Monday 13 July 2020

Looking to improve operational efficiency: Lean Automation is the Answer

Identifying Lean and Automation Based Opportunities

Lean is engaged way to deal with client’s top-notch expectations to guarantee they get precisely what they need. Lean eliminates waste, variability and inflexibility. Run of the mill IT waste incorporates defects, over-production, waiting, extra-processing, and so on. These wastes can be decreased or killed out completely utilizing lean principles. Initial move towards lean excursion is to recognize opportunities where lean standards can be applied. During lean diagnostic, client need is consistently at the middle. A comprehensive methodology is taken to realize the change by improving organizational procedures, performance management as well as mindsets and skillset of employees.


Process efficiency is the first lever of Lean Lens. There are various tools which are utilised to analyse existing processes. With the goal to recognize process wasteful aspects, Value stream mapping is performed which includes having an organized discourse with bleeding edge staff individuals visually aided by mapping of End-to-End material and information flow.

Demand Capacity Analysis can be a valuable tool to see how employee effort gets divided between various tasks, for instance, documentation, team meetings and so forth. It very well may be limited further by performing Meeting Time Analysis to affirm group meets are adding value and Documentation time Analysis as well, to check for any pointless documentation that can be killed. As demand shifts consistently, Demand variation Analysis can be utilized to dissect employee utilization during times of changing demand. Employee efficiency is analysed by DILO (Day In Life Of) and Context switching Analysis by recognizing time spent in everyday assignments and task switching. In the same way, Management time analysis is performed to distinguish gaps between the current effort being spent on the executive exercises and industry patterns. By limiting the number of tasks, efficiency can be improved as time will be spent on only value adding activities, therefore, Demand reduction analysis is accomplished to distinguish work things which can be shifted left, improved or automated.

As important it is to limit tasks, equally important is the identification of those tasks in which efforts are wasted by overcompensating, to look for such tasks Over-processing Analysis (Gold Plating) is performed. Finally, as agile is an exceptionally productive model, Agile Maturity Analysis is performed to gauge whether teams are taking advantage of tech-enabled practices with teams working in small teams with clear end-to-end ownership.

Another important lever of lean lens is Organisation and Skills, which centres around lean organisation structure and cross skilling/upskilling of employees for better efficiency and client satisfaction. Tools used as part of Organisation and Skills lens include Skill heat maps Analysis to evaluate existing capabilities of the team in different areas. Once skills are identified Individual variability Analysis is done to look for any variability in performance within a team, reasons are sought after for any variation and recommendations are made to identify potential for increase in the team productivity. Team Structure Analysis is done to comprehend existing team structure with reporting and performance lines. For managers, Span of Control Analysis is done to find ratio of managerial effort to technical effort for optimization of the coverage.


To optimize onsite effort and analyse onsite work catalogue that could be moved to offshore, Onsite work Analysis is performed. Onsite team location Analysis (Field Support Model) is used to identify potential to optimize onsite team size by remote support and onsite consolidation. For optimization of resources at each job level based on industry standards Pyramid optimization Analysis is utilized.

Performance Management lever of lean lens utilizes Team Metric Analysis of KPIs to identify gaps to understand coherence in KPIs between different levels. Performance management survey is rolled out to measure team alignment on team vision, KPIs and performance management.

Mindset Behaviour is another lever of lean lens which involves Vision Workshop to bring the team closer and align them for transformation. The objective of the workshop is for group to open-up about existing workplace, group culture and authority.

Voice of Customer is at the core, it focuses on Customer Feedback Analysis which is done to understand customer context to improve project efficiency and its relevance to customer. It includes mapping of key stakeholders in the client organization for an overall understanding of the organizational structure and identification of customer pain points in order to focus on lean and automation efforts to priority elements.

In-depth insight to each tool and analysis mentioned above will be shared in upcoming posts, please follow to keep abreast of latest posts.

