CASE STUDIES

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The client had identified a change in the approach taken by the government utilities when they reviewed tenders and RFQ’s.  Traditionally the approach had been time, quality and price focused.  The new approach focused on safety and relationships.  ThinkBox was engaged to run a series of workshops on customer service and help develop the project teams and site managers understanding of relationships.

Solution

We discussed with the client the transactional nature of customer service and suggested a more holistic approach of stakeholder engagement would be more suitable for the nature of their business.  Water infrastructure projects are generally delivered over the medium to long term and require building ongoing relationships with subcontractors and the client.

We developed and delivered a workshop to various teams within the company which explored the transition from the industrial economy to the information economy – the transition from cheaper, faster and better to networks, knowledge and relationships.

The workshop was a practical session aimed at project managers, site supervisors and leading hands. In small groups the participants explored how to manage a range of stakeholders they might encounter during their projects and developed strategies to delight them.  This workshop is part of a broader syllabus aimed at providing technical experts with business and management skills.

Over the following 2 years the business won over $100m in new projects. 

The client, a national logistics company, had purchased an existing smaller transport business three years prior.  The new business unit had a significantly different service offering to the parent company, thus the integration efforts had stalled and were limited to collocating the 2 business units on the same site.  I was bought in as an interim General Manager to fully integrate the business, create synergies between the operations and reduce the overall cost base to improve profitability.​ 

Solution

Using the analytical tools and methodology of Lean Six Sigma, the acquired business was reviewed from top to bottom starting with defining and measuring all leading indicators of performance – on time despatch, transit time, on time delivery, asset utilisation, cost allocations and revenue.

Once these basic measures were in place, a deep analytical dive was taken into all commercial agreements & pricing structures, organisational structure & position descriptions, and asset mix & utilisation.

The improvements and controls implemented included:

• Reducing fleet assets by $1.8m annually
• Renegotiate and reduce the number of enterprise agreements from 5 to 2
• Restructure and combine management and administration teams, including implementing position outlines and role specific KPI’s. Reducing overheads by $240k
• Improve aged debtors from $3.5m to $250k
• Improve on time delivery by 28% from 62% to 90%
• Simplify and standardise pricing and rates structure
• Streamline operational processes into 1 transport management system
• Implement daily visual information board metrics and operational planning meetings

The client had identified that by the year 2020 there would be a significant increase in demand for aged care services, as Baby Boomers moved into later life, and recognised the need to restructure their business. They had 17 entry points into their operations, 3 different operating units and cultural issues to resolve.

Solution

We presented the client with two tools – Customer Journey Mapping and Customer Centric Design – to help them restructure their operations and become an agile and customer centric organisation. 

Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) is a tool to understand how the customer experiences your business. Most businesses are built from the manager’s perspective, that is, from the Inside Out.  CJM reverses that, helping you build your operation from the Outside In. It’s used to understand how the customer experiences your organisation, both reflecting the Current State, and helping develop an aspirational Future State.

Customer Centric Design (CCD)​ is an innovation framework for developing new services and products. It’s based on Design Thinking and is an iterative framework that uses prototypes and customer feedback to develop new market offerings.  We recommended the client bring together their customers and third party providers to develop a range of products and services that specifically target customer needs, and also consider the needs of other stakeholders.

Bringing in third party providers, and being a facilitator and advocate for their customers, allows the client to build an adaptive customer centric organisation, without significantly increasing investment in personnel or overheads.

This undertaking was a joint company project between a large bulk handler and its contracted freight company. The client was experiencing numerous late notice changes to the agreed plan, creating chaos for operational staff.

Solution

With two very large groups of stakeholders from different companies, the success of this project was dependent upon clear communication, considered negotiation, and effective change management.  The Six Sigma​ methodology was utilised to run this project, focusing on data mining and statistics. Basing decisions upon verified data, rather than opinion, establishes the facts and helps dispel folklore, reducing the chance of dispute.

Early in the analysis it became clear that focusing on reducing cancellations rather than variation was the goal of this project. When variation is the result of meeting customer needs, it is considered good; however in this case variation resulted in cancellations, creating significant rework, waste, financial penalties and the under-utilisation of assets.

Analysis found two individuals in the process which performed statistically better than the others, eg. they had a different process. The joint company representatives developed a new planning process, based on the analysis and key aspects of these two individuals. This process was rolled out across both companies over a 6 week period, using a matrix of single point lessons, each with measurable KPI’s, resulting in a 100% decrease in cancellations, and a 50% decrease in planning variation.

Despite determined efforts from local management, only 42.5% of services departed from the terminal on time. The client required on time departures to be over 80% to meet their customer’s needs.

Solution

Six Sigma methodology was used to manage this project, however both a lack of data and significant variation in process made this difficult. We followed the Six Sigma DMAIC framework, and complemented it with concepts from Lean Thinking​ to develop an elegant solution.

The key change implemented was a complete redesign of procedures and processes that included a ‘map’ of the entire week’s standard operations. The goal was to get “ahead of the game”, minimise re-work, work smarter not harder, and to optimise the use of the yard infrastructure.

Using tools from the Lean Methodology, standardised work was put in place through joint agreement from all stakeholders, and KPI’s were revised to be more meaningful, thereby improving accountability and transparency.

This project improved the client’s on-time departure performance, resulting in services departing, on average, ½ minute early or 86% on time (up from an average of 53 minutes late).

A large mutual bank had tried a few times to deliver transformational change  with various approaches, each having varying degrees of success but none truly delivering.  Sector wide change was having a real impact on the bottom line and the Executive knew that without adapting the organisation would have trouble surviving.

Solution

Working with the Executive and Senior Leaders,  we designed a rolled out a comprehensive project management framework with reporting and benefits tracking.

In addition, we created a ongoing professional development program for their project leads and business analysts covering Design Thinking, Lean and Six Sigma.

Utilising internal resources, we have delivered $2.5 million in benefits delivering 32 strategic, operational, IT and business improvement projects.