Low-Hanging Fruit Can Produce High Productivity Savings
By Dave Vernon, JDB Associates

Savvy business owners and managers know that continuous improvement is key to running a profitable and competitive company.  Over the years, ample resources have been applied to create efficiencies in standard business functions such as order processing, purchasing and manufacturing. The outcomes of these efforts have, for the most part, resulted in significant savings of time and money.  The result of this success is that everyone is now asking:  “what’s the NEXT process we can improve?”

The answer can be found in the most commonplace and frequently used internal processes, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of business operations.  Consider, for example, the amount of time spent by individuals managing various work requests from other co-workers.  The longer you have to wait for a colleague to send information your way or perform a task upon which your work is contingent, the more your overall productivity falls.

The daily process of work requests is ripe for streamlining… the current paper-based manual systems are simply not effective.  The good news is that work requests no longer need to be accepted as a time-consuming, no-way-around-it managerial burden.

There are now alternatives to the non-value-added activities that define paper-based work requests.  Co-workers must first and foremost be given access to a functionality that is collaborative and robust, while also being intuitive and easy-to-use.  A web-based Work Request System is a powerful way to provide these features.  This system automates repetitive tasks, simplifies interactions, and creates a central source for task submission, management and reporting.

Consider these Work Request System client examples:

• A sizable medical device manufacturer struggled with the multi-layered inefficiencies of its paper-based work requests.  But they are now enjoying greater productivity and savings by utilizing online versions across 8 departments.  Each department has learned from the others how to optimize the use of their online work requests and develop simplified reporting systems.   Implementation of this application saves this manufacturer $100,000 annually.
   
• Another manufacturing customer does 100 work requests per month.  Time saved per online request was 20 minutes.  Their annual time savings: 400 hours.  At an hourly burden rate of $50, they figured their annual savings to be $20,000.  First year ROI was 100% and it took just 6 months to recoup their investment.  Beyond the bottom-line savings, they also experienced intangible benefits such as elimination of document copies and reduction of the overall ‘cost of chaos’.

Recently, I’ve consulted with an array of cross-industry departments that have enjoyed cost savings by implementing online work requests:

1) Engineering/Drafting
Engineering/Drafting departments responsible for computer-aided design projects are often asked to track and respond to work requests from multiple individuals, multiple sites and even multiple countries.  The man-hours dedicated to managing these paper trails can be sizable and use of time is inefficient.  An online Work Request System becomes a lean work flow management tool that provides easy communication with customers and an infinite number of ways to set up metrics.
 
2) Facilities
Facilities managers often try to solve their ‘20 plates in the air’ challenges by installing large packaged software solutions, such as work order or help desk software.  Unfortunately these solutions are usually very complex to install, cost prohibitive and not intuitive for users.  Other managers may try getting by with Microsoft Project, Excel or Outlook Task Lists, but these tend to become unwieldy and cumbersome.  With an online work request solution, you can use your existing web browser infrastructure to automate submission and the internal assignment of tasks.   Reports can be generated showing how many jobs were taken in, how many were completed on time, how long they were waiting in queue and the length of throughput times (days per request).    Internal customers can also automatically be notified that a project has been assigned, and can check on the ongoing status of their projects on the company Intranet.

3) Labs/ R&D Departments
Many labs have an incredibly high volume of internal work requests - as many as 800 or more a month – sent to them by interoffice mail, e-mail and person-to-person contact.  Having an online ‘funnel’ for all incoming requests means greater process efficiency, simplified progress tracking and a minimization of errors.

4) Shop Floor Execution
Often machines need tooling delivered to specific workstations.  One shop floor work request application involved requests for tooling made by machine operators.  Requests received by the tool room were prioritized by expected changeover time and displayed on a large plasma screen.  As a result, the operators received tooling in a more timely manner, the tool room operated more efficiently, and machine uptime increased.  Work requests communicated instantaneously helped better coordinate multiple activities happening on the shop floor.

So, how many work requests do you need to make this online model feasible?  That depends on the circumstances and size of your outfit.  ROI has been generated most quickly by companies with 100 work requests or more per month.  (On average, 50 online work requests per month or 3 per day translates to one man-hour saved per day).  If you handle fewer requests, you could still benefit from an online work request system.  Your break-even point may just be delayed.

If online work request applications are this beneficial, what other internal, low-hanging fruit processes are candidates to go online?    My recommendation… look for any routine process that takes up too many employee hours, lacks integration or flow, involves paper or online forms, or has no central store of information.  Such daily processes – often overlooked from an efficiency point of view  -- can now be managed much more effectively online, making your business more fruitful.

JDB Associates is an IT consulting firm focused on making client processes more effective with cost-efficient business solutions.   Dave Vernon is a founding partner of JDB Associates (www.jdb.com) and can be reached at dvernon@jdb.com.