Page 246 - Lean six sigma demystified

224 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

Remove Change

Duplicate orders
Wireless # not needed

Problem statement
During January, six
errors of 200
accounted for 90%
of errors which was
Price plan changes Service rep entered other higher than desired
and caused
Check not needed customer
dissatisfaction.

Pending orders Add order

Figure 6-6 • Fishbone of root causes.

The great thing about evaluating transactions one at a time is that you
verify your root causes as you go.
3. Once the team had identified the root causes (Fig. 6-6), we would stop
analyzing and spend an hour defining the new requirements. Most of the
time, the original requirements were too tight, too loose, or occasionally
nonexistent. The systems analyst would then convey these to the program-
ming staff for implementation.

Analyzing Results

It took 4 months to implement the revisions, but it was worth it. By midyear,
the changes completely eliminated the two top service-affecting errors, and three
of the four record-affecting changes. It cut total errors by 77% (Figs. 6-7, 6-8,
and 6-9). This reduction translated to $299,426 per month in savings—over
$3 million per year.
Results: This analysis and the resulting changes in the information system
resulted in the complete elimination of five error buckets and dramatic reduc-
tion in other smaller buckets that benefited from the system changes. This also
reduced activation errors (getting the network to recognize the wireless phone)