Delivery Performance Improvements – Case StudyMajor Steel Warehouse and Logistics Company - Australia Wide
The Challenge
Benchmarking revealed that the delivery performance (delivery in full and delivery on time) was marginally over 80%. This was well below best practice and lagging behind many competitors. An external survey indicated that delivery performance was a significant factor in the overall level of customer satisfaction. Due to the dispersed nature of the business, any improvement undertaken needed had to be accomplished in all major sites, four in total.
The Solution
Through the use of the Lean Six Sigma toolkit, the voice of the customer (VOC) was collected, and the specific areas of dissatisfaction concerning delivery performance were isolated. Analysis showed that three main areas were the cause of delivery problems:
1. The service offer
2. Customer service systems
3. Administration processes.
A stakeholder analysis, cause & effect matrices and SWOT analysis were utilised to engage the stakeholders, gather, analyse the necessary data and develop the required solutions. The solutions implemented can be summarised as the following:
• Revision of the service offer in line with inventory constraints
• Development of improved customer service processes and implementation of training in the new processes
• Development of improved administration processes and adjustment of staffing patterns.
The Results
The organisation achieved a rapid increase in delivery performance to above 95%. This was still sustained two years later when the project was subsequently audited. -In addition, postimplementation customer satisfaction surveys significantly improved.