PEX Awards: What Does it Take to Be a Winner?
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Final judging took place on Monday for IQPC’s 2011 European Process Excellence Awards. The industry awards recognize finalists in categories covering both program and project success across Lean, Six Sigma & BPM.
So what does it take to be nominated for a PEX Award? Clearly, a cracking good process improvement project/program and some incredible results have an important role to play. But the judges are also looking for innovation and new approaches to solve old problems.
Below is a snapshot of some of the companies up for awards this year and their entries.
Schenker Arkas
Best BPM Project Nominee
Best BPM Project Nominee
Schenker Arkas is an international logistics firms and offering project transportation services including the transportation of goods including the unloading and installment of transported items.
Description of Entry:
Schenker Arkas’ QPI project aimed to identify problems in cross-country land freight operations. This was to develop a common understanding in the business to "trace and analyze cross-country transport in detail" to satisfy customer expectations (on agreed delivery times, ensuring integrity of delivers, and accurate invoicing) in addition to protecting company interests. Information is combined and provided on "loading and information quality" and "lead time performance." Each country and Gateway Unit (GU) is rated by one quality indicator (QPI), containing the results of 9 individual KPI’s. Harmonized quality reporting gives top management visibility over the process and enables operations to take corrective action based on facts and figures.
Size of Program/Project:
44 people (enterprise wide)
Longevity (years running):
Project has been on DB Schenker’s agenda since the beginning of 2009; in Turkey, the project started at the beginning of 2010 and has been running for 15 months.
Scope (departments covered):
Business Process Development Department, IT, Customer Services Department, Land Freight Department, Branch Managements
Royal Bolton Hospital
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
Royal Bolton Hospital a busy District General Hospital in the North West of England.
Description of Entry:
A service development change that involved all of the Respiratory Nurse Specialists (RNS) at Royal Bolton Hospital. Traditional practice had seen a focus of work on the respiratory specialist wards and to limited groups of patients resulting in other respiratory conditions including pneumonia and respiratory patients not in specialist areas not having regular specialist input. Through changes to the work patterns of the RNS, support was given to all respiratory patients and the staff caring for them. The improvement has been cost neutral by delivering the service through new ways of working. Royal Bolton Hospitals says that the entry demonstrates the far reaching improvements that can benefit both patients and staff by moving away from traditional disease based models around which specialist roles were originally developed.
Longevity (years running):
The new way of working commenced in April 2010 following a rapid improvement event and has continued to robustly develop over the past 10 months.
Scope (departments covered):
Spanned the entire organization, including all wards and departments. Especially focused in areas such as the acute assessment areas, the Accident and Emergency department and the complex care wards.
The Carphone Warehouse/ Best Buy
Nominee in several categories: Best BPM Program, Best Start Up Process Improvement Program, Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction & Best Project Contributing to Innovation
The Carphone Warehouse/Best Buy is European retailer providing mobile and internet goods and services.
Description of Entry:
The rapid deployment of an Enterprise wide operating system, integrating customer journey with the company’s mission critical processes. It’s also about leveraging our most precious commodity – our people in the development of our improved processes.
Size of programme (number of people involved):
21 process engineers and Operational Excellence management team
21 process engineers and Operational Excellence management team
Longevity of programme (years running):
Launched early 2010
Launched early 2010
Scope of programme:
How2 launched to CPW retail stores, Best Buy UK customer services and control tower, Human Resources and Carphone Warehouse contact centre departments e.g. Customer services, sales
How2 launched to CPW retail stores, Best Buy UK customer services and control tower, Human Resources and Carphone Warehouse contact centre departments e.g. Customer services, sales
Key achievement:
Deploying 1,800 processes in eight months to 7,000 employees. CPW were able to raise customer satisfaction by up to 25 percent within 90 days of deployment.
Deploying 1,800 processes in eight months to 7,000 employees. CPW were able to raise customer satisfaction by up to 25 percent within 90 days of deployment.
Network Rail
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
Network Rail runs and maintains Britain’s railway infrastructure, including tracks, signaling systems, rail bridges, tunnels, level crossings, viaducts and 18 train stations.
Description of Entry:
The Smart Sourcing project improved procurement and post-contract management outcomes by:
- Using an innovative expert system to optimize the process for any situation;
- Increasing customer communication, leading to greater satisfaction;
- Reducing risk of non-compliance to internal policy and EU legislation;
- Accelerating our sourcing cycle times to deliver benefits;
- Reducing the bureaucracy of management report generation;
- Improving data quality to allow better management decisions;
- Enhancing planning and resource allocation and optimization.
- Using an innovative expert system to optimize the process for any situation;
- Increasing customer communication, leading to greater satisfaction;
- Reducing risk of non-compliance to internal policy and EU legislation;
- Accelerating our sourcing cycle times to deliver benefits;
- Reducing the bureaucracy of management report generation;
- Improving data quality to allow better management decisions;
- Enhancing planning and resource allocation and optimization.
Size of Project:
The Smart Sourcing project consisted of: 4 project team members, 50 stakeholders, who inputted into the design of the model, 200 impacted employees within the Strategic Sourcing function.
