Business Excellence & Performance

Business Process Optimisation is the process a business uses to contain costs, speed and effectiveness. It consists of integrating technology based applications primarily in the Information and Communications Technology Domain. The technique focuses on leveraging on existing technology or rapid innovation tasks towards developing high-end value added, technology driven, products and services at a shorter turn-around period to improve operational excellences through the enhancement of the labour knowledge and using software and hardware applications that automates tasks and execution throughout the organisation.

As most technology systems driven by the information and communication domains have inherently Optimisation engines in themselves. The valid option is to extend its functionality to enable the desired business process Optimisation, creating customised linkages between the disparate applications and technology. IQL Consulting utilises this approach to facilitate the innovation and hardware or software solution development, hence enabling the Optimisation to be tailored specifically to the exact environment of the organisation.

IQL Consulting provides the consulting services, through the innovation of ICT hardware and software toolsets, to market which are purpose-built for the function of Business Process Optimisation. The Business Process Optimisation consulting services focuses on industry sectors such as the Mobile Communication, Networked Surveillance and Security, People and Customer Management.

The fundamental approach for Business Process Optimisation or BPO is similar across all the ICT technology platform, in that they will attempt to provide the shortest route to Optimisation by exploiting the user interface layer by maximising the execution of the firmware, embedded systems, application code or databases sitting behind them. IQL Consulting aims to simplify the process interface to the extent that these tools and technology can be used directly by non-technically qualified staff. The main advantage of these toolsets is therefore their speed of deployment, improving the cycle time, defect rate and productivity of a business operation.

In order to achieve this capability, it is essential to define at a very strategic level or enterprise-wide all of the business processes running inside an organisation. From this the processes can be re-defined and where necessary optimised, including Optimisation. Though this maximised value can be created with in a business operation, thus driving up the returns of capital employed.

The new impetus based on the advent of software and hardware tools which allow for the direct execution of the business processes without a costly and time intensive development of the required solution. In addition, these tools can also monitor the execution of the business processes, providing managers of an organisation with the means to analyse their performance and make changes to the original processes in real-time. Using a BPO Solution, the modified process can then be merged into the current business process atmosphere.

The traditional way to achieve the automatic execution of processes is that an application is developed or purchased which executes a portion of the overall process steps required in a business. Execution of a complete business process is achieved by using a patchwork of interfacing software with human intervention where automatic interface is not possible. Due to the complexity that this approach engenders, changing a process is costly and an overview of the processes and their state is difficult to obtain.

As a response, an extension of BPO consulting has evolved to evaluate processes, technology, hardware and software. BPO allows the full business process (as developed in the process design activity) to be defined in a computer language which can be directly executed by a hardware, software or an embedded firmware. The BPO will either use services in connected applications to perform business operations (e.g. calculating a repayment plan for a loan) or will send messages to human workers requesting they perform certain tasks which necessitate a human attribute such as intuition as opposed to automated processes. As the process definition is directly executable, changes in the process can be (in comparison to the traditional approach of application development or maintenance) relatively quickly moved into operation. In order to work effectively a BPO often requires that the underlying software is constructed according to the principles of a service-oriented architecture.

Business Process Optimisation or BPO also encompasses the tracking of individual processes so that information on their state can be easily seen and the provision of statistics on the performance of one or more processes. An example of the tracking is being able to determine the state of a visitor entering a commercial facility through a visitor management system or digital video recording (e.g. time arrived, awaiting, meeting, exit) so that problems in its operation can be identified and corrected. In addition, this information can be used to work with customers, suppliers or even inter department to improve their connected processes. Examples of the statistics are the generation of measures on the number of people at a particular site, customer purchase and spending trends, peak demand location, favourite gaming machines. These measures tend to fit into three categories: cycle time, defect rate and productivity. Through the measures, the optimum design and process layout in the real world can be developed.

Business Process Optimisation is a process to handle the complex business policy of any organisation. There are so many tools, hardware & software to handle this process and customise the already existing tools, nevertheless it is sometimes a real challenge to realise the complexity business process of an organisation to automate.

FINANCE & IT

It is important to understand the principles of Lean 6 Sigma that are is applied to the financial and IT industry. Firstly, delight your customers with speed and quality. The second principle says: Improve process flow and speed. Lean 6 Sigma emphasises that speed is directly tied to excellence.

