move to accommodate that new location. As you get more experience, you realize, "OK, well, we don't want to chase this thing around, let's start with the end in mind."

We know that eventually the constraint will probably end up in the market. If we get the results we typically get with Theory of Constraints, then we uncover quite a bit of capacity, the constraint naturally moves to the market. Now once it moves to the market,

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we still want an internal control point. Meaning we still want a way to meter work into the facility. So an internal control point is just another way of saying we selected a strategic constraint.

If we have a market constraint, it's just a control point, but if we have an internal constraint -- in other words, we can't produce all that the market is demanding from us -- it is a constraint. So it's a terminology difference between, is it an active constraint, or not? At least, that's my terminology, and I'd have to say that across Theory of Constraints community, not everybody has the exact same terminology of what to call it when it's active or non-active. I call it a control point when we really do have a market constraint, and it's the constraint, and it's still the control point when it's an internal constraint if that makes sense.

Joe: If we have a certain line or certain stage in our production that is our constraint or our control point do we leave go ahead and determine our production schedule, determine our lead times, is that control point?

Dr. Lisa: The control point, it's basically how we release work. So we're releasing work at the rate that the constraint can actually do the work, so it's a control point from that perspective. It's a control point from the perspective of your load to capacity: How much work can you get out relative to the requests and orders that you have coming in?

And, of course, this conversation is true across whether you're talking about manufacturing companies or service companies. It's the same conversation. I think, if we were talking to all service companies, we might change the language slightly. Or if we were talking about companies that do just project-based work, the words might change slightly, but the conversation is still pretty much the same, where this control point is this constraint that we are using to regulate our entire system and again, all our

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policies, procedures and measures are based on the location of this constraint. Policies, procedures, and measures are what we use as managers to change behaviors - just to try to get results we are after. It is how we direct our work force.

Joe: So, from a real simple standpoint to determine our production schedules, I don't have to look at the whole factor. I have to look at the constraint.

Dr. Lisa: Yes, when we have this control point it is usually different when there are some customizations and things, but to keep it simple, we really schedule only the constraint resource. We don't schedule every resource. And again, this is true whether or not we are talking about a manufacturing or service company. Wherever that constraint resource is, that's the one and only resource that we try to keep close to a hundred percent. It's not really a hundred percent because of variability and things like that, but we try to keep only the constraint resource close to a hundred percent capacity or efficiency and then everybody else, by definition, has excess capacity.

Joe: Is there a time that when you find this and people start working with this, does this seem foreign to them? Or is it like after you really sit down and you go through it - is there like an "Aha!" moment for that organization. All of sudden it makes sense and it all just kind of clicks"?

Dr. Lisa: There are a couple of things that make it very counter-intuitive and there are some things that are familiar. So what's familiar - people are familiar with the concept of a constraint or a bottleneck. So if you ask anybody, "Do you have a constraint or do you have a bottleneck," and they'll say yes and they can explain what it is and they can understand it. That part everybody gets. I mean I think that is generally accepted. The disconnect occurs when we talk about how you run your organization based on that constraint.

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That's where the steps you actually take now - to get more out the door - is where the disconnect happens. The disconnect is that on the one hand, they currently have policies, procedures and measures in place that are all about efficiency, keeping cost down. So, cost accounting and efficiency measures - the thinking being that for us to maximize our profitability, we need to be very efficient. We need to get the most out of our resources that we have. That mentality says, "I need to be busy everywhere. I need to be efficient everywhere," and then we come in and say, "No, no. The only place we care about efficiency is at this one place.“ So, the disconnect typically occurs between their current policies, procedures and measures, and how they think and how we are suggesting they change that thinking. So it takes a little bit of transition to get them from the cost world of, "We have to worry about efficiency," to saying, "No. The only place I care about efficiency is at the constraint."

Joe: I know there has been a lot written on throughput and throughput accounting and that. Has that been easily grasped and have people taken a hold of that or is there still a lot of resistance there?

