How to Plan for the DMAIC Approach Gain buy-in of leadership Appoint team Members with variety of skills & experience Some who know the process to be studied and will implement the new process Some who don’t know the process and have no bias Someone who has clout to get buy-in from the top People who have strengths on different parts of DMAIC Questioners, learners openness to change Formal in-depth training is key Consultant availability helps Define Establish a compelling reason for improving the process; clearly describe the actual situation and the goals for improvement Analyze Make sense of the data and use it to discover root causes of delay, waste, poor quality, and high costs Improve Generate, pilot and implement solutions that address the root causes and improve quality, manage or reduce costs, and are acceptable to the larger organization Measure Factually understand the problems; collect and display data that will narrow the range of potential causes Control sustain and control process performance, now and in the future DMAIC This is an iterative process. You may need to repeat a previous step or steps as new issues arise. You Want Your ILL When? Abstract: Document Delivery Team studied the article borrowing process for improvement using the DMAIC method. When to use DMAIC? Where variation in product or service quality is hurting your customer relationship When costs no longer sustainable When measures suggest the use of control charts or other data analysis tools will help identify the current process capability and the cause of problems How DMAIC was implemented at the U of A: Buy-in: Budget /staffing reductions, new work, organizational focus quality and customers Training: Some former experience; identification of need for organizational competence—in depth training PIR Group volunteers —formed as a resource team—skills and abilities we identified Selection of projects—proposals evaluated by leadership Selection of first project —ability to be successful/ data available, buy in on improvement needed

DDT: Define Phase Problem high average cost per request with an anticipated increase in ILL article borrowing request due to serial cuts Customers want a shorter turn-around-time Objective decrease turn-around-time with no cost increase Parameters focus on borrowing journal articles no additional staff added to process DDT: Measure Phase Review capabilities of existing systems and what data can be extracted Negotiate with vendors to get the data you need Collect data manually where there are gaps Statistical Process Control (SPC) Charts point to areas needing further analysis DDT – Control Phase New Quality Standard: 80% of journal article requests will be filled in 3 days. Check progress monthly using XmR charts and Histogram to point to process problems. Monthly team meetings to review data and reinforce the importance of the quality standard. Review changes that need to be made internally. Update training documentation as needed. Future: Plan for customer satisfaction survey in Fall Lending process: Applied root cause analysis to evaluate not meeting turnaround time quality standards in this process. DDT: Improvement Phase Used ‘down-time’ of existing evening and weekend library staff for searching and electronic delivery of articles Replaced student employees with full time and temporary staff for searching Added additional hours for searching evenings and weekends Negotiating with lenders to staff on weekends Encourage lenders to use ODYSSEY scanning software -- eliminates a step in receiving electronic articles process -- direct from lender to customer DDT: Analyze Phase Tool: Pareto of root causes Evening and weekend lag time for electronic delivery of articles (29% of cause) Evening and weekend lag time for searching article requests (26% of cause) Lender Staffing evening and weekend processing lag (18% of cause) Training on the process related to choosing best ISSN to match Rapid holdings (6% of cause) Problem searching lag (4% of cause) DMAIC is an iterative process Searching staff canceled 10% of article requests as owned by our library Examined further and discovered we actually held 25% of requested articles Pointed to new problem our customers and staff have difficulty interpreting our catalog -- need to investigate Right Now? UA Libraries’ Project: ILL Journal Article Delivery