Superannuation - Employee Savings Funds : In 2003, the Queensland Government Superannuation Board - (Q-Super) enquired about Six Sigma - this in effect became a Lean Six Sigma deployment.

Q-Super had seen the need for their process to undergo statistical control upgrade - Six Sigma could do that. But statistical process control was only part of the solution. There was a deep rooted need to reduce waste and increase speed - Six Sigma could not do that. Lean Thinking could. But Lean on its own was not enough.

There was a need to create a fusion between the systems and the people, not only those using them but those supervising and managing. We therefore introduced a set of Lean Six Sigma tools - a methodology that everyone could use. By completion of the deployment, Q-Super could take over themselves. 12 of their employees were trained to be Green Belts and certified them. With coaching and mentoring as follow ups, the new Methodology began to take over.

The Lean Six Sigma Methodology meant that waste was definitely reduced not just in paperwork but in time and efficiency. To cope with the people component - a change management program was implemented helping mangers and supervisors cope with new sets of protocols. But the most dramatic effect was the increase in service to customers and the reduction in cycle time from customers enquires to response.

With our insurance experience including life, property, casualty and auto, our customers such as Geico and Caterpillar Financial Services are industry leaders. These we have assisted with Lean Six Sigma programme design and deployment as well as innovation services to enhance the innovation and design of services. One of our clients, Caterpillar Financial Services, recently won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Our methodologies enables clients to:

• Are all areas of the city receiving the same services? Each department has strategies that may be working in some quadrants that either don't work or aren't currently being used in others.
• Customer/citizen complaints: what services do citizens and other customers complain about the most?
• Will the project, tasks or activities either save money or avoid future costs

The oncoming competitive landscape emerging in banking is getting wider. Lower interest rates have created a dramatic increase in consumer and mortgage loans. And as more people put more of their cash into mutual funds and securities rather than deposit accounts, banks of all sizes become more dependent on fee-based services to shield themselves from interest rate fluctuations. However, the ability to adapt may be a bank's greatest asset. The major banks in Australia try as they may still face the problem that to gain more profit, the customer must pay it out of their pocket . The daily news is rife with it - "Fees and more fees". Lean Six Sigma predicts a different future in banking profits. Profits are up - Fees are down - Hard to believe?

LSSA has unique methodologies which will:

• Improve productivity and service quality to achieve cost-wise readiness
• Streamline services and operations to overcome growing cost pressures
• Expand capacity while simultaneously reducing delivery times
• Tailored Change Management Programs for implementation of innovative initiatives

Designing Financial Services With DMADV In recent years, many financial organisations have been forced to turn to some form of Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma in their search for tools to help them decrease defects and rework while increasing process velocity. But the basic toolkit associated with these methodologies does not incorporate the type of rigour needed when you want to invent a new service, product, or process (or overhaul something that is already in place). One methodology is powerful enough to handle the task. It is Design for Lean Six Sigma (DFLSS) –Define, Measure, Analyse, Design and Verify.

In the IT world, Lean Six Sigma teaches us to look for opportunities to streamline core computing and software processes. Once it’s determined what the core processes are, focus on making a lean and continuous software development process. For example, core processes in software development would be naming conventions and coding standards, a configuration management system, an automated build process, a suite of automated unit tests that are built and maintained as part of the code, daily build/integrate/test cycles, and acceptance testing integrated into the development process, and usability testing immediately after the features are implemented. Assuring that these disciplines are in place is fundamental to the smooth flow of any software development process.

In software development, lean practices promote speed and flexibility by implementing core disciplines that promote change tolerance and allow decisions to be delayed as long as possible. Lean software development changes the focus from gathering requirements to encoding all requirements in tests. It introduces the concept of refactoring, that is, creating a simple design at the beginning of development to handle early requirements, and then improving the design later as more requirements are discovered. Finally, lean software development requires full testing and integration of code as soon as it is developed, on a daily basis at minimum. The result is easily maintainable code that has been designed to be flexible and built to be rapidly changed.

