implementing process improvement into electronic reserves
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This article was downloaded by: [Stony Brook University]On: 22 October 2014, At: 01:40Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Interlibrary Loan, DocumentDelivery & Electronic ReservePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wild20
Implementing Process Improvement intoElectronic ReservesCameron K. Tuai MLIS, MBA aa University of Notre Dame , 1320 East 10th Street, LI 011,Bloomington, IN, 47405-3907, USAPublished online: 16 Oct 2008.
To cite this article: Cameron K. Tuai MLIS, MBA (2006) Implementing Process Improvement intoElectronic Reserves, Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve, 16:4,113-124, DOI: 10.1300/J474v16n04_12
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J474v16n04_12
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Implementing Process Improvementinto Electronic Reserves:
A Case Study
Cameron K. Tuai
SUMMARY. Process improvement is a managerial technique that seeksto improve both the activities within a workflow and the workflow itself.To do this, we first identify which value the process should create and thenoptimize activities against this defined value. It then seeks to improve theoverall workflow by increasing efficiencies and removing inefficienciesfrom the organization of these activities. The University of Notre DameLibraries recently finished its third of three process improvement projects.All three of these cases were conducted within the constraints of limitedresources and little administrative support. Electronic reserves were iden-tified as one of the best environments for such an implementation. Thispaper will discuss both the theory of process improvement, and the in-sights garnered from the implementations at Notre Dame in order to ex-
Cameron K. Tuai, MLIS, MBA, is Assistant Librarian, University of Notre Dame,1320 East 10th Street, LI 011, Bloomington, IN 47405-3907 (E-mail: [email protected]).
The author would like to thank the staff members who helped make process im-provement successful, including: Jean, Laurie, Pam, Pat, Belinda, Leigh, Clara, David,Cindi, Susanna, Sheila, Lori, and Ken.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Implementing Process Improvement into Electronic Reserves: ACase Study.” Tuai, Cameron K. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document De-livery & Electronic Reserve (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 16,No. 4, 2006, pp. 113-124; and: Marketing and Managing Electronic Reserves (ed: Trevor A. Dawes) TheHaworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 113-124. Single or mul-tiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service[1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].
http://jildd.haworthpress.com© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J474v16n04_12 113
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plain why these factors contributed to making electronic reserves a goodcandidate for process improvement. doi:10.1300/J474v16n04_12 [Articlecopies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Web-site: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. Allrights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Process improvement, electronic reserves, reserves, leanthinking, case study
INTRODUCTION
In 2004, the University of Notre Dame Libraries finished its third ofthree process improvement projects. All three of these cases were con-ducted within the constraints of limited resources and little administra-tive support. Electronic reserves were identified as one of the bestenvironments for such an implementation. This conclusion was basedupon a number of factors. First, the capacity and flexibility of the Elec-tronic reserves work processes were coming under increasing stressesdue to patron and technological demands. Second, the number of activi-ties that composed the process was relatively small. Last, there was adesire by the unit supervisor to try to improve the efficiency of the unit’sprocesses. This paper will discuss both the theory of process improve-ment, and the insights garnered from the implementations at NotreDame in order to explain why these factors contributed to making Elec-tronic reserves a good candidate for process improvement. The Univer-sity of Notre Dame is a private university with approximately 8,300undergrads and 3,100 graduate students. In 2003-2004, Reserves em-ployed 4.0 full-time staff, filled approximately 175,000 patron requestswith 12,000 paper and 5,600 electronic documents on reserve.
The literature on process improvement claims that most, if not all,workflows can be improved using process improvement techniques.While this may seem ambitious, there does seem to be some truth in thisstatement. Previous to the Electronic reserves implementation, twoother process improvement projects had been implemented, in interli-brary loan Lending and in Serials Acquisitions. In all three units, somelevels of inefficiency were discovered. Yet to date, one project has beencompleted, one abandoned, and one only partially implemented. There-fore, while it seems that most processes have some level of inefficiency,
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identification does not seem to be the sole criteria for success. In exam-ining the cases at Notre Dame, it could be argued that one of the essen-tial factors in implementing process improvement was the carefulconsideration of goals. While many for-profit organizations may con-sider maximization of efficiency the end goal of process improvement,this was not the primary goal, or for that matter, the secondary goal, inany of the three implementations at Notre Dame.
