Last week I had the opportunity to lead a WebKaizen Event to solve a problem around the length of time to take contractors from signed agreement to the point where they are fully prepared and productive. The process was lengthy because of the varied and disconnected events required to go from a Statement of Work requesting a contractor, through the request for logins, software access, network access, laptop configuration, building access cards, etc, to the point where the contractor could be productive. The disparate events were not tracked, and so it was difficult to create a value stream map.
To overcome this we walked through the process and added general values to the arrow for each lead time and to each process step. The values added were in terms of minutes, hours, and days. Although we were not able to be extremely accurate in the calculations, we were able to identify the areas of focus where a majority of the opportunities for improvement could be found. Based upon these focus areas the team was able to find solutions that eliminated 2 weeks from the process.
I'd never done a value stream without a time and motion study, but it worked!
Kate
www.webkaizen.com
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