Give Red Tape a Good Name

Norman Faull

Lean Institute Africa

Purpose of ‘red tape’

• To codify correct procedure in providing a service

• To ensure consistency in service delivery – Quality of service − Fair to all

– Turnaround time

• To facilitate the training of employees

• To obstruct corrupt practices

• To provide a basis for continuous improvement

Does this look familiar?

Published by dti 2013 Author: Rae Wolpe

When things go wrong

• LIA experience

– registering as a company

– registering as a vendor

• ‘With a city up north….’

• With PGWC Ariba

– Most Liveable City in World

• John Seddon, 2008

Why is service delivery important?

• Monopoly supplier – External cost to society of poor quality, slow, unreliable

services – Internal cost to supplier of ‘failure demand’ – Invites alternative ‘efficient’ competitors

• The gatvol factor – Gauteng had 540 protests between 1st April and 10th May

2013 (K Patel, Daily Maverick, 16 May 13) – Nearly 3000 protests over previous 90 days involving > 1m

people (M du Preez, Pretoria News, 11 February 2014) – Estimated 300 incidents per year (M&G, 29 Aug 2014)

• What triggers the Arab Spring?

What is annoying people?

The causes of protest range from the popular shorthand of “service delivery” to the slightly

more considered view that people are demanding public service, not necessarily

service delivery. These explanations point to a weak local

government, inadequate service delivery to the most needy, or local government failure with poor political oversight of officials and a lack of responsiveness and accountability by political representatives.

M&G, 29 Aug 2014

Business Process Reengineering

• Rose to popularity in early 1990’s • focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and

business processes within an organization. BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors

• The most frequent critique against BPR concerns the strict focus on efficiency and technology and the disregard of people in the organization that is subjected to a reengineering initiative. Very often, the label BPR was used for major workforce reductions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_reengineering#Critique; 14 September 2014

Key concepts for workflow improvement

• Efficiency matrix insights – Stability – Prioritise Flow – Let resource efficiency follow

• Functional silos interrupt flow • Batching interrupts flow • Rework (‘failure demand’) disrupts flow • Basic tools

– Mapping − 5S – Visual Management − Triage!

Practice-Performance Matrix

Pe

rfo

rman

ce

Practices

lo

hi

‘All’ e.g. Waiting time, Quality Service,

etc. e.g. Team Work, Problem-solving, Operator-centred

maintenance, etc.

‘None’

Dysfunctional

Unsustainable

Unpurposed

World-class

Efficiency Matrix*

*Modified from Modig & Ahlström (2012) This is lean

Re

sou

rce

eff

icie

ncy

Service efficiency

lo

hi

hi Actual output Rated output

Service time Journey time

Efficiency Matrix

Modig & Ahlström(2012) This is lean

Re

sou

rce

eff

icie

ncy

Service efficiency

lo

hi

hi

Increasing variability

damages both efficiencies!

Efficiency Matrix

Re

sou

rce

eff

icie

ncy

Service efficiency

lo

hi

hi

Probably where most operations

actually are!

Efficiency Matrix

Modig & Ahlström(2012) This is lean

Re

sou

rce

eff

icie

ncy

Service efficiency

lo

hi

hi

We believe the improvement journey is via

stabilising operations and targeting flow through the

service channel

Service time Journey time

This also illustrates silo process flow vs cellular flow

Ways of improving?

• Waiting time reduction by removing batching

• Improvements from triage

• Improvements from levelling demand

Evidence & effect of uneven load

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1st Wk 2nd Wk 3rd Wk 4th Wk

Mon

Tues

Wed

Thur

Average on 4-

day week

Average on

5-day week

Waiting of over 10 hrs

Waiting of 5 hrs

Waiting of 4 hrs

Wednesday 9th Feb 11 at 14h30 Wednesday 9th Feb 11 at 14h30

Wednesday 9th Feb 11 at 14h40 Thursday 10th Feb 11 at 13h15

Thursday 10th Feb 11 at 14h50 Thursday 10th Feb 11 at 15h05

Thursday 10th Feb 11 at 15h50

Patients per day of week

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

1st

week

2nd

week

3rd

week

4th

week

1st

week

2nd

week

3rd

week

4th

week

5th

week

1st

week

2nd

week

3rd

week

4th

week

5th

week

1st

week

2nd

week

3rd

week

4th

week

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Thursday 10th Feb 2011

Final stats Friday 11th

• First patient served 08h10

• 43rd patient arrived at 08h20

• The 43rd patient was served at 08h55 (waited 35 minutes)

• At 11h40 today there were 26 patients waiting… vs. hundreds at this time earlier in the week.

11h40 Friday 11th February 2011

Used to work 2 hours overtime 5 days per week

Have finished at least 15 minutes early since then…

min

60 8 min min

Fin

ge

rprin

ting

Eye

Te

stin

g

En

qu

iries

>380 request

per day

Available hrs : 7

hrs per day

Customer

Collect Form

PT = 1min

3 1

15 min

9 people

TT

PT

15 min

1

min

15 min

2.5 min min

3 4.5

Transfer Time = 218min

Process Time = 13 min

Lead Time = 231 min door to door

Form Processing

PT = 2.5min

3 1

15 min

9 people

Eye Testing

PT = 3min

2 1

120 min

40 people

Fingerprinting

PT = 2min

4 1

8 min

2 people

Pmnt + Process

PT = 4.5min

3 2

60 min

30 people

Pa

ym

en

t

Pro

ce

ssin

g

min

120

2 min

Provincial licensing office

Red tape reduction can give ‘red tape’ a good name by improving service to the

people

Thank you!

Consistent use of agreed best practices/standard work procedures

+ Continuous improvement