Constraint Management at Southwest Airlines

Constraint Management at Southwest Airlines

1. The theory of constraint is a systematic management approach that focuses on actively managing those constraints that hinder a firm's progress toward its goal of maximizing profits and effectively using its resources. The process focuses not just on efficiency of individual progresses but also bottlenecks that constraint the system as a whole. Southwest has done a great job at using the constraint theory to maximize their profits. Their improvement on the boarding process has been a huge satisfaction factor for many customers. People that fly these airlines know the faster they check in the better seating will be available for them. Southwest utilizes the entire plane. You will rarely see a Southwest flight with empty seat. This never occurs because all tickets are sold at an affordable price. They are famous for their rapid gate-turnaround of 25 minutes of less.

There processes are smooth and everything moves efficiently through the line. Company's leaders are doing such a good job with this theory because they understand the relevant performance and capacity measures at the operational level.

2. I would recommend the second boarding scenario which states the following, families can pre board before everyone else, but seating choices would be limited on boarding to behind the wings. I would be more efficient if families this little kids and newborns were to board the plane before the rest of the passengers. Usually it is very tedious to travel with children and takes a lot of time to get them from one place to another. By allowing them to go force it would not only make the parents really happy it would allow the long-term process to effective. First, the families would already be situated on the plane when other passengers were entering. Secondly, parents would have to ask other to move or sit separately from their kids. Thirdly, this would make the whole process faster. Overall more customers would be satisfied and happy wither experience, especially the passengers who were travelling with little kids. In the long run this would help Southwest gain a lot of loyal customers and new customers who like this idea.

3. The only way I can think of for Southwest to evaluate the gate boarding and plane turnaround process is to assess their bottlenecks. The company needs to make sure that all the operations are running efficiently. Although Southwest tries to do everything very quickly to please the costumers they should never forget about safety regulations. Southwest can also ask every passenger that has bought a ticket online complete a quick online survey about the boarding process this would allow them to get a lot of feedback about the process.

By doing constant evaluations and checks there shouldn't be any bottlenecks. If any bottleneck arises during the gate boarding and plane turnaround process, managers