Dr. Lisa: You know, I think there is a mix. It is certainly not universal by any stretch of the imagination. There are some people who hear it. I do a lot of speaking. I do about 50 speeches a year and so, I see the reactions from a large number of CEOs and business owners, and it's just a mix. There's CEOs and business owners who are really not numbers people and for them it just seems much more straightforward, much simpler and they say something like, "Man, can you talk to my accountant? Because what they have me doing on all this allocation stuff is too complex."

They know intuitively that they don't really need to do these allocations to know what is going on, but they don't know how to communicate that. The financial people usually get

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what you are saying and some of them will move over that way and some of them will still resist it and say, "Yeah, OK. I understand what you are saying but..." They still hold on to the need for cost accounting and cost allocations. And so, it's really a wide group and really when we see the real transformation occurring is when we can work with somebody over a longer period of time. Because remember we have all been taught that we are supposed to be efficient and we have been taught cost accounting and all this stuff. We have been doing it and we have taught it and everybody does it.

It's been around for a long time and it is really scary to change from that to something like throughput accounting, particularly, when you don't fully understand the solution. So if you just heard a little bit about it, you might know, "OK. Cost accounting - I see there are some traps and some potential negatives, but this new thing --I don't fully understand it, and so I am not ready to go there yet either.

And so, it is an interesting thing to watch people go to the transformation process and it is a process that takes to take place over time for most people. There's always the people who get things and pick up on it quick and they are ready to go, but I think, generally, it's a transformation process that occurs over time and with experience as they apply it and see, "OK. I did that. I didn't allocate. Nothing bad happened to me. I am still making money. My throughput that I am generating is greater than my operating expense. That is far easier to calculate. I'm in a good place so, OK, I am ready to continue down that path."

Joe: When you talked about there are constraints, you talk about a holistic approach more like an umbrella over the organizations. Lean tries to do that. Six Sigma is a little more project-based but both Lean and Six Sigma teach Theory of Constraints. What makes Theory of Constraints an umbrella over the other two or do you use them in combination with the other continuous improvement methodologies? How do you look at that?

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Dr. Lisa: I look at it that all three work really well together and the biggest bang is going to come from using all the three of them together. The way that I see that they fit together is that Theory of Constraints will tell you where to focus your improvements. It will tell you where. Six Sigma and Lean has some great tools to make you help the improvement. TOC has some of those tools as well. Theory of Constraints says, "OK, find what's limiting you and then improve there.“

Don't worry about reducing waste or reducing variability, everywhere else. Do it right here first. Then once we do that, it will tell us the next place and the next place, and we'll use whatever tool is most appropriate at the place where we can have the biggest impact on our bottom line. So it is really about Theory of Constraints being a focusing mechanism and if I have to describe Theory of Constraints in one word it would be: focus. Then in two words, it would be: focus and leverage.

Because once you know where to focus and if you are focusing on the leverage point, leverage will naturally occur. Leverage gets a lot of play and people talk about it, but I don't know that everybody really understands what we mean by leverage. What we mean by leverage is that whatever operating expenses that you have so the people, the resources, the equipment you have invested in, whatever your fixed costs are each month or each year - that is what we are leveraging.

And so, anytime we can get more out with the same people and resources: that is leverage. We are really leveraging those operating expenses and what we are looking to do is get more out. So what Theory of Constraints tell us is if we want to get more - if you want to make more money - here is the place that you need to focus. This is the biggest disruption that we have. Now, we open a Lean tool bag or a Six Sigma tool bag, if that is actually the appropriate tool. We are going to use whatever tool is most appropriate at that spot.

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Joe: I think that is well said because it seems that you can practice Lean. You can practice Six Sigma, but everybody has to practice Theory of Constraints to make a difference.

Dr. Lisa: If you make an improvement that's in a place that is not going to allow you to get more through your constraints or allow you to get more protective capacity at non constraints. If you get more protective capacity and you don't really need that protective capacity, you've done nothing. So, Theory of Constraints will tell you where to focus to have the biggest impact on your bottom line. And I think Lean and Six Sigma have some great tools and so we're big proponents of it. The only thing we say is you use your constraints as the overall focusing mechanism the holistic approach and then bring your tools in, as appropriate.

