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What Are You Missing?

3 April, 2016 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Waiting Room

I have to manage your expectations It is a horrible phrase. I hate it when somebody says to me. It means that I am not going to get what I want when I want it. I am being softened up. There is going to be a delay. Suddenly I am thrown into the cost or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, innovation, medicine, queue, TED talks, waiting

Rule 2: Don’t Make Your Customers Wait

14 June, 2015 by James Lawther 10 Comments

Head in the Sand

Why leave them waiting? If your customers are phoning you, texting you, mailing you and some have even gone to the lengths of visiting you and are standing there looking at you, then it is a fair bet that they want something. Rule 1 is to prioritise the work, but prioritising it isn’t enough, you can […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: abandon rate, cost of poor quality, customer behaviour, customer focus, gemba, queue, surge capacity

There is Always a Bottleneck

8 September, 2012 by James Lawther 3 Comments

Airport Check In

All processes have a bottle neck, a rate limiting step.  Something that holds them back.  There is always a bottleneck. Maybe it’s the neck of the bottle: Maybe it’s the speed of the pump: Maybe it’s the width of the falls: Maybe it’s even the lack of rain: But there is always a bottleneck or […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: backlog, bottleneck, queue, waiting

The Worst Thing That Can Happen in a Call Centre

1 May, 2012 by James Lawther 2 Comments

How bad can a day in a service centre get? Let’s be honest, nobody is going to die, not unless they are spectacularly unlucky and trip over a trailing cable What does a bad day look like? A bad day looks like this: Your colleagues in Marketing or IT or Pricing do something stupid to […]

Filed Under: Blog, Tools & Techniques, Wild Cards Tagged With: abandon rate, average handle time, bullwhip effect, call centre, capacity planning, queue

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