Reduced Schedule Case Study

Background:

A significant program was behind schedule in the engineering design phase of the program.  The program was threatened to be cancelled unless the design and manufacturing team was able to meet the critical milestones to suport "Critical Design Review" (CDR).  To date, the program was unsuccessful meeting previous milestones.  The program found itself in continuous coordination meetings between the organizations, and communication meetings with the customers.  The common complaint was "we spend all our time in meetings and not enough time working".

Approach: 

First step was to understand the current processes used to manage the programs and organizations.  It was determined that each organization was working to their own schedule and processes, with the intent of meeting program milestones.  The teams were unable to efficiently and effectively coordinate work at a detail level to smoothly execute.  Metrics typically lagged work, and management had little information to take corrective measures.  New processes and tools were developed and deployed. 

Implementation:

CBS WorkFlow employed L6S-PM™ to define a new set of business processes to coordinate work and measure results in a collaborative setting using CBS WorkFlow® tools.  Individual coordination meetings were reduced and integrated into the new set of business process known as "WorkFlow" meetings.  Issues preventing work from being completed on time were collected, and root cause and corrective actions were taken.   The design teams were trained in a new set of buisness process and tools as part of "doing the job".   

Results:

The program met all of their milestones.  Meeting times were reduced by over 50% and in some cased as much as 75%.  Teams ability to meet "Commitment Reliability" increased from under 50% to over 80%.  The customer commented "this is the best I've seen the program execute since being assigned to this program 3 years ago".