"Myth buster-
Kaizen is not for the service industry"
In
my previous blog, I have written about Kaizen with examples from the manufacturing
industry. I have received few comments about the possibility of Kaizen in the
service’s industry. Many a times Kaizen gets cornered out as a manufacturing
practice. Is it really manufacturing centric? I disagree! Kaizen is the way of
life for any industry, Period.
Can we do Kaizen in service industry?
Kaizen
programs are highly prevalent in the manufacturing industries. These industries
have achieved long lasting success with ensuing benefits such as superior
quality, faster throughput, reduced costs, lower inventories and engagement of
people in problem solving. Kaizen, in service industry, can be applied to create
value to customers by providing fast and efficient response to customer
requirements, reliability, and assurance. Below are 2 generic cases from the
service industry that applied Kaizen.
Real life Examples of Kaizen in Service Industry
Bank Kaizen: A major national bank started using the
five-day Kaizen approach whenever it wanted to attack process speed and
efficiency problems. The bank used suggestion box to receive suggestions from
customers and employees. It used the Pareto Chart to analyze the problems and
found around 80/75 percent of the problems stem from 20/25 percent of the
causes. It used kaizen to work on this causes. Pareto analysis was used by the
bank for the selection of a limited number of tasks such as: Cycle-time
improvement; administrative process; complaint resolution that produce a
significant overall effect. The bank achieved the following results:
·
Cycle-time improvements
have ranged from 25 percent faster to nearly 90 percent faster, measured
sometimes in minutes and other times in days. One administrative process went
from 20 min to 12 minutes, and a complaint resolution process dropped from 30
day to 8 days.
·
Fiscal indicators have
all been positive. One high level project has allowed the bank to start
charging for a service that previously was offered free to customer. New
revenue are expected to total between Rs 6 crore to Rs. 9 Crore per year. Other
projects have led to cost reduction or loss avoidance in corer of rupees.
Hotel Kaizen: Simplicity is the highest level of
sophistication. Sometimes, simple actions such as a suggestion box can create
high impact in the hotel industry. A suggestion box was placed in the hotel and
it was opened every quarter for action. Based on the suggestion received from
the guests, the hotel used the Pareto Chart for the selection of a limited number
of problems that cause the most failures. Following this, a kaizen workshop was
conducted for the employees. Teams were formed to implement kaizen in process
areas such as: Front desk, Housekeeping, Laundry, Restaurant and Room service.
Performance indicators were identified as shown in the table below for each
process area. The hotel achieved the following benefits by implementing kaizen.
Process
Area
|
Indicator
|
Benefits
realized
|
Front Desk
|
Average time to check- in guests
|
Reduced
|
Front Desk
|
Average time to check-out guests
|
Reduced
|
House Keeping
|
Average time to turnaround rooms
|
Reduced
|
House Keeping & Laundry
|
Average time to turnaround linen
|
Reduced
|
Restaurant
|
Guest satisfaction score
|
Enhanced
|
Room Service
|
On-time ; in full ; error-free delivery
rate
|
Increased
|
Sources:
