Part 11

Why not, thought he, a line of toys which would enable him to utilize his present production set-up profitably during the slack summer and fall? Why not, indeed?

So he set out to chart a plan of action beginning, as you will see from the figure, with the furnishing of amusement as the PRIMARY FORCE. His POINT OF ATTACK was through the 15,000,000 American boys who love to build something. On he went to the various ways of getting parents interested as the ACTIVITIES WHICH SHOULD LEAD TO A SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION--to the linking up of those activities with the retail store as the job of FOCUSING THEM on the final achievement--SALES.

+---------------------------------+ |Wholesome Amusement and Education| +---------------------------------+ | \|/ +---------------------------------+ | 15 Million Boys Who Want to Play| | and Love to Build | +---------------------------------+ | \|/ +---------------------------------+ | Bought for by 7,500,000 Parents | +---------------------------------+ | \|/ +-------------------+ | Can be Reached by | +-------------------+ | \|/ +---------------+---------------+---------------+ | | | | +---------+ +-----------+ +----------+ +-----------+ |Magazines| | Attention | | Window | | | |They Read| | Caught in | | Displays | | The Boy | +---------+ | Stores | +----------+ | Himself | | +-----------+ | | | +---------+ | | +-----------+ | List of | +--------------+ +--------------+ | |Magazines| |Description of| |Description of| | |Carrying | |Demonstration | | Window Advg. | | |Our Advg.| | Offer | | Offer | | +---------+ +--------------+ +--------------+ | \ | | | \ | | +-------------------+ \ | | | | \ | | +-------------+ +--------------+ \ | | |List of Boys'| |Description of| \ | | |Papers Advsd.| |Prize Contest | \ | | | In | +--------------+ \ | | +-------------+ / \ | | | / \ | | | / +-------------------------------------------+ | All Leading to | +-------------------------------------------+ | \|/ +-------------------------------------------+ | The Store That Sells Our Toys | +-------------------------------------------+

Only the bare headings on the plan are shown in the chart. Nevertheless it shows clearly the same knack of using the FOUR ELEMENTS which we have been at such pains to discuss.

The chart proved helpful, not only in guiding the management in its efforts to enlarge the scope of manufacturing activities, but also in giving the office and the sales force a true picture of the business. So helpful, indeed, did it prove that it was blueprinted. And today every salesman has one pasted in his selling portfolio. It's the first thing the dealer sees. And it has gone far in arousing the latter's interest and confidence.

If you were a dealer, would you buy from a factory that was run by guess and by gob when you could give your business to a concern which you knew was functioning in accordance with a sound, well-formulated plan?

There, if you please, lies the answer.

* * * * *

It is not within the purpose of this chapter, incidentally, to play any favorites. Time must be taken out at this point, therefore, to return to the messenger boy who, when we left him, had just finished analyzing his job.

Let's see now how his plan of action is based upon what the analysis taught him. Let's examine this elementary job of managing, not because it may make better messengers of us, but because the examination will show how universal this thing called management is--because it will afford one more proof of our general axiom that the principles of management are ever the same, no matter what particular paraphernalia of business may be used to cover up its old bones.

Did, then, the messenger boy work out his plan in accordance with our FOUR BASIC ELEMENTS? He did, if he was really managing his job--and from the careful analysis he made, we may assume he was.

If his trip meant riding a street car, then going to the cashier for carfare is his primary force. If he can walk, then the primary force is simply getting under way. Hastening as directly as possible to the car line is applying the force at the easiest place to get results. Perhaps he might have to choose between a slow street car which would carry him right to his destination for seven cents, and a fast elevated which, for a dime, would make better time but leave several blocks to walk at the other end. Deciding between the two is directing the activities along lines of greatest accomplishment. And getting his transfer, leaving the car, and going straight to the address on the message, are nothing more nor less than focusing his activities at the POINT OF ACHIEVEMENT.

You see? The Colonel's lady in her Parisian peignoir and Judy O'Grady in her sleazy slip were sisters under the skin. So, if we may stretch a physiological point, are our messenger boy and the man who made the toys.

The plans of both were built on the same foundation.

Or take the plan by which the new general manager of a tap and die concern rehabilitated his company's business.

"Why," he said, reaching for a pad of paper and roughly sketching something that looked like a funnel and must have been because he said it was, "our manufacturing plan looked about like this. Up here at the top we poured in a lot of orders and hoped to high heaven some of them would finally trickle through at the bottom.

"Some of them did drop through. Others dropped because we poked sticks up the flue. That is to say, an army of stock chasers did their level best to keep everyone happy.

"It was bedlam around the shop. It took three months on an average to complete an order.

"I found much of the delay was due to certain Victorian notions about set-up time. The prevailing idea was to give an operator a good big job to minimize that item of expense.

"Sometimes the job was so big it took 60 days to run it through a single operation.

"Oh, me! oh, my! the inventories of finished goods that piled up. The tote boxes full of work in process that cluttered up the scenery.

"And the complaints from customers who were waiting for orders!

"Funny thing about our business, you can't get a customer to accept a couple of 1/4-in. taps in place of the 1/2-in. one he's ordered.

"So I had to revamp the whole shooting match. First on the program was to find out what was made and what was making. Then we withdrew from the shop all work in process except what actually applied on orders in the house or what was needed to fill out our stock on an item on which we had no order, but on which past experience had taught us we'd get one in the course of the next 30 days.

"You should have seen the pile of tote boxes we stuck under the boilers.

"Well, the next job was to figure out the most economical lots to send through the works. That figure was arrived at simply by choosing such a size that no single operation could possibly take more than a day. In a word, I made sure that every single lot would move every single day.

"Do you get the picture? A steady flow of manufacturing. No funnel. No poking around with sticks. Today there aren't any stock chasers. None is needed. Work reaches the stockroom on time. Orders are filled complete the same day they come in. Inventories are lower. Oh, heck, need I go on?"

No, he needn't. For already he has shown us how the motive force was applied at the right point to get results. Take this plan apart--or any other plan that really works--and you will see that it is built upon the FOUR ELEMENTS OF PLANNING.