Project Name: Streamlining Customer Complaints Investigations
Problem Statement:
The time to complete a complaint investigation needs to be shortened to
accommodate for the frequency of complaints throughout the year to ensure
timelines are met.
Moving onto the control phase of this project, I utilized
the following tools:
·
Develop Control
·
Review of metrics
·
Establish or Update SOPs- Complete during the
improve phase
·
Establish or Update Training Plan- Complete
during the improve phase
·
Cost/ Benefit Analysis
·
Further developments
For the purposes of this blog, I will focus on the use of the
development of control, review of metrics and further developments.
Develop Control: On implementation of the associated
procedural updates and re-training, changes were monitored closely by ensuring
that any concerns were communicated to me at the time or within our weekly
complaints meeting. I ensured that any clarifications were communicated during
the weekly meeting or through email where immediate clarification was required.
Timelines for closure will be monitored closely through
weekly team meetings and cross functional meeting with the Regulatory
department. The metrics for complaint closure will continue to be highlighted
to management through our monthly metrics updates. Finally, the updates to the
procedures and practices will be assessed in an ongoing manner through the
internal audit system and also through any notified bodies performing re
–certification or surveillance audits. These controls will ensure that the
updates to the system have been successfully implemented and monitored for
compliance going forward.
Review of metrics: On review of the metrics established at
the beginning of this project, it will not be possible to measure the benefit
of the closure date for reportable and non reportable complaints during this
control phase of this project. However, it is possible to measure some of the
reduction in time per complaint as a result of the changes. On review of the
updated system the time per complaint has been already been reduced by on
average 99 minutes. In addition, the peer review has also been reduced by 10
minutes as a result of the attachments and information which has been removed
and no longer needs to be verified. As stated above in the improve phase there
are a number of changes which were also implemented which at this point in time
are not measureable but will ultimately reduce the time of the complaint
investigation.
Further developments: Following the implementation of the
project and the measureable and foreseeable improvements which have been made
to the system, there were a number of further improvements which were
highlighted during the project which will be reviewed for further analysis to
determine if the updates to the system will have a positive output. The
structure used in this project could be applied to further projects to ensure
that the project is scoped out accordingly, resources allocated and the tools
can be utilized to ensure the correct root cause and solutions are assigned for
the improvements going forward. The following points are areas which could be
reviewed for further improvement to reduce the timelines even further.
- Too much detail in lab evaluation
- Difference in failure modes tracker and Trackwise
- FMEAs not up to date
- Business objects often failing
- Business objects takes too long to run
- Trackwise locking out after certain time
- Too many fields in Trackwise
- End user information insufficient
Lessons Learnt: The utilization of the six sigma tools has
proven to be successful for this project. As this was my first time using these
tools in practice it was quite daunting but I now have an appreciation for how
useful following the DMIAC structure can be for a project. The following points
were key to the implementation of this project:
·
The day to day users of the system are essential
for input
·
Ensure all stakeholders have their voice
·
Do not jump to the corrective action
·
Invest the necessary time into the six sigma
tools
·
Ongoing communication on the status of the
project is essential to ensure that implementation can be successful
·
Be willing to embrace change