Joe: What if I found my control point. I know what it is, I am satisfied. I do that and it is outside the organization now. Now, what do I do about it if it's external?

Dr. Lisa: Well, you are still going to have an internal control point. So, you still have your internal control point and as soon as you go back to your balance capacity, which is the starting point for most companies; it is very balance. There is no one constraint, there is no control point. It's all balance. Constraints essentially what we are doing is selecting control on point balancing capacity. Now when you do that, you get more out.

So, you are leveraging. You are getting more out with people and resources.

Now, when that happens, if you can sell more, you have more capacity -- your uncovered capacity -- but you can't sell that capacity. You can't sell the additional capacity you uncovered. The bottom line impact is nothing unless you lay off people or somehow reduce your capacity. So, the follow-on to that is that you want to keep that control point

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and keep running your system that way but then you have to be able to sell that capacity to really leverage.

So the real leverage comes from uncovering the capacity and then selling that new capacity that you've developed because your operating expenses will stay the same and now you are selling more with the same people on the same resources. So, we know that that is going to happen. We know that when we go into a service company or manufacturer and we help them implement the logistical solutions of Theory of Constraints.

We know that they are going to eventually end up with the market constraints because we know that we have uncovered so much capacity typically -- that, yeah, the capacity initially helped them get on time and all that. But we have helped them uncover so much more than that. Now what we have to do if they want to continue to increase their profit is to sell the capacity they uncovered. And that's where the marketing comes in and what we're known for is having developed this Mafia Offer Boot Camp.

And so now, how do you sell that capacity? What offer to make to the market so that we can now sell the capacity we uncovered and by the way, that often not only have to be unrefusable to our customers but something the competition can't do because you usually uncover so much of the capacity, we have to create an offer that the competition doesn't touch. If they can immediately match our offer, chances are that we are not going to be able to sell all that capacity we uncovered.

Joe: From the marketing standpoint, we are sitting there OK, we have excess capacity, so we can go to the marketplace and design around that, the offer, and what you are saying is that offer can be something in dollars or can be in capacity or could be certain delivery dates or a certain way to deliver the product that is really difficult for the competition to do.

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Dr. Lisa: Yeah and the competition can't do it because they haven't made the internal changes that you've made. They haven't unbalanced their capacity. They haven't created this control point. They don't have the velocity through the process as fast as yours.

They don't have the ability to absorb variability the way that you do. And so the offer can be based on any number of things within that operational improvement that you made.

So, here I am a marketing person and yet we spend quite a bit of our time on the operations side and that so we can create a truly unrefusable offer that the competition can't or won't match, and so the operational side very much that with the sales of marketing side because we're creating first that operational improvement which gives us a competitive advantage and the Mafia Offer is leveraging that competitive advantage.

What offer we are making to the market that nobody else can do because now we have improved operational performance.

Joe: In the short term, I have a competitive position but can’t the competition make the same offer three months from now?

Dr. Lisa: It usually takes tens of years. Sometimes the competition never makes it because they never made the operational improvements and, also, remember in Theory of Constraints because we think so much differently we don't worry about efficiency. We don't do cost accounting. All the competition still is thinking that old way and they are limited by that thinking. We don't have the same limitations.

So they hear our offer. They hear we are doing something and they don't want anything to do with it because the perception is that the cost will go up and the reality is, no, just the allocated costs go up. So, for example, let's say that our offer would require that we do more setups and the competition says those guys are going out of business because we are doing more setups.

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Well, setups don't cost anything. They are allocated costs. They take time. So setups take time but it is not cost and it's that cost mentality that will keep them from matching an offer as an example.

Joe: You teach that in a webinar that is called Mafia Boot Camp. Don't you?

Dr. Lisa: We do kind of live two-and-a-half day Mafia Offer Boot Camp either a group or a private and then we do an online version of that as well. That can go at your own pace so it's spread over more time. So, serious constraints whether we are talking about Mafia Offers or the operational improvements. I mean the things we do in operations are quite a bit as different as well.

You kind of get some pushback so what we discovered how to help companies go through this process and implement in a way that's kind of the least amount of pain because, really, what we are doing is we are teaching them to think differently that is really our objective to teach them differently. Once we teach that we can apply to operations, we can apply to Mafia Offers and our approach to doing that is we do it based on some success that they've had.

