Center for Executive & Professional Development - Streamlining Office & Service Operations

Streamlining Office and Service Operations
Techniques to achieve process improvement on the business side

Today, enormous amounts of waste exist in office and service operations. Delays, bottlenecks, errors, redundancy, work-arounds, and ambiguity abounds. Non value added work can be as high as 95 percent.

Manufacturing organizations have had great success in applying Lean techniques and trimming time and money. However there are significant challenges and differences in an office operation versus a manufacturing setting. You need a tailored approach to improving office/service operations—but there are Lean tools that you can apply.

Through simulation, cases, and by working on your own processes, you will learn and practice Lean tools to dramatically improve quality and service, while shrinking time and cost. Look at work flow, information flow and job design—not with an eye to eliminating people—but maximizing their effort. You will know which tool to use based on the goal of the effort and problems you face. You will leave with the skills necessary to dramatically improve your office processes and eliminate wasted time and money. Bring the process that has you stumped to class and tackle the issue by applying the tools.

Instructor:
Shelley Sweet is founder and principal of Intercept Management Consulting in Palo Alto, CA. As a management consultant, she has worked with a variety of public, non-profits, as well as corporate clients on strategic planning, assessment, organizational efficiency and business process design. Her clients range from the mega-corporations of Cisco Systems, Chevron, Bank of America and Microsoft to the California Council on Economic and Environmental Balance, Community Legal Services of San Jose, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the USC, Los Angeles.

Prior to founding her company in 1991, Shelley was Director of Management and Employee Development for Saba, Marketing Director and Senior Consultant for Omega Performance Corporation and VP of Corporate and Retail Training at Bank of America, San Francisco.

Shelley received a Bachelor of Economics degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and a Masters in Management from John F. Kennedy University in California.

“Our customers are big into Lean and we have Lean in the shop area, but we had not implemented Lean in the office. We especially liked the swim lane value stream map because it showed the problem areas, the wastes, and the time we were unnecessarily spending. Since we got back we have redefined the Print Process we drafted in the class with our team. We had struggled with this process for 3 years and it still took us 12-27 days to get a print drawn. We will cut that time in half this first week of implementation. The important changes we made are using a tall magazine rack to display inside and outside orders, work on one order at a time, know how to facilitate rush orders, and see we are against customer demand. We also eliminated steps and time by moving customer questions about print drawings directly to engineering and getting them answered right the first time.”

Traci Kirk, Sales and Customer Service Manager, Cameron Glass, Inc.

“We needed to get more insight on how to streamline processes on the office side in Lean since we use Lean in manufacturing already. We especially liked the mapping with the timeline. It makes common sense but it is good to lay it out. We are starting with applying 5S concepts to the office and will move into looking at office processes after we get beyond the buy-out that is taking priority at the moment.”

Bob King, Plant Manager, Fintube. Candi Franks, Fintube