Canada Post Corporation retained decision analysis partners to conduct an evaluation of its Toronto South’s video encoding center which had been performing at levels of productivity and quality below corporate targets. The dap team identified the following probable causes:
- Staff planning at the workcenter level,
- Encoding operations scheduling and alignment to upstream workcenters,
- User training,
- Encoding supervisory oversight,
- Management and supervisory reporting, and
- System design/configuration.
Our team collaborated closely with plant management and corporate staff to obtain essential operational data. This data was used first to establish a productivity baseline and to estimate internal costs. The baseline was used to justify the need for a productivity/quality improvement plan.
A root cause analysis of video encoding problems was performed to identify the sources of under-performance using a structured approach developed and tested for identical performance studies. The approach is business driven and seeks to identify primary and secondary causes of degradation categorized into People, Processes, or Technology.
The dap team delivered detailed and specific recommendations regarding video encoding to the client in the areas of staff planning and scheduling, performance reporting, cross-check analysis, management, training and systems.