We'll have a conversation with them and we'll ask them to tell a story and then we'll take their success. The story that they tell us, we use that to get them to try something new or different. So, for example, when we were working with a lot of job shops and machine shops, the last thing they want to do is cut their working process. That is absolutely the last thing that they want to do and we want them to do that.

What I usually ask each of them is that I ask them well, have you guys ever had like an emergency order from a customer. A customer who is really in a lot of trouble they really need something fast, you pulled out all the stops and you turn a miracle. I mean, you just really helped them and something that normally you might have quoted six weeks, you

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delivered in three days. And they all have a story like that and they can tell you, yeah, they normally quote four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, whatever it is, lead time and the customer got a spot and it was an important customer and they did some miracle.

What we do is we get them to tell that story and we use their own story to now get them to try what we want them to do. Now, so they get that they pulled up all the stuff for this customers that they have to stop working on some jobs. Thereby reducing some working process but they also broke some set ups to do that. They get that they did some of the things that I'm asking them to do. Their "yes, but...� Their negative is we can't do that all the time or on an ongoing basis because that would be terribly inefficient.

If we run every job like that, we will be inefficient. We lose money. We will be out of business. So my job is to convert them from their story to how do we do that all the time? Where is the middle ground between that extreme of that story? And what I'm asking them to do and we do it all the time, where is the middle ground between that extreme of that story and what I am asking them to do? So we do it all the time and we find the balance between the speed that they have created and the efficiency that they think they need to make money. My main job is to get them to try the new way, and to get them to do it, I've found that building on a success that they have, a story that they are very proud of often works.

Joe: I think that's a great way to put it, because it makes good sense, when I think about it from a Lean perspective -- I had a discussion just recently -- and they took a setup time from what it was an hour down to seven minutes. So there was a way to decrease that setup time and do that efficiently, for lack of a better word.

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Dr. Lisa: It's amazing what they can do unfortunately their perception is, "But we can't do it like that all the time because we lose money. It would inefficient if we did that all the time." So we just got to get to cross that chasm and agree to try it because knowledge -- I have this saying -- that knowledge does not lead to change. I can do courses with them, I can explain things ten different ways, I can give them all the knowledge, but after the knowledge transfer, if I say now go cut your work in process, they still don't want to cut their work in process.

So you got to figure out a way to get them from an experience that they have and build on that experience, that success that they have. Theory of Constraints is so counter to what they normally do. I don't go for getting them to agree with me, I just get them to agree to try it, to really try it, to give it a whole try. Say, "Look your job is to help me figure out how we go from that success story. Yeah, we can't do that all the time. That wouldn't be good. But can we take some of those things that you did and that you had these huge results from, combine that with enough efficiency that we do make money that we do address all those concerns that you have? We want to find the right balance.

Would you be willing to help me figure out how to customize this for you, what would work best for you?"

And if you can get kind of the informal leader to make that commitment, and we do a lot of online trainings in groups, so their whole group is on the other end of the phone. If I can get the leader to make that commitment, because that is usually the person being very local and arguing or pushing back against wanting to do something -- if I get that commitment from them, my experience is that law of consistency will prevail. Once they have made their commitment, they will do everything to uphold it.

Now, I have an advocate to at least try anything I suggest on their end, that's how we have been able to take what has been traditional on-site consulting, and we now do it online. So we teach manufacturers our philosophy scheduling system and it's an online

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course. Same thing with service companies, we teach service companies, project-based service companies, or project velocity system. Again, it's all online, but to do that we have to make this transition.

We have to figure out how do we do that, and by the way, we had the same problems even when we were going there live. Now, online you don't have the face to face, you can't really sit down over a beer with somebody and really try to win them over, try to get them to agree to try. So how do you do that when you never meet the people?

Joe: To get that buy-in of the group, it does take personal contact.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, an interesting thing. I was just writing an article on this subject, which is probably why it's top on and it’s probably how we ended up here. Have you noticed how whenever you working on something, everything tends to be on that subject?

