Page 119 - Performance Leadership

108 • Part II Operational and Analytical Dimensions

own performance indicators. For instance, conversations are monitored
and scored on how professional and knowledgeable call center agents
handle the questions of the caller. Not knowing the details of a cam-
paign will negatively affect that. Also, data quality is a metric impor-
tant for the output of the call center. Not having enough time to fill in
all fields in the system will negatively affect that. At the same time, the
call center is a relatively expensive customer interaction channel,
which means precision planning is important. There cannot be a sur-
plus of agents manning the call center if the workload does not match.
The cost analysis for the campaign will reveal the additional workload
in addition to the tightly planned daily operations. Both the call cen-
ter manager and campaign manager have equal responsibility for the
business interface metrics.

Manufacturing and Logistics

In manufacturing firms, most manufacturing departments and logis-
tics departments have a long history of optimizing their activities.
Given the capital intensive nature of manufacturing, optimizing the
production plan significantly contributes to the cost of goods. The
manufacturing equipment often is extremely expensive and needs to
be used as efficiently as possible. Maintenance is carefully planned
to make sure the uptime and the capacity are used to maximum lev-
els as well.
The logistics manager is dealing with the same issues. Distribution
of goods is a very resource-driven business. Mail, cars, trains, ships,
airplanes, and other modes for shipping goods requires complex opti-
mizations to make sure that there is only one shipment at a time to a
single customer and that shipments to the same region are bundled,
as well as making sure that the transportation space the company owns
or uses is utilized to the maximum capacity. On the other hand, capac-
ity planning cannot be too tight; hiring additional capacity brings addi-
tional cost.
Each of these functions has a whole array of optimizing techniques
and best practices at its disposal. They are often very mathematical of
nature, with many software products performing these calculations;
often times multiple departments are in charge of planning. However,