The situation
Netwatch was delivering a good service level, but not scaling at the pace it wanted. It had invested in its platform, sales were bringing in more business, and scaling was labour-intensive. It needed to absorb new activity without adding people, by freeing the capacity of its highly skilled staff.
It set three goals: improve capacity measures to meet business KPIs, starting from a baseline; build its people’s understanding of Lean, so teams decided what to do next rather than being told; and give teams the skills to solve problems where they arise.
The approach
Netwatch worked with Expertivity three times over three years:
- First: team workshops to map processes, Lean training, and a priority matrix to decide what to do, in what order, and what not to do.
- Second: Expertivity joined a Leadership and Management Programme Netwatch was running with UCC, with Enterprise Ireland support, so teams solved real workplace problems as part of the course.
- Third: a data-modelling project to match the roster in the Communications Hub to activity levels, smoothing the peaks and troughs.
Teams solved problems with Plan-Do-Check-Act on single A3 sheets, which they kept in a binder they called their “Book of Goodness”.
The measured result
- Market engagement grew without adding labour, and without reducing the workforce.
- Capacity freed up, while people’s day-to-day experience improved and workload became more predictable.
- Results showed before the second engagement ended, and became self-sustaining by the end of the third.
- The UCC leadership group returned the cost of its course within a year.
- New revenue came in without adding cost, and the business could invest in new markets.
What the client said
When someone gets through the Lean journey, they change their mindset in subtle ways that they would never have believed at the outset.
Expertivity understood from the start how the work needed to fit in with our business objectives.
Wendy Hamilton, SVP Global Operations, Netwatch