Happy Reading 😊

Saturday 11 July 2020

How to overcome IT waste that hinders operational efficiency

In information technology, any roadblock to efficiently and effectively deliver value to the customer is considered as waste. Often acronym DOWNTIME is used to define several factors that contribute to IT waste. It's important to have a thorough understanding  of all the parameters contributing to such waste. Once identification is complete, efforts can be made to eliminate these wastes from our business.

1.       Defects: 

Why should we worry about defects? 

Defects lead to rework. Every process requires analysis to ensure that the customer is not provided with defective service. Within each process we need to put checks which leads to increased cost of providing the service. Completely eliminating the defects is a major challenge but we should concentrate on reducing them. First step towards defect reduction is finding the root cause of the defect.

 

Root causes of the defects may be:

§  Lack of quality checks

§  Weak system controls

§  Faulty inputs

§  Lack of training

§  Absence of documentation

Preventive measures:

§  Robust quality checks in place

§  Early detection of defects using techniques like Poka-yoke(mistake-proofing)

§  Documentation of standard operating procedures

§  Proper training of staff 

2.       Overproduction 

Overproduction results in situations where production is not directly related to customer demand. It ends up blocking working capital and wastes time on non-productive tasks.

 

Root causes for over-production may be:

§  Unclear customer demands

§  Ineffective forecasting

Preventive measures:

§  Aligning production with customer demand

§  Establishing a reasonable workflow 

3.       Waiting

Waiting results from the idle time in the process chain that could be due to pending approvals or over-whelming of the next stage.

Root causes for Waiting may be:

§  Poor Communication

§  Unplanned downtime

§  Insufficient staffing

§  Poor process quality

§  Long set-up time

Preventive measures:

§  Provide adequate staffing

§  Standardize work

§  Well-defined issue resolution process

§  Minimum downtime 

4.       Non-Value-added processing 

 Unlike over-production which is linked to customer demand, non-value-added processing or over-processing is linked to internal processes. It’s when we perform unnecessary or excessive work.

Root causes for over-processing may be:

§  Multiple approvals in place

§  Excessive reporting

§  Duplicate entry of data at various stages

§  To-and-fro flow of queries

Preventive measures:

§  Eliminate unnecessary documentation

§  Removing redundant sign-offs

§  Standardize processes 

5.       Transportation

In Information technology Transport refers to unnecessary movement of work or information during production. More the number of hand-offs more the transportation waste.

Root causes for transportation waste may be:

§  Unnecessary steps in the process

§  Poor process flow

Preventive measures:

§  Simplification of processes

§  Efficient hand-offs

§  Minimum back and forth process steps 

6.       Inventory

Inventory results due to excess of supply over demand. This also includes significant levels of work in progress (WIP) in production and/or waiting for delivery to customer. There is a need for a lot of resources to maintain inventory and ensure proper upkeep, record and safety that costs money and effort.

Root causes of Inventory waste may be:

§  Ineffective monitoring systems

§  Gaps in supplier/vendor management

§  Improper demand forecasting techniques

Preventive measures:

§  Putting effective monitoring mechanisms in place

§  Use of lean techniques like Kanban

§  Effective vendor/supplier management 

7.       Motion

Motion is unnecessary movement that may increase risk or wear and tear.  Looking at motion waste in information technology, this is often attributed to excessive movement of gathering data from multiple data sources or too many "clicks."

Root causes of Motion waste may be:

§  Shared resources/tools

§  Workstation congestion

§  Operating in Silos

§  Lack of standards

Preventive measures:

§  Ensure requisite resource/tool availability

§  Logical and ordered work areas

§  Easier accessibility

§  Centralized availability of required data 

8.       Employee unused knowledge

Knowledge is of immense importance in today's fast-paced environment and failure to realize its significance may contribute to under-utilization of employee potential.

     

Root causes of unused employee knowledge may be:

§  Improper methods of task assignment

§  Poor Communication

Preventive measures:

§  Stop micromanaging

§  Empowering employees

§  Increase training

All these needless IT wastes raise our costs and increase our delivery time. Identifying these wastes is the first step, after identification focus can be shifted towards elimination. Only after eliminating these IT wastes can we ensure efficient customer delivery which is the key to success for any business in today’s world.