The Context:
Safe-Move is the source provider of the Con29DW drainage and water search for the Yorkshire region. A drainage and water search provides information on about 20 standard questions. Safe-Move handles between 70,000 and 100,000 search requests each year, depending on the state of the region’s housing market.
The Issue:
The problem in Safe-Move seemed to be the time to complete a search – with a target of 95% of searches completed within 5 days, yet a search took less than 10 minutes.
The Solution:
Applying the Vanguard model of Check-plan-do (a variation on Deming’s PDSA cycle) the business:
- Redefined its purpose to focus on a simple turnaround time measure;
- Analysed customer demand between value and failure demand and initiated projects to remove failure;
- Used control charts to understand the capability of its processing system;
- Used process maps to identify system conditions that caused delays in processing so triggering projects to improve work flow.
The Results:
We dramatically reduced turnaround time to less than 1 day without any significant investment in IT or recruitment more staff. In fact the reliance on overtime and temporary staff to clear backlogs disappeared. Safe-Move achieved top position in the league table of water company search performance. Also, as the entire workforce was involved in the improvement projects a culture of continuous improvement is driving further improvements in performance and quality.