Case Study - Lean Six Sigma Implementation reduces the number of manual work arounds in Business Services.
Define
This case study concerns the business service operation of a global company. Three Green Belt projects were implemented in the financial services processes
- Order to Cash (OTC)
- Purchase to Payment (PTP)
- Record to Report (RTR)
Measure
OTC: manual work arounds constitute 2% of transactions
RTR: manual work arounds constitute 1.6% of transactions
PTP: queries constitute 3.5% of invoices
Analyse
Pricing errors were identified as a major cause of work arounds in the OTC process. Reasons for these errors were identified as:
- Sales representatives providing customers with discounts not communicated to business services or communicated late.
- Errors in markets and financial services pricing databases due to different systems being used.
Improve
Sales markets were prioritised and issues were discussed with sales managers. Common databases were implemented for markets and business services.
Reports were automated to eliminate data transfer errors.
Data was collected on queries and databases on supplier data were corrected.
Procedures were changed to e-mail reminders to markets if invoices remained unpaid.
Control
Metrics were implemented for discounts communicated late.
Benefits
Work arounds and queries were reduced by 10 Full Time Equivalents.