In lean software development, scope is not set at the beginning; small feature sets are added based on priority determined by their ROI. This tends to lead to a significant increase in both speed and productivity for a simple reason: most of the features we put into software systems are never going to be used. How can this be? When we freeze scope early, we encourage our customers, who don’t really know what they want, to ask for everything they can imagine. When we delay commitment on scope until we are well into the knowledge generating process, we end up reducing scope down to the minimum set that is really going to pay off.

Excerpt from http://www.poppendieck.com/lean-six-sigma.htm

GOVERNMENT

The Police and Emergency services are under as much pressure to provide more, with less. The response rate for Emergency services is at times reliant on a middle element that they have no control over. All these issues have a solution that work very well in reducing response and cycle times while increasing quality of service and cost reduction to allow for budget constraints.The common voices that are often heard from government departments are tasks and activities that consume each department the most time and resources, and where they are falling short on current goals, metrics and performance targets. The Lean 6 Sigma methodology assists these departments and agencies to focus on barriers that would prevent departments from excelling in the operations and services it provides to the general public:

• Are all areas of the city receiving the same services? Each department has strategies that may be working in some quadrants that either don't work or aren't currently being used in others.
• Customer/citizen complaints: what services do citizens and other customers complain about the most?
• Will the project, tasks or activities either save money or avoid future costs?

Experiences have been gained from working with multiple agencies within Centre Link, Treasury, Department of Defence both here and overseas with initiatives focused in diverse areas such as logistics, engineering, finance, administration, maintenance, and retail. For these clients, we have provided a range of services including programme management and deployment assistance for large-scale initiatives such as Lean 6 Sigma and Lean Transformation, as well as benchmarking projects, organisational change acceleration, and project-specific Kaizen events.

LSS Academy through its partnership with Kirtland Ledearship and Lean 6 Sigma Australasia has the strategic and operational know-how, coupled with deep industry expertise to help:

• Improve productivity and service quality to achieve cost-wise readiness
• Streamline services and operations to overcome growing cost pressures
• Expand capacity while simultaneously reducing delivery times
• Tailored Change Management Programs for implementation of innovative initiatives

HEALTH When a quality initiative such as Lean 6 Sigma is appropriately implemented in a healthcare facility, it will create benefits in terms of better operational efficiency, cost effectiveness and higher process quality. And in less obvious -- and until recently less documented -- is the positive impact it can make in clinical areas such medical history records and processing, pharmacy and medication delivery as well as clinical healthcare processes. Medical practitioners who are often receptive to 6 Sigma given its familiar scientific and date-driven and fact-based foundation-adherents, however, must acknowledge the unique nature of patient care delivery requiring some translation of the methodology from manufacturing to medicine, principally the incorporation of Lean Thinking.

Improving the Quality in healthcare has come to the critical attention of many stakeholders including government agencies, medical associations, hospital operators and managements. The common voice of these stakeholders is to be able to deliver a form of satisfaction with service to the clinical outcome of the patient's treatment. The widely accepted definition stated by the Institute of Medicine in the publication Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance is "the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge." The IOM also identified three basic quality-of-care issues in medicine: overuse, underuse and misuse.

The DMAIC methodology when applied in a manufacturing context looks at defects as a measure of quality and similarly, this defect in healthcare can be considered as medical errors that results in significant human costs. And when defects exist, a substantial portion of it is preventable.

Improving healthcare quality is paramount, for several of reasons. Communities today demand access to the best technology and treatment available whilst expecting the assurances that medical encounters will be safe, efficient and effective.

Healthcare today is in a competitive, quality-driven and cost-conscious environment and one of the most effective solutions for healthcare professionals is the adoption of Lean 6 Sigma methodology and related change management techniques.

