DMAIC Project: Improving the Efficiency of the Order Taking Process
Baseline (Define)
The topic of this project was to improve the process of booking orders, which in the testing environment refers to the time it takes for a sample sent for research to arrive, how quickly the received sample is identified, the associated tests are known, and the sample is ready to be queued in the operations workflow.
The project needed to be significantly improved to reduce the turnaround time by up to weeks, and the aim was to have 95% of the samples booked within two hours of arrival, and the remaining 5% within 24 hours.
Process performance at the beginning (Measure)
At baseline, only about 20% of the samples were booked within the first 24 hours. The average sample booking time was around 300 hours, which is the average time a sample waited before any further action was determined. This extended the turnaround time by weeks.
The need for process improvement was well known before the project and that is why the project was chosen. The team was highly motivated to improve the whole.
Improvement measures (Analyze & Improve)
Through data analysis, it was revealed that the main root cause was the lack of a standardized process for making bookings. The team responsible for bookings had not agreed on any kind of work schedule for themselves, resulting in days when no one processed incoming samples. Additionally, practices were not consistent, but rather varied among many styles.
Based on the analysis, the first thing we did was to have a clear roster. This made it clear to everyone who was responsible for incoming samples at any given time. We then created a daily palaver policy to organise the activity and make it easy to ask for help.
We addressed the diversity of work by providing clear instructions, and by creating a common place where all the instructions are.
Results (Control)
The results were excellent and the team was motivated when, after the first week, we saw a significant improvement in all metrics. Progress was commendable until June, when our company was hit by an IT attack and we had to shut down the booking process for almost three weeks.
By August, we had recovered from that, and progress continued. Within 24h of weeks 28-37, the percentage of samples booked is about 91%. This is an improvement of almost 70 percentage points compared to the baseline. Within 2h, we have about 30% booked, so there is still some way to go, but the improvement is significant. The average booking time has dropped from around 300 hours to around 11 hours, a significant improvement.
The results are improving week by week, and the biggest problem is still unclear dispatches, which take the team an inordinate amount of time to investigate. Clarifying them is our next project.
Continuous improvement is encouraged in daily meetings, where we regularly discuss how to reach that ultimate goal. The latest idea the team has come up with is to create a "Zalando"-like label that would always go with the customer's order, and the customer could stick that on the sample they send, so that the sample always has the clear and necessary information.
In our company, we have also created a Continuous Improvement section on each Daily Management board, where the team's ideas for improvement are discussed.
Lessons Learned
The main "Lessons Learned" from this project is to be really careful what you measure. The data I first found looked valid, but it wasn't. It's easy to get great graphs, but if the data is not reliable then you can't draw conclusions from it. Once I found good, reliable data, Minitab was great for making really accurate analyses.
This project was a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training exercise project, which the participant did as part of the training and received a Green Belt certificate at the end of the project.
If you are interested in learning how to improve your processes using Lean and Six Sigma, and obtain a Green Belt Certification at the same time, please visit the training link: Green Belt training.