GOAL SETTING
For people who are interested in process improvement the most im-portant resource they will start with is goodwill. In order to leverage thisasset, there must be a strong relationship between goodwill and thegoals of the project. Goodwill, unlike other types of power, such as re-wards or formal authority, is based on personal transactions and not onthe transfer of power through the organization. Therefore, in order tomaximize goodwill, the goals of the project need to be focused on thosedirectly involved and not necessarily on the organization itself. Giventhese conditions, the following two goals were used for the process im-provement projects at Notre Dame:
1. Perceived improvement in job quality.2. Quick implementation.
The first goal recognizes that the staff is the number one priority ofthe project. The second goal acknowledges the investigator’s goodwillis limited and that at a certain point it runs out. It should be noted that aquantifiable measure of success was also initially one of the goals. Thispaper recommends against quantification for two reasons. First, thosewho have been effected by process improvement will either perceive animprovement or not, with or without statistical evidence. Second, wedetermined that productivity in small units is difficult to measure be-cause of the volatility of their throughput. This volatility is partially dueto the normal ebb and flow of the school semester but it can also be at-tributed to the fact that vacations, sick time, and other employee ab-sences can have a significant impact on productivity. This volatilitymeans that data would need to be gathered over a long period of timebefore any changes attributable to the process improvement could beidentified. Given these circumstances, plus the constantly changing
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technological environment, the initial enthusiasm for gathering statis-tics is quickly lost.
EDUCATION
Education of both the project leader and those who are involved inthe process will play a large role in determining the success of a processimprovement project. On the one hand, it is the project leaders who needto be able to answer line staff concerns regarding the costs and benefitsof the project, but it is the line staff that will help both identify possibleimprovements to the process as well as vetting those that have alreadybeen identified. As process improvement is explained, we should em-phasize that it is not the employee who is inefficient; rather it is the ac-tion or the process that is inefficient. In other words, employees areworking efficiently at something that is in itself inefficient.
While the education process will largely consist of explaining thesteps involved in process improvement, some time should also be spentin discussing its history. The discussion of where process improvementoriginates will address the initial concerns of the applicability of pro-cess improvement in a library setting. Process improvement has beenapplied successfully to every type of organization. Looking specificallyat libraries, a quick search of the American Library Association’s website reveals numerous implementations ranging from Heckman Binderyto the University of Arizona Libraries. Process improvement is a maturemanagerial technique whose roots can be traced back to 1945 and themanufacturing experiments of Dr. W. Edwards Deming in Japan. Themost widely cited examples of a process improvement implementationare in the manufacturing techniques employed by the Toyota Manufac-turing Group. Many of the techniques used in process improvement andimplemented at Notre Dame come directly from the work done at Toy-ota Manufacturing.
There were numerous techniques that have spun off from Deming’soriginal theory. The University of Notre Dame used a technique called“Lean Thinking” which was developed by authors James P. Womackand Daniel T. Jones.1 This book is a necessary read for those who areconsidering a process improvement implementation. During the courseof the three implementations at Notre Dame, the phrase “Lean Think-ing” was never used, rather the more generic term “process improve-ment” was substituted. The rationale for this decision, on advice from
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the Library Director, was that library employees are generally wary ofmanagerial techniques with “managerial names.” Consequently, the la-bel of “Lean Thinking” was discarded in favor of the more generic termof “process improvement.”
Lean Thinking is partially based on the premise that, over time, inef-ficiencies will creep into a workflow due to the fragmentation of theoriginal process and the unwitting retention of outdated practices. Tocorrect these problems, Lean Thinking examines the workflow’s activi-ties, and the sequence in which these activities are connected. In allthree cases, examined at Notre Dame, inefficiencies were identified atboth the action and the process level. The technique of Lean Thinking iscomposed of the following five steps:
1. Specify Value2. Identify the Value Stream3. Flow4. Pull5. Perfection
In the case studies at Notre Dame, only the first three steps werefound to be applicable within a library environment. Pull, a techniquethat advocates that nothing should be produced till a direct order “pulls”it through the system, was attempted in all three cases but it was deter-mined to be more applicable in a manufacturing environment. Whileperfection, a type of continual improvement technique involved anopen-ended commitment, that conflicted with the goal of quick imple-mentation.
