In the USA, it is (generally) a statewide policy for universities to maintain control of all non- consumable items worth more than $1,500. The College of Engineering, along with all other colleges at State University (SU), a public institution, is entrusted with state-owned assets. John Smith is the property manager for Engineering Buildings 1 and 2. He is responsible for the safeguard, tracking, and managing of assets, as specified in the State regulations. The departments housed in these buildings are:
* Industrial Engineering and Systems Science
* Electrical and Computer Engineering
* Engineering Technology
* Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering
* Civil and Environmental Engineering
All personnel at the College of Engineering are responsible for notifying Mr. Smith of any and all relocations of state-entrusted property assigned to them or otherwise in their possession. The college has a series of custodians specifically in charge of more than 5000 items spread across the engineering buildings. At the beginning of the year, they are given an inventory list of items which they must account for by the end of the fiscal year. During this period, they follow a series of “passes” in which people from the SU property office scan a specific tag placed on all the items that need to be accounted for. The fiscal year begins on August 1. The first pass is conducted during the first three months, the second pass is conducted during the next three months, and the final pass is done during the last six months. Any items not located during the first two passes are searched for in the third pass, which begins around February 1, at the beginning of the following semester. Items not located by the end of the year are reported to the police at the end of the fiscal year. These items may later be recovered or never be found. Items may also reach the end of their useful life and therefore must be discarded/recycled following strict guidelines set by the SU property office. Tracking of items is conducted using specific software installed on scanners that are taken across SU and its satellite campuses. After a scanning session, the data collected are uploaded to the computers and to their financial software system. Even though custodians are responsible for the safekeeping of these items, they are not held accountable for items that are declared lost at the end of the year. Thus, there is no sense of ownership or responsibility for strict tracking of items. Because of this issue, the SU property office has declared that it will now charge each department for the value of those items lost by that department at the end of the fiscal year. They suggested that any missing asset after the third pass will result in a 5-day notice to the related department to find it or report it. After the notice, the item will be reported lost/missing and the department will be charged the asset(s) cost and responsible to pay if the item is not recovered within the next two years. Moreover, the SU property office does not upload the data from the scanners on a daily basis; thus custodians experience a short delay in the retrieval of information. Besides, in the scanning system there is a section labeled “description” in which the purchasing department has the ability to write a small phrase that helps identify the asset. It is very important that the item contains a good description because scanners use this information to look for the items that were missed at the first pass. There are many items that cannot be identified based on their description because they have an ambiguous description or because they contain information of no use to the scanner.
The administration in the College of Engineering hired a Lean Six Sigma team to conduct a project to solve their problem. This project seeks to discover issues affecting the efficiency of the tracking process and recommend ways and technology to improve or streamline the process, which will result in better asset utilization and reduction in property loss, as a secondary effect. The approach will study the asset management system of the college. It will focus only on non-consumable items of a physical nature. The project will not focus on the financial aspects of the item management.
As a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, please answer the following questions (feel free to state any assumptions that might be necessary for you to address the following questions):
1. Identify the team members in this project and what fundamental knowledge they should bring to the process.
Project Manager (1): The project manager would be responsible for the overall management and governance of the College of Engineering. He will be responsible to assure that the all the team members are working as per their KPI’s & fulfill the demands towards the roles they have been offered. In terms of qualification the project manager would be holding any one of the industry standard project management certification (PMI or Prince2) and should be well aware about at least the six sigma methodologies.
Department SPOC (5): There would be a department SPOC established in order to take care of the complete end to end operations of their respective departments as mentioned below,
-Industrial Engineering and Systems Science
-Electrical and Computer Engineering
-Engineering Technology
-Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering
-Civil and Environmental Engineering
Asset & Purchase Manager (1): A role would be defined in the team in order to track the asset flow amongst all the department. The individual in this role would make sure that timely entry towards all the assets getting into a department & coming out is made into the spreadsheet he would be maintaining within his computer system. He would be in the dual role as to manage & keep an updated purchase report for all the assets purchased. The core responsibility of this role would be to make sure that the number assets at the start of the year should match with the number of assets towards the end of the fiscal year.
2. Based on the information in the case study, develop a Project Charter for this project.
3. Define the CTQ for the customers (internal and external) involved in this project.
4. Develop a SIPOC diagram for the high-level process based on your understanding of the problem.
5. Develop a process map for the asset management process.
6. Based on your process map, develop a VSM and identify the VA and NVA activities in the process.