Transcript Slide 1
You Want Your ILL When?
Abstract: Document Delivery Team studied the article borrowing process for improvement using the DMAIC method.
When to use DMAIC?
Where variation
in product or service quality
is hurting your customer relationship
When
costs no longer sustainable
When measures suggest the
use of
control charts or other
data analysis tools will help identify
the current process capability and
the cause of problems How to Plan for the DMAIC Approach Gain buy-in of leadership Appoint team
Members with
variety of skills
& experience • Some
who know the process
to be studied and
will implement the new process
• Some
who don’t know the process
and have no bias • Someone
who has clout
to
get buy-in from the top
• People who have
strengths on
different parts of
DMAIC
•
Questioners, learners
openness to change
Formal in-depth training
is key
Consultant availability
helps
Define Establish a compelling reason for improving the process; clearly describe the actual situation and the goals for improvement How DMAIC was implemented at the U of A: Buy-in:
Budget /staffing reductions, new work, organizational focus quality and customers
Training:
Some former experience; identification of need for organizational competence —in depth training
PIR Group volunteers
—formed as a resource team —skills and abilities we identified
Selection of projects
—proposals evaluated by leadership
Selection of first project
—ability to be successful/ data available, buy in on improvement needed
Control sustain and control process performance, now and in the future
DMAIC
This is an iterative process. You may need to repeat a previous step or steps as new issues arise .
Improve Generate, pilot and implement solutions that address the root causes and improve quality, manage or reduce costs, and are acceptable to the larger organization Measure Factually understand the problems; collect and display data that will narrow the range of potential causes Analyze Make sense of the data and use it to discover root causes of delay, waste, poor quality, and high costs
Right Now?
UA Libraries’ Project: ILL Journal Article Delivery
DDT: Define Phase
1
•
Problem
high average cost per request with an anticipated increase in ILL article borrowing request due to serial cuts Customers want a shorter turn-around-time
DDT: Measure Phase
•
Review
capabilities of existing systems and what data can be extracted
2
•
Objective
decrease turn-around-time with no cost increase •
Negotiate
with vendors to get the data you need •
Parameters
focus on borrowing journal articles no additional staff added to process •
Collect data
are gaps manually where there
DDT – Control Phase
•
Statistical Process Control (SPC) Charts
point to areas needing further analysis
5
•
New Quality Standard:
80% of journal article requests will be filled in 3 days.
DDT: Analyze Phase Tool:
•
Check progress monthly
using XmR charts and Histogram to point to process problems.
Pareto of root causes 3
•
Monthly team meetings
reinforce the importance of the quality standard.
Review changes
to review data and that need to be made internally.
•
Evening and weekend
lag time for electronic
delivery of articles
(29% of cause) •
Update training documentation
as needed. •
Evening and weekend searching article
lag time for requests (26% of cause) •
Future:
Plan for customer satisfaction survey in Fall 2006.
•
Lending process:
Applied root cause analysis to evaluate not meeting turnaround time quality standards in this process.
•
Lender Staffing
evening and weekend processing lag (18% of cause) •
Training on the process
related to choosing best ISSN to match Rapid holdings (6% of cause) •
DDT: Improvement Phase 4
•
Used ‘down-time’
of existing evening and weekend library staff for searching and electronic delivery of articles
Problem searching
lag (4% of cause) •
Replaced student employees
temporary staff for searching with full time and
DMAIC
is an iterative process
•
Added additional hours
weekends for searching evenings and
Searching staff canceled 10% of article requests
as owned by our library •
Negotiating with lenders
to staff on weekends •
Encourage lenders to use ODYSSEY
scanning software -- eliminates a step in receiving electronic articles process -- direct from lender to customer
Examined further
and discovered we actually held 25% of requested articles
Pointed to new problem
our customers and staff have difficulty interpreting our catalog -- need to investigate