Longevity (years running):
Launched June 2010
Scope (departments covered):
The project directly impacts the Strategic Sourcing function and has an indirect impact on all other Network Rail functions, insofar as they are customers of Strategic Sourcing.
Key achievement:
Embedding of consistent and efficient sourcing and post-contract management processes across the Strategic Sourcing function.
Kuwait Petroleum
Best Start Up Process Improvement Program Nominee
Best Start Up Process Improvement Program Nominee
Kuwait Petroleum is a state-owned oil firm that manages Kuwait’s hydrocarbon interests globally.
Description of Entry:
The creation of Six Sigma elements (DMAIC, Six Sigma & Lean) for a KPI branded program, which identifies and implements Six Sigma projects to deliver both cultural and financial benefits to the company. Developing in-house project leaders which supports the creation of a lasting Six Sigma improvement culture across all the KPI country organization. Size of Program: 550 in all countries, from senior managers participating in project selection, training of over 100 project leaders (MBB/BB/GB) and project team members.
Longevity (years running):
18 months
Scope (departments covered):
All Operating Units and countries (Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Kuwait Netherlands, Spain, UK)
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BP Lubricants
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
BP Lubricants is a division of oil giant BP.
Description of Entry:
The Order to Cash Process improvement program was part of the business effort to optimize Working Capital performance and reduce overdues. Our entry describes how the team in Turkey found the reasons for high overdue to be inefficient cash collections, the absence of a dispute management process and a general lack of focus on cash. Cash awareness training and individual cash targets have been introduced for Sales teams, proactive collections and dispute management are now in place and direct debit was launched ; this resulted in a cash release of $3 million.
The Order to Cash Process improvement program was part of the business effort to optimize Working Capital performance and reduce overdues. Our entry describes how the team in Turkey found the reasons for high overdue to be inefficient cash collections, the absence of a dispute management process and a general lack of focus on cash. Cash awareness training and individual cash targets have been introduced for Sales teams, proactive collections and dispute management are now in place and direct debit was launched ; this resulted in a cash release of $3 million.
Longevity of programme (years running):
Since 2009
Since 2009
Scope of programme (departments covered):
Cross-functional teams from Sales, Finance and Customer Service have mobilised in 12 countries in all regions of the world, and across B to B and B to C business units.
Cross-functional teams from Sales, Finance and Customer Service have mobilised in 12 countries in all regions of the world, and across B to B and B to C business units.
Key achievement:
Addressing process inefficiencies has brought down the average payment delay in those countries by 3 days, released $12 million cash and reduced the cost of rework.
Addressing process inefficiencies has brought down the average payment delay in those countries by 3 days, released $12 million cash and reduced the cost of rework.
Irish Life Corporate Business
Best Process Improvement Program Nominee
Best Process Improvement Program Nominee
Irish Life Corporate Business provides pensions, investments and life products.
Description of Entry:
Irish Life has optimized the infrastructure to support and enable the program and has built a culture which has delivered outstanding results for the organization.
Size of Program:
There are 300 people involved in the program on an annual basis, including every employee of Corporate Business
Longevity (years running):
6 years
Scope (departments covered):
All departments – Admin, Sales, Marketing, IT, HR, Training, Communication, Legal, Claims, Finance, Client Services, Actuarial
Key Achievement:
The depth to which they have embedded our program into the organization.
Betfair
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
Best Process Improvement Project in Service & Transaction Nominee
Betfair offers online sports betting facilities.
Description of Entry:
Betfair recently introduced an NPS-based Customer Satisfaction Score to measure the feedback from customers after contacting the UK HelpDesk. The project "Increase HelpDesk Technical Satisfaction Score" examined the scores and verbatim feedback provided by customers to improve the handling of technical contacts.
Size of Program:
4.5 Black Belts and Master Black Belts covering a 2000 person company
Longevity (years running):
5 years
Scope (departments covered):
Reports to Operations, works with other departments such as Technology, Marketing, and HR.
Key Achievements:
Increased the baseline score by 16.4% from 6.5 to 7.6, and improving the customer experience across several contact areas.
Sellafield
Best Start Up Process Improvement Program Nominee
Sellafield is nuclear facility located in the north of England.
Description of Entry:
Working to deliver improvements and accelerate delivery on a nuclear licensed site, in line with customers’ expectations, by working with industry regulators and other key site stakeholders.
Size of Program:
14 Lean Champions on the site; 132 people (92 of which are employees) have taken part in the program
Longevity (years running):
Since 2008, in 2009 Capenhurst Workout program was developed and 5 year strategy developed for improvements
Scope (departments covered):
The whole site from operations and maintenance depots through to office support functions such as HR and business management
Key achievement:
ROSPA award winners 2010. 2010/2011program delivered with targeted savings greater than 10%.
The winners will be announced on Tuesday April 5, during IQPC’s Process Excellence Europe event taking place in London. Follow our tweets live from the summit all next week- #pexweek. We will be announcing the winners live from the event on Tuesday night.
For a full listing of award categories and nominees read the original announcement.
Topics:
Lean Six Sigma
Process Excellence