IMPLEMENTING: SPECIFY VALUE
Ideally, the first step in a process improvement project is to determinewhat value the process should produce. Once we arrive at this defini-tion, the activities that constitute the process can be thought of in termsof how they contribute to value creation. Lean Thinking breaks activi-ties into three types:
1. Activities that create value.2. Activities that are necessary but do not create value.3. Activities that create no value.
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If a simple value statement for the Electronic reserves unit was “Tomake reserves materials available to the university community” then:
1. The scanning of articles into the reserves module creates value be-cause it makes materials available to the university community.
2. The transportation of materials up to photocopying center, whilenecessary, does not create value. Therefore, it should be mini-mized if not eliminated.
3. The keeping of statistics never creates value and is rarely necessary.In fact, during the case studies there were numerous instanceswhere statistics were being generated for no apparent reason.
The statement of value, besides its role in parsing the efficiency of theprocess, should also serve as an easy early win point because most unitswithin the library have well defined roles. While the determination ofvalue helps with the eventual identification of inefficient steps, it is inthe mapping of the value stream where the actual activities are identi-fied, and the process as a whole begins to be understood.
IMPLEMENTING: IDENTIFY THE VALUE STREAM
Having identified what value is being created by the process, the nextstep is to investigate and map the activities that compose it. Mapping theprocess serves several purposes. First, it familiarizes the project leaderwith the details of the process. Second, it will be used to improve boththe workflow activities and their organization. Last, it builds goodwillby allowing the investigator to spend a substantial amount of time witheach staff member.
In the case studies at Notre Dame, the mapping of process activitiesconsumed a one months time. The mapping was done in Microsoft’sflowcharting software, Visio. Several other flowcharting software pack-ages are available on the web as freeware that can easily handle the task.The mapping of an employee’s processes followed a common pattern.The mapping process begins with an initial interview with the unit’smanager. The purpose of this interview is to get an overview of how theindividual line staff fit into the process. It was also found that the directquestion of “what do you think is inefficient” flushed out numerous po-tential targets for improvement. Beginning with the first person in theprocess, we began to map their work activities. The trick with mapping
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is to strike a medium between too much detail and not enough. In theideal situation, the map will allow the project leader to understand theemployees concerns regarding changes to their workflows while notcreating excess detail. An example within Electronic reserves was:
A listing of all paper reserves were kept in a series of publicly ac-cessible binders. This information was duplicated in the onlinepublic access reserves module. A recommendation was made todiscontinue the binder. Staff members stated that these bindersserved multiple purposes of which informing the public was onlyone.
A process map should allow the project leader to place the additionaluses for the binder within the context of the overall workflow. If the pro-cess map was not detailed enough, the project leader will not be able toask the questions necessary to fully understand the staff’s concerns.Conversely, if the map was too detailed, the time spent in creating themap will detract from the goal of quick implementation.
The mapping process typically involves three iterations. The first it-eration will involve the creation of a preliminary map based upon inter-views with line staff. In the second iteration, the map will be proofed forcorrections and additions. The last iteration ensures that the map cor-rectly represents an overview of the work process. In mapping, payclose attention to the points where the process changes hand. Also, keepan eye open for steps that do not directly contribute to the defined value.To assist in the search for the different types of inefficient activities,Toyota Manufacturing has enumerated a series of seven potential activ-ities, called waste, that typically contribute little value to a process.They include:
1. Overproduction2. Transportation3. Unnecessary Inventory4. Inappropriate Processing5. Waiting6. Excess Motion7. Defects
The seven wastes, in combination with the statement of value, willprovide a powerful tool for locating inefficient activities.
