Quick Glance Case Study: Facilities Management – Report Automation

“The desired Future State for this Lean review was in place within a few weeks, this allowed us to realise tangible benefits quickly”

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

Our organisation established a long-term contract to purchase power from a company who installed and maintained our solar panels. The solar panels were installed across 5 sites with plans for another 150 sites. Our Energy Team produced a monthly granularity report which monitored site performance, allowing us to make early intervention where performance was not optimised.  The process for producing these reports was heavily manual, further impacted by the reports evolving over time to incorporate additional data sources and requests. Procedure notes for compiling and using the data were also outdated.

A Lean review was required to ensure the reports were accurate, efficient to create and access.

Photo by Federico Beccari on Unsplash

Key people involved from client site

Specialists from The Energy Team, Energy Suppliers, Energy Efficiency Specialists, Solar Team (customers) and Senior Leadership Team were involved in the Lean review.

Lean Methodology Employed

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

Various Lean methodologies were used including, SIPOC, Current State Mapping, Waste Analysis, Root Cause Analysis, Value and Non-Value Add Analysis, Data Collection Plans, Future State Mapping, Implementation Plans.

Current State Findings and Lean Activities

The team used the SIPOC method to highlight the high-level process and data sources. We then created a Current State Process Map to show the process steps in more detail, along with processing times, wait times headcount required to complete the process. To accurately understand the time taken to complete each part of the process, we collated a data collection plan. This exercise was also used for waste analysis and identifying VA/NVA/ENVA elements.

It was clear that a large number of manual, time-consuming steps were needed to create the final report. In order to better understand the root cause of these issues, we used the Fish Bone Diagram Technique.

Root cause of issues/waste

• Repetitive manual processes
• Complicated forms

The Future State, Benefits & Outcomes

Using information from the root cause and waste analysis, a brainstorming session was held with the solar team to understand business requirements, explore what could be done to simplify the report and improve data quality.

Three key actions were agreed:

• Simplify the existing process through the removal of non-value add processing
• Source a more strategic, automated application for the recording and reporting of the data
• Provide a consistent approach to training/maintaining user guides

After assessing various solutions, the team agreed The Environmental and Emissions Monitoring System (EEMS) would be the most effective option for customer needs. This would eliminate the opportunity for errors, reduce processing time to create reports and enable efficient access to data and reports.

The process for updating reports would also be significantly reduced as there would no longer be a requirement to consistently repeat steps.

The team created an Implementation Plan to map out the steps and actions needed to achieve the Future State.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Key Benefits:

• Time taken to produce the report reduced by 60%
• Removal of 39 non-value-add steps
• Reduced delays in delivery of the report
• Revised report allows a significant increase in number of value-add outputs, including:
  • Tariffs charges
  • Savings per month
  • Total solar array output compared to expected output
  • Opex benefit

In Summary

The desired Future State for this Lean review was in place within a few weeks, this meant we were able to quickly realise tangible benefits. It has also become apparent that there are additional business critical reports which could be simplified through using the EEMS application.

Interested in looking at how Lean can help you to automate processes and achieve immediate tangible benefits? Contact us at info@changewise.co.uk and 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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