So I was working on this article, and as I was writing, kind of where I came out is agreeing on the problem is actually pretty straightforward. We can, as consultants; we can sit down with a prospect and agree on some of the problems and challenges that they have. For me, in my marketing, in my writing, that's no issue. In fact, I have been accused of hiding out in their location, so obviously we agree on the problem if they are accusing me of having hidden out in their plant.

So agreeing on the problem, as long as you take the time to do that, is typically not the issue. I see the issue on agreeing on the direction of the solution. So we agree that these are the problems, we agree that our duty of performance isn't as high as we would like, our profits aren't...we can agree on all those things, but then when I say "Now, I want you to cut your work in process and do these things," that's when you start to get the

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pushback. Now, we agreed on the problem, but we did not yet agree on the solution I am saying that they should do is going to better, is going to solve the problem.

It’s so counter-intuitive, we have had to develop this process of building on success, because so far we have found that that's really the only way to move them from "OK, we agree that these are the problems. Now, we need to at least get you to try the solution.

We don't have to agree on it yet but I need to get a commitment that you will try."

So far, that's been working very well for us and we have been doing these online courses now. Let's see, I think we started in January of '09, so we are in our second year of online courses. It's been working very well but it took some time to figure that out.

Joe: That's a very good point; you do have to get someone just to try. Try this just a little bit, accepting it without seeing any evidence is not going to happen.

Dr. Lisa: I can pile up all the logic in the world, I can show them all the logic of why they should do this and how cutting the work in process leads to these things, and I do that. I think we are emotional beings, and we make decisions based on emotion, and then we back it up with the logic. So I give them the logic, that's what I was doing when we first started. "I am an engineer. I am very logical, so here is the logic." I lay it out. It should be obvious that this is what we need to do but not everybody agreed that it was that obvious. So I think appealing more to the emotional side and getting clients to make these moves can work. So far for us, it has helped a lot.

Joe: We could go on. I love listening to you talk here and the discussion on this, but could you tell someone how they can get a hold of you and what is the best way to contact you?

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Dr. Lisa: Sure, the main website is scienceofbusiness.com, then, if you are interested in Mafia Boot Camp, you can just go to mafiaoffers.com. The online version of that is mafiaofferbootcamp.com.

Then, the logistical things, we have velocityschedulingsystem.com. That is for manufacturers', and for project-based service companies, we have projectvelocitysystem.com. So that's a lot of websites to throw out at everybody, but if you go to scienceofbusiness.com, from there you will be able to find all those other ones that I referred to. So just scienceofbusiness.com and there is also a contact us page. If you fill that out an email comes directly to me, so you can also reach me that way.

Joe: Now, as far speaking engagements, if someone would like to hear you speak or have you speak would they just send you an email?

Dr. Lisa: Send me an email. Usually, I will find out what the needs are, what the requirements are, make sure it's a good fit and then connect you with the scheduler and you get scheduled that way. I do about 50 keynotes a year, between keynotes and workshop breakout session kind of things.

Joe: Well I want to thank you very much, Dr. Lisa, and this podcast will be available on my iTunes store and also the Business901 podcast site.

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Joseph T. Dager Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Ph: 260-438-0411

Fax: 260-818-2022

Email: jtdager@business901.com Web/Blog: http://www.business901.com

Twitter: @business901 What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe's ability to combine his expertise with "out of the box" thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with." James R.

Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive company providing direction in areas such as Lean Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Launches and Re-Launches. As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Business901 provides and implements marketing, project and performance planning methodologies in small businesses. The simplicity of a single flexible model will create clarity for your staff and as a result better execution. My goal is to allow you spend your time on the need versus the plan.

An example of how we may work: Business901 could start with a consulting style utilizing an individual from your organization or a virtual assistance that is well versed in our principles. We have capabilities to plug virtually any marketing function into your process immediately. As proficiencies develop, Business901 moves into a coach’s role supporting the process as needed. The goal of implementing a system is that the processes will become a habit and not an event. Part of your marketing strategy is to learn and implement these tools.

Utilization of the Theory of Constraints

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Value Stream Mapping

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