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Locating inefficient activities is only one aspect of process improve-ment. As mentioned earlier, how a process is organized is also how itcan become inefficient. In Lean Thinking, this view of a process iscalled “Flow.”
IMPLEMENTING: FLOW
While eliminating or modifying individual activities will provide in-cremental improvements in efficiency, the opportunity for dramatic im-provements can generally only be achieved by modifying the entireprocess itself. To do this, the project leader must attempt to make theprocess “flow,” which is summarized by the phrase “single piece inte-grated production.” The advantage of the processing system is that itblends the efficiency of an assembly line with the flexibility of customordering. In Electronic reserves, a process would result in the practice ofnon-stop processing of a single request from start to finish. In contrast toflow processing is the more common batch and queue processing. AtNotre Dame, batch and queuing was found in all, or part of all, pro-cesses investigated. To understand why flow processing has the poten-tial to be more efficient than a batch and queue process, it is necessary tounderstand the dynamics of the batch and queue system.
The rationale behind a batch and queue system can be explained fromboth the individual activity level and the process level. Turning first tothe activity level, batch and queuing is primarily used to save time inset-ups. For example, in Electronic reserves, the retrieving of print ma-terials was organized into a batch and queue system. Materials that re-quired retrieval from the stacks were queued up into batches that wereretrieved twice daily. The efficiency was that for every book batchedinto the queue one less trip was required to retrieve material. At the pro-cess level, batch and queuing is used to take advantage of the efficien-cies inherent in job specialization. An example of this from Electronicreserves was that one employee was trained to do the initial processingwhile another was trained to do scanning and mounting.
While the batch and queue system is an efficient method under cer-tain circumstances, Womack, in discussing flow, states:
But we all need to fight departmentalized, batch thinking becausetasks can almost always be accomplished much more efficientlyand accurately when the product is worked on continuously fromraw material to finished good. (Womack, p. 22)
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He then goes on to say,
The most basic problem is that flow thinking is counterintuitive; itseems obvious to most people that work should be organized bydepartments in batches. (Womack, p. 23)
These statements proved true in all of the case studies conducted atNotre Dame. While the correction of inefficient steps within a processare reasonably easy to justify, the reconfiguration of the entire processaway from a batch and queue system to a flow system was more chal-lenging. The difficulty in selling flow-processing is that until recentlymany of the library’s processes were best served using a batch andqueue system. This fact may no longer hold true.
In observing the case studies at Notre Dame, we observed that nu-merous inefficient activities and processes could be traced back to uni-versal changes within processed materials. These two changes are:
1. Exceptions to the normal workflow were becoming increasinglycommon.
2. Computerization of activities was outpacing job descriptions.
These two factors had two different effects:
• The rise in exceptions to normal workflows results in a higherlevel of inefficiencies within the batch and queue process.
• The fact that position descriptions were not keeping pace with au-tomation resulted in a less than optimal organization of jobs.
As mentioned above, Electronic reserves split its processing into ini-tial processing and scanning/mounting. As part of the workflow, a workorder is attached that includes a basic who, what, and when. Under nor-mal circumstances, the time saved in using a batch and queue process isgreater than the time lost in creating this paperwork. The caveat is under“normal” circumstances. If a patron places an item on reserve that doesnot fit the normal workflow a chain of additional costs are incurred:
1. Paperwork must be customized so that the next person in the pro-cess understands the extra steps that he needs to take.
2. The probability of an error occurring will increase because the in-formation transmitted differs from the norm.
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3. Additional checks and balances are created in order to guardagainst making an error and catching it if it does occur.
Taken together, these three points can combine to nullify the efficien-cies of the batch and queue system. If too many orders need to be cus-tomized, it is almost easier to do the job yourself rather than to pass it tothe next person in line. This takes us back to the idea of flow processing,namely, “single piece integrated production”–one person starting andcompleting a request from start to finish. While this situation creates theincentive to initiate a flow process, it is technology that makes it possi-ble.
