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Infinity Resources, Inc.(IRI) is a leader in providing direct commerce managed services to catalog and e-commerce companies. IRI leverages its infrastructure and technology to, most notably, provide call center and fulfillment services. As a subset of providing managed services to catalog companies, IRI handles all mailed-in orders for processing and fulfillment.
The focus of this project is the improvement of mail order cycle time. Mail order cycle time is defined as that time interval that begins with receipt of a mail order and ends when the order is printed in the warehouse. The project followed the DMAIC methodology and began with an initial scoping session with the key process stakeholders. The feedback was as follows:
- Raised customer emphasis on speed of delivery
- Increased business emphasis on sales fulfillment
- Concerns regarding capacity/technology in light of significant business growth
- Excessive carry-over in periods of high customer demand
In measuring the current state process, the target mean was established at 24 hours with an upper specification limit of 48 hours. These parameters were based upon client service contractual obligations. The process was measured with a mean of 79 hours, a standard deviation of 32 hours and a resultant DPMO of 822,000.
Ninety-six percent of the process variability resided in three areas. Those main drivers were:
- Initial opening of the mail orders and separating of payment tenders
- Hand-off from mail room staff to call center to key in the mail orders
- Order release process once the order has been keyed
Utilizing an improvement technique, IRI held a work session to confirm/facilitate the solution design of the process. The three main solutions from the session included:
- Increased process and agent performance management
- Improvement in the technology to streamline the hand-off
- Eliminating bureaucracy in the release process
The action steps outlined in the session will yield improvements of a total process cycle time mean of 22 hours, standard deviation of 9 hours, and a DPMO of 14,300. The action items identified will take 9 months to implement and institutionalize. For access to the full case study including the identified action steps, please contact sales at (630) 775-3300.
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