Using Kaizen Concepts To Keep Up with Customer Demand

Contact
Blog

Ideas & Resources

Available On-Demand Event

2012 High Performance Virtual Summit

This year's summit on “Creating Real Change” gives you the opportunity to learn from leaders in healthcare and industries who will share their experiences and perspective on improvement and transformation with an emphasis on what really works.

Click here for more info & register

New White Paper

Enterprise Risk Management: Proof or Promise?

There is overwhelming consensus among financial services executives that the current risk environment has become significantly more complex, dynamic, and difficult to navigate. Some new mandates are expensive and cut into margins and profitability, so there is a real motivation to not only comply but to more effectively manage the response and cost.

Click here to read white paper

New Article

AMN Healthcare: Providers Re-engineering Healthcare for Greater Efficiency

With healthcare reimbursement becoming tighter and patients expecting more from their providers, hospitals and other health systems are seeking ways to change processes and become more efficient.

Click here to read article

Lean Six Sigma Tools Enable Data Center to Keep Up with Customer Demand

Click here to download PDF

Client: A leading global Fortune 500 technology services company that specializes in IT outsourcing
Industry: Information Technology
Service: Kaizen events

Challenge:

To keep up with demand the company needed to install 3,000 to 4,000 new hardware devices every month
Customers routinely experienced month-long delays and other project failures

Solutions:

Series of Lean Six Sigma Kaizen events zeroed in on the server stand-up process
Applied lean methods to eliminate bureaucracy, establish work standards and redesign the process to meet customer demand and service requirements

Results:

Can now install units in less than four weeks and often complete projects ahead of schedule
Initiate client billing 60 to 90 days earlier in the hardware deployment life cycle

In a large data center the server stand-up process begins when hardware is received. Technicians mount the units in racks, connect power and data lines, and load the specified software. For there to be any hope that their projects would be completed any time near the promised six-month timeframe, customers of this company had to repeatedly call in to keep their jobs at the top of the priority list.

To understand the breakdowns in the current process required a team made up of representatives from network operations, asset management, enterprise storage and disaster recovery, as well as data security, the company’s business accounting group, and hardware planning. The team also included a Unix system administrator, a system architect, and someone from the account team who represented the “voice of the customer.” Their first task was to develop a detailed flow chart depicting the current workflow with all of its hand-offs and delays.

Four fundamental lean principles guided the team’s development of a more efficient process:

Standardize and structure the process – The work of each person must be highly specified in content, sequence, time required and outcome. The team found that there was no common vocabulary for the major project milestones between when a customer order came in through technical approval to when the hardware was ready. Clearly defining those milestones, and the input and output requirements, was the first step toward standardizing the order-fulfillment process. The team then defined the work content and timing required to deliver a device to each milestone.
Clearly connect every customer and supplier in the process – The connection between every “customer” and “supplier” must be direct and binary. The old process relied on the efforts of 14 different departments to complete various tasks. The formation of a dedicated, cross-functional server stand-up team created a single “line of sight” that enabled work to be scheduled and tracked on a production control chart, eliminating communication issues and delays.
Specify and simplify the workflow – Each product and service, including information, must flow along a simple, pre-specified path; no forks or looping. The team found that much of the overall project time was spent waiting for requirements and approvals. Solving these issues required several process changes.
Continually improve the process – All improvements for individual work, connection or flow paths, must follow the scientific method of controlled experimentation. The dedicated server team and new data collection and reporting systems have enabled the company to reduce server stand-up times to 26 days, dramatically exceeding customer expectations.