In investigating the cases at Notre Dame, we noticed that changes intechnology were dramatically improving the productivity of the staff inall of the three units. This productivity was reflected in both an increasein the number of repetitions that could be performed as well as an in-crease in the variety of tasks. While through-put was optimized, thenumber of tasks assigned to each staff member generally failed to takeadvantage of the technology. Inefficient use of technology provided anopportunity to increase efficiencies by broadening the scope of eachstaff member’s job. In the case studies, this scope was increased to thepoint where each staff member could perform the entire process withinhis own personal workflow. This flexibility in combination with in-creased demand for customized processes is what makes flow-process-ing possible.
This paper will address when flow processing will be too difficult forthe average librarian to implement. A process improvement implemen-tation was unsuccessfully tried in the Serials Acquisitions unit. This im-plementation was unsuccessful for two reasons. First, their processeshad historically contained a high level of one-time projects and custom-ized work requests. This level of customization meant that a large num-ber of processes had already been organized around the idea of “singlepiece integrated production.” Second, workflows extended across a rel-atively large number of positions in contrast to the shorter workflowswithin interlibrary loan lending and Electronic reserves. The difficultyin having long workflows is that, unless there is a high level of coordi-nation between positions, materials will not flow evenly between work-ers and bottlenecks will occur. In process improvement, this situation isavoided by employing a technique called “tact time.” Unfortunately,this analysis requires resources and expertise beyond most librarians.One way to avoid tact time analyses is to compress the entire processinto one position. In this situation, bottlenecks will never occur because
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a single person can always coordinate their own processes. While thiscould be done within the shorter workflows of interlibrary loan Lendingand Electronic reserves, it could not be done in the lengthier processesof Serials Acquisition.
Some last thoughts on the creation of a flow process. First, if thecompression of an entire process within one job description is not feasi-ble, one work around is to attempt to divide the process into productlines. In interlibrary loan lending, workflows were too complex to com-bine into a single position so we decided to split the process into serialsand monographs. If this method is used, staff should be cross-trained inboth positions in order to even out irregularities in workflows. Second,be aware that job classification issues may arise when employees areasked to perform a greater number of tasks. Be up front about this factand resolve any issues regarding classification during the educationprocess. In Electronic reserves, the issue of re-classification came uplate in the process and implementation was stalled indefinitely. Last, be-cause flow processing gives the workers more control over the process,they will derive a greater sense of satisfaction from their jobs. We foundevidence of this phenomenon in Electronic reserves. Several months af-ter the recommendations had been made, we found that night staff hadmoved their batch and queue processing to flow processing despite theongoing effort to reclassify positions. In addition, the workers in chargeof initial processing were being cross-trained on scanning and integrat-ing this into their workflows. Therefore, while the administration mayhave held up formal implementation, once the staff had been introducedto the benefits of flow processing, implementation seemed to move for-ward regardless of this barrier.
CONCLUSION
Process improvement is a managerial technique that seeks to im-prove both the activities within a workflow and the workflow itself. Todo this, it first identifies what value the process should be creating andthen optimizes activities against this defined value. It then seeks to im-prove the overall workflow by increasing efficiencies and removing in-efficiencies from the organization of these activities. Improvement tohow the workflow is organized is done using a technique called “flow.”In flow analyses the existing workflow is examined against the ideal of“single piece integrated production.” From the case studies conductedat Notre Dame, we determined that given a limited amount of resources
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and expertise, it was possible to implement flow processing into rela-tively small units like Electronic reserves or interlibrary loan Lending.This observation is based upon three facts:
1. Process improvement is applicable in all types of organizationsincluding library units such as E-Reserve.
2. Inefficiency exists in all units within a library that has not alreadyundergone a previous process improvement project.
3. Underutilized technological capacity can be substituted for com-plex numeric analyses.
In summary, process improvement is a relatively quick and simplemanagerial technique that has a good chance of yielding significant im-provements within most electronic reserves units. While this can par-tially be attributed to the technique itself, perhaps a greater determinantis the fact that process improvement is employee centered versus orga-nizationally centered. In an environment where change comes slowly, alibrarian who can look an employee in the eye and answer the “what’s init for me” question, can not help but increase their chances of success.
REFERENCE
1. James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and CreateWealth in Your Corporation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).
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