Quick Glance Case Study: Product Disposal

“The Lean review has allowed us to take ownership of an expensive, fragmented, complicated process, and create a simple, cost-effective, controlled future state that will increase both customer and employee satisfaction”

After completing a ChangeWise Lean Practitioner training course, one candidate submitted the following work-place project to gain their qualification to LCS Level 1c.

The Business Challenge

As part of our service delivery process, a large amount of chemical waste is generated, requiring specialist disposal. We employed a specialist external supplier (approximately 100 times per month), to manage the collection and disposal of the waste. The process was extensive, incurring additional costs, and our point of contact was often unavailable. In addition, these issues risked missed collections which could have a catastrophic impact on the site, lead to shut-down, potential fines and a significant impact on customer experience.

A Lean review was required to ensure better control of the scheduling, efficiency and overall cost of this service.

Key people involved from client site

A strategy group including members of the Leadership Team and Process Owner Team were included in the Lean review.

Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash

Lean Methodology Employed

DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analise, Improve, Control)

Various Lean methodologies were employed including, SIPOC, Root Cause Analysis, Cause & Effect, Value and Non-Value Add Analysis, Gemba, Waste Analysis.

Lean Activities & Current State

Working with the operational team responsible for the current process, we used the SIPOC method to better understand the five-step chemical collection and disposal process. This helped us to highlight the several duplicated process steps taking place and identify several instances of non-value-add activity.

Following the SIPOC exercise, we completed a Gemba walk to better understand the current process. This really helped to bring the subject matter experts together and highlight the need for a more controlled and simplified process.

The team reviewed options for how to best proceed when designing our future state. To support this exercise, we used the cause and effect technique to outline the restrictions and constraints of using a third-party company:

• Deliveries/Collections out of our control and/or missed
• Time wasted in phone calls, order raising and invoicing as part of the current scheduling process
• Non-Framework arrangement; did not meet procurement requirements
• Fees incurred for final management/disposal of chemical waste negotiated by a third party
• Failure demand due to invoicing errors

Photo by Ashes Sitoula on Unsplash

Benefits & Outcomes

The team agreed key priorities:

• Reduce costs incurred by outsourcing
• Reduce delays by establishing an in-house scheduling process and working directly with the framework organisation
• Provide a Best Practise Guide and test usability by issuing it to someone who has no previous knowledge of the procedure
• Set-up a control process to ensure regular review; removing historical data, ensuring new procedures are followed

Key Benefits

• Increased customer satisfaction; direct contact with the framework supplier has enabled sight of a customer portal providing the ability to book or cancel collections online
• Improved audit controls due to the implementation and trial run of a tracking web portal; this has also enabled more visibility and monitoring of site output
• Reduced travel costs due to booking collections online
• Savings achieved through revised contracts with the framework supplier

In Summary

The Lean review has allowed us to take ownership of an expensive, fragmented, complicated process, and create a simple, cost-effective, controlled future state that will increase both customer and employee satisfaction.

Interested in looking at how Lean can help you do more with less? Contact us at info@changewise.co.ukand let’s talk about how we can help.

ChangeWise believes employee engagement is the foundation for successful Change. Training and coaching your people to use simple continuous improvement techniques will enable your organisation to continuously adapt and stay ahead in a constantly changing and challenging environment.

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