An example of improvements that can be achieved in a healthcare facility adopting Lean 6 Sigma is the design and refined patient care processes eliminating the need to retrace steps, correct reporting errors, re-do examinations or re-schedule appointments. Such redundancies and waste are costly both in financial terms as well as discomfort and dissatisfaction to the patient. A typical healthcare example can be seen in patient wait time. If a patient waits to be seen by the doctor 10 minutes one time and 40 minutes the next, the satisfaction level won't be based on the average of the two wait times, but the impact of the unpredictability and wide variability of the patient attendance services. The advantage that Lean 6 Sigma offers is the success it has achieved, and can be attributed to several differentiating factors: Shared centralised services – eliminating service complexities Provision of a rigourous control mechanism in maintaining service quality level Leadership support driven by those closest to the process Targets measures and metrics on process variability instead of means levels targets Alignment with organisational vision and strategy

The experience from GE Medical Systems

“ Medical Systems described how 6 Sigma designs have produced a 10-fold increase in the life of CT scanner x-ray tubes — increasing the “uptime” of these machines and the profitability and level of patient care given by hospitals and other health care providers” – GE’s 1997 Annual Report

MANUFACTURING

Over the last 19 years we have served nearly 300 clients in over 32 industries globally, including manufacturing industries that are:Asset-intensive continuous process such as: metal, food manufacturing, fibreglass manufacturing, packaging, pulp and paper, chemicals, oral care products, oil and gas exploration, and plastic/rubber, composite boards, and extrusion.Repetitive and non-repetitive discrete such as: automotive parts, defence electronics, construction equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical devices/equipment, security systems & products, hand/power tools, vehicle accessories, electronic components, fluid controls, HVAC equipment, and wireless communication structures. Understanding the unique differences between both discrete and continuous process manufacturing enables us to translate that information into different skill requirements. The approach and tools utilised or methods applied varies between these two diverse environments.

Lean 6 Sigma has created curriculums tailored for discrete and for continuous process manufacturing environments. Examples, case studies and simulations are application-relevant and specific to the manufacturing environment. This curriculum provides the necessary skills to perform critical roles in large-scale improvement initiatives and establish a sustainable system to implement solutions impacting your strategic and operational priorities.

How effective can Lean 6 Sigma be for a Food Manufacturer?

In the late 90's, a renowned Australian biscuit brand curios about the claims of reducing waste, reducing lead time, increasing speed and quality and profits invited the Lean 6 Sigma team to their company and putting them to the task to validate the claims of improving profits.

Task 1 - Culture Change The cultural change and new way of thinking was the big challenge and as would be expected, there was a diversity of nationalities each with their own understanding of protocols which they individually had gleaned from their own cultural backgrounds. Teething problems were at times frustrating - and why not, while we were not reinventing the wheel, we were trying to get everyone to look at the wheel from a different direction - the same direction.

A positive change had to be created in their environment by taking the spaghetti flow style manufacturing that was present and being used to - and to straighten it out - clean the place up - everything has its place, if it doesn't belong get rid of it - not just into a corner but off the premises into one of the other warehouses around the city owned by the company. This exercise showed an immediate change for the better - everything was brighter, tidier, lines were laid, and boundaries for work stations created and so on. Lean tools of 5S was extensively applied.

The cultural acceptance was no longer such a barrier - the change brought about a desire for the workers to be involved. You could say their pride of place was lifted. It became a competition at times as to whose works station and area was cleanest and so on. They were not told to do this, it was a by-product of the innovation of Lean Thinking. They were ready to listen and understand the need for change, that also had to be an effect the unions would see and agree with and they did.

Task 2 - Change Management Once we had the workers optimistic, we needed to re-educate management in communication with the floor. This would then pave the way for the various processes to come under statistical control. But this task was a barrier too, however, the program coupled with mentoring, workshops and coaching worked. Walls between departments were torn down and a synergy began to shape. A language of communication began from the mangers upstairs to the workers on the floor and vise versa. In essence the company employees began heading in the same direction – the Lean 6 Sigma direction.

Lean Manufacturing and 6 Sigma were at this time still on opposite sides of the river to each other. 6 Sigma was driven by the statistically driven employees and Lean Manufacturing was being championed by the everyday workers. But it was apparent that both had to be in synergy as both complemented each other. So it began.

Within no time, the warehouse inventory was reduced by one third, on-time delivery was quicker, more reliable, the waste reduction both in product, time spent and efficiency was dramatic. Through put time went from weeks to days and days to hours. Green Belts and Black Belts were trained on all levels and the transition of accountability and responsibility for ones own efforts coupled with a Methodology that all could relate to on various levels began to emerge.

There was also a lot more space now. New more advanced and time saving machinery was purchased and allowed new lines to be designed and implemented. But while it may come across as smooth, it was not, and not done overnight either - but it was done. The quality of the products and speed of delivery was being focused and everybody played a vital role.

