Case study: Process Mapping Pilot Project to document retail logistics processes to identify and address bottlenecks. This pilot would also demonstrate the value of VizPro® for further application.

Enterprise: South African FMCG retailer that is expanding and rolling out shops in other African countries.

Pétanque role: Delivered VizPro®

Duration: Positioning Map session of 1,5 hour + 2 full day Process Mapping workshops.

Scope: This retailer, needed to document processes that were still only in people’s heads, and also wanted to smoothen operations in support of the growing business. To determine whether VizPro® would be the right method to achieve this, we started a pilot project.

Our starting point was a Positioning Map session with the General Manager, in which we mapped the high level supply chain. The day after we reviewed and challenged this Positioning Map in a work session with participants from 3 different departments, made changes, and added where needed. We then identified the most critical processes with burning points, and continued to map three of these ‘burning’ processes. We also listed actions for process improvement related to the positioning map.

As the participants’ day-to-day activities are in different areas, the workshop provided an excellent platform to share knowledge around the process related to their function. This broke down the wall between the departments with immediate results: “I learned much more than I learned in the past years, I now know how I must consider the Export department” as a workshop participant from Planning department indicated afterwards.

Unpacking the processes clarified issues and showed that specific process elements actually consist of many steps with complications that impact on various departments. Unpacking the processes addressed all these implications and clarified the importance of identifying the who, what and when to the role-players.

The drivers for change are the actions listed in the Action Lists: the issues are identified and it indicates what must be done, by whom and when: “We’ve talked about the actions a lot before, but now it’s on paper and someone has been made responsible to take action and agreed to it. To me this has been really valuable.”

This project has confirmed the value of VizPro® as a process documentation and analysis tool, and the retailer was pleased with the outcomes: “This is definitely a methodology that can assist us in further documenting of processes, to structure roll-out in the African countries.”
 
Deliverables:

• 1 Positioning Map
• 2 Process Maps version 2
• 1 Process Map version 1
• 27 actions for improvement assigned

Application: The Action Lists will now be the main drivers to improve the bottlenecks in the process, and the maps serve as documentation of the process, capturing institutional knowledge and providing a platform for improved practice development. The information will be available to other role-players and clarify roles, gaps and opportunities for improvement to all users.

Benefit: In just 2 days we provided a platform for discussion of items that were long overdue and marked them as actions; and captured knowledge and improved processes in visually attractive step by step format. These maps have given the participants insights into the processes during the work sessions, and will continue to do so for people that try to understand the process at a later stage.