1. Application of Designed Experiments in determining achievable work standards Dave Stewardson 1, Matt Linsley 1 1 Industrial Statistics Research Unit, University of Newcastle Rositsa Dimova 2 2 Sofia University “ Sv. Kl. Ohridski”

2. This presentation was partly supported from the “Growth” programme of the European Community and was prepared in collaboration by member organisations of the Thematic Network - Pro-Enbis - EC contract number G6RT-CT-2001-05059."

3. Aim: Demonstrate the use of Designed Experiments (DoE) in a business process setting. Most reported systematic experimental plans have been used in:  agriculture  biotechnology  pharmaceuticals  industrial processes  new product development  engineering but...

4. ...there have been few examples of experiments relating to the pure business processes such as:  selling  marketing  cash-flow  human information flows

5. Examples of benefits Claim by one American Company - they have increased sales of a magazine,‘The National Enquirer’, by 30% using Factorial experiments ISR have used DoE to optimise strategies for commercial account collection & telephone sales

6. Experimental scope application of a 3 2 full factorial design Aim - to set performance standards for handling of large volumes of data under a newly designed data input process.

7. How? required the testing of different work instructions, for staff with varying experience levels, in order to achieve: –Maximum data entry speed without compromising input accuracy.

8. Organisation involved responsible for the processing of all medical prescriptions issued by General- Practitioners (Doctors) throughout England. constant need to update and improve the efficiency of the processing itself

9. New process Recently, decided to split part of the data input and pricing work into a number of sub-processes. –some of the simpler more repetitive tasks to be performed by less experienced staff, including new recruits. –need to know that data input accuracy levels could be improved (or at least maintained), while speeding the input of vast volume of work.

10. Important questions Will instructing staff to go fast... –reduce accuracy levels? Will new, rapidly trained, staff... – cope with the work?

11. Main objectives to discover...  The expected speed & accuracy of initial input-data for staff of varying experience.  The effect on speed & accuracy of different initial instructions to staff.  Achievable target performance levels for both speed & accuracy.  A test procedure for assessing the speed & accuracy of potential new staff.  A procedure for monitoring accuracy & speed levels during operation.

12. Instructions were either –Concentrate on speed (1) –Concentrate on accuracy (-1) –Concentrate on Both (0) Experience denotes: – PPA staff (1) – HBD staff (0) – Agency Staff (-1)

13. Nature of experiment design 3 people of each ‘experience’ level were chosen for the trials, all capable people. trials were conducted over a week following initial training.

14. Response variables The measured outputs were: –Speed (forms per hour) –% Accuracy Considered over time, not just average.

15. Nature of Work Work is presented in batches Selected randomly Batches differ in size

20. Results Input speed did generally improve over time regardless of experience level, but accuracy did not. No certain correlation between speed and accuracy levels. Observed differences in outputs are due to the instructions, level of experience and, in the case of speed, time on the job.

23. Speed Performance standards

24. Performance Standards Accuracy

25. Findings Speed is affected by instructions but experience dominates accuracy. There is little between PPS and HBD staff on accuracy Mention of speed in instructions is important for achieving outputs.

26. Findings (continued) we now have models for predicting speed and accuracy given any combination of instructions and experience. new process is feasible and does not adversely affect accuracy new-starter performance standards have been set

27. …and most importantly provides an example of the use of a designed experiment involving human performance.