The transformation the manufacturing processes through Lean 6 Sigma was seen in the company's stock price, rising in leaps, the shareholders where over the moon. The customers were overwhelmingly happy with delivery and the quality of the product - the bottom line had never looked as good. Of course, when a company like this becomes as ripe, it is not long before a large red conglomerate trots in with a very big bag of money and buys the lot. And that is just what happened.

Within 2 - 3 years, an ordinary food company doing a mediocre job went from a complex mish-mash to a very lean and profitable business, one that pumped great products out quickly, with less waste and less cost to do so and with a more superior product quality.

In 2006, we now have a broad range of experience in manufacturing such as heavy equipment (construction and agricultural), fluid controls, hardware and machine tools, automation and control products, lighting, wire and cable manufacturing, industrial machinery, and metal fabrication.

The range of services including global Lean Six Sigma and Lean deployments, product rationalisation and standardisation, plant consolidation, product innovation and design, and literally hundreds of Kaizen workshops is unmatched. LSSA has the strategic and operational know-how, coupled with deep industry expertise to:

• Analyse the impact of product and service complexity to improve the offering and maximize Economic Profit
• Streamline services and operations to overcome growing cost pressures.
• Expand production capacity while simultaneously reducing delivery times.
• Implement cultural change to allow fusion between innovative methodologies that work and the crucial employees who make them work.

SERVICES

Service provision in terms of business can be defined as an economic activity with no asset or non-material goods. Service provision can be considered to be a process that creates benefits by facilitating either a change in customers, a change in their physical possessions, or a change in their intangible assets through the supply of some skill sets, ingenuity and experience.

Organisations that generally provide services include Banking, Retail, Marketing, Sales, Accounting, Purchasing, Hiring, Hospitality and etc.

Often departments and service based businesses do not gather data on tasks and processes for reasons such as historical or acceptance of normal practices. The service-based workforce is also generally non-numerate, thus the drive for gathering data on processes and task is not strong.Lean 6 Sigma for services enables a relatively easy start to these industries through the use of simple statistical and Lean tools that will effectively remove the wastes and non-value added tasks and activities. This in turn will result in reduced cost and improved speed for service provision. Only Lean principles that are incorporated with Six Sigma will drive the service-based industries to improve process speed across all processes in an organisation. The infamous assessment from Jack Welsh from GE highlights that all efforts to stabilise a delivery process through a Six Sigma initiative is wasted if speed is not a significant aspect of the process. Only the synergy that exists between Lean principals and Six Sigma enables the combined control in terms of a statistical process and process speed.

The adoption of Lean 6 Sigma in the service industry will drive businesses towards achieving their goals that ultimately improve the Return of Capital Employed (ROCE). Further returns can be achieved through the reduction of complexity that exist in transactional type activities. The reduction of complexity will add an additional dimension to returns brought by Lean 6 Sigma.

Lean 6 Sigma for service targets at quality and speed improvements such as improving customer satisfaction, delivery time, application processing, streamlining services and etc.

BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMISATION - MANUFACTURING

Building strongly upon successful client relationship, LSS Academy has embarked into this dynamic industry through Business Process Optimisation. Several technology driven solutions have been developed to facilitate the operational processes in industrial manufacturing and technology research environment. The key to this success is the insight to create sustainable value to the clients through the adoption of strategic technological advancement in the automation of video surveillance, people management and asset tracking.

The BPA has successfully developed technology solutions for manufacturers to monitor and track both clients and staff alike in a dynamically charged environment. The application of an information and process monitoring system has assisted the operations to manage a large volume of production without compromising the customer satisfaction levels and improving the scope of products and services that are offered.

BPA and process management has also assisted in the development and application of a remote monitoring technology for use in the manufacturing operations. The consulting services yielded in a solution where SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) based technology was adopted to facilitate the real time supervision, which greatly improves the quality and delivery of products without the use of additional manpower or cost-incurring processes. In addition to this, the choice of technology also assisted in the operational and decision making process that evaluated active and inactive manufacturing or production sites. The technology enabled the analysis of value-added products and services that are being offered, thus facilitating the change and maximising the value of services in demand and in return improving the financial returns of the casino operations.

The BPA concept yields in eliminating the complexity of managing people, products and processes alike. The key factor to the success of this application is the elimination of redundant tasks and further simplifying the operational procedures, that leads to a high quality technology based management system.

BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMISATION - OPERATIONAL RELIABILITY MANAGEMENT

LSS Academy has successfully eliminated the complexities and optimised the management of security and surveillance processes through the adoption of Business Process Optimisation.

The BPA evaluations lead to the development and integration of a management system that monitors the security and surveillance systems from several remote locations. In addition, the concept succeeded in eliminating time-consuming tasks that required human interventions, unification of systems and processes into a common technology based platform. This improves the process of people management, identification and admission into a facility that are multi-tenanted with varying degree of security requirements. The solution also produced a total time saver and yet a secure while securely maintaining a watch list of selected people and their visit patterns to improve operational reliability.

The Optimisation process enabled the elimination of complexity that was inherent due to the utilisation of non-standardised technology, and improving the facility management operations.

A further improvement to asset management was achieved through the development of a customised management tool and reports that enabled rapid execution of security and safety driven decisions. Rapid, seamless and secure communication of information enables the business operations to monitor and control several security driven activities concurrently without the compromise of execution speed and quality.

OPTIMISATION FOR CONTACT CENTRE

These are exciting times to be working within a call centre. As call centres transitioned from single skill customer service centres to more complex multi-skill multi-site multi-channel delivery centres, the need for a more robust and effective workforce is required to meet and exceed the demands of the unrelenting customer! Ah, yes…..the customer is king and so is the shareholder! To manage and run a contact centre is definitely not for the faint of heart. Between their average annual turnover rate—estimated between 30 percent and 50 percent—and their constant need for product and technology updates, call centres are almost as busy training as they are serving customers. And a combination of growth and a higher profile is making call centres more challenging than ever.

But managing a modern contact centre today requires specialised knowledge and skills. One can’t just "wing it!" in this business. Successful contact centre optimisation depends on “getting the right people and resources in place at the right times to handle and accurately forecasted workload at service level and with quality. There is simply no way to establish and operate an effective environment without a solid understanding of the principles behind forecasting, staffing, scheduling, service levels, queuing dynamics and real-time management. Having a robust continuous improvement program like Lean Six Sigma can help cash strapped contact centres make significant gains.

Tremendous economic growth in Asia specifically in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry also brings a number of challenges specifically for a contact centre in Asia. After years of being labeled in CEO psyches as either "those complaint handlers" or "the telemarketing crew," call centres are losing their out-of-sight, out-of-mind status. They are coming under closer management scrutiny and being subjected to tighter control and higher expectations than in the past. That's both good news and bad. Call centres must cultivate personnel equipped for today's demanding environment to be successful. The challenge comes in training new agents to do an increasingly complicated job faster and better, developing those service reps and keeping them sharp over the long haul.

This call centre training challenge can be prodigious. On a normal day, a call centre agent can be required to handle between 100 and 150 phone calls, 1,500 e-mails, and 500 Web hits that require assistance—or a combination of all three. And every transaction is timed, logged and followed up. On top of that agents must serve increasingly well-informed customers, adjust to rapid changes in products and services, and be proficient in the skills required of that multiple channel communications environment.

In addition to that, turnover is also a fact of life for call centres, but that doesn't mean managers have to give up. Long-term career development is a keystone for retention as well as creating influence and impact for the call centre. It is important to put together a very tangible career development program combined with the Lean Six Sigma methodologies that outlines for a person, "You're going to start here, and this is where you are going to reach and how you are going to get there," which should be the welcoming speech at every induction training program when a new hire graduates.

In addition to this, e-learning and online assessment schemes, combined with rep and manager certification, can go a long way toward both developing call centre people and keeping them interested in the organisation—a tough task when your prime employment population comprises Generation X’ers who tend to acquire skills rather than be driven by a sense of company commitment. In some sectors, like financial services and telecommunications, 60 to 90 percent of customer contacts come through the call centre channels. Management should realise that the contact centre is a vital interface for retaining customers and agents. Lean Six Sigma and an endorsement from senior executives can start your call centre on the path of growth and profitability.