A Systematic Approach to Process Improvement:

e-resources at Emory

Lars MeyerChuck Spornick

Emory University LibrariesNov 5, 2010

Change in University Administration

Why eResources?

$5M in annual

expenditures

E-resources are

important to faculty &

students

More than 40 staff

involved in process

End-to-end process not

formally documente

d

Stakeholders

Customers – External & Internal

Vendors

Staff

Sponsors

Project Scope

Report to Associate Vice Provost

WoodruffBusiness Lib.Health Sciences Lib.

Report exclusively to Dean of school

Spend

• Over 90% is with Woodruff and HSL

Business Tools

Systems approac

h

SIPOC

Process

Mapping

Traditionally

Libraries have been good at counting what and how many

Creating policies and procedure manuals

Can’t see the whole end-to-end process

Principles In Our Approach

Focus on the Customer• External• Internal

Inclusion• More than 40

staff

Transparency• Groups• All process

participant mtg.

• documentation

SIPOC: Foundation of Our Approach

Suppliers

• Vendors (internal and external)

• Infrastructure (computer systems)

Inputs• Requests• What triggers a process

Processes• Core processes cut

across units

Outputs• Products• Services

Customers• External• Internal

Systems approach to work

SIPOC

Our Approach: Process and Purpose

Process: select, acquire and manage e‐resources, i.e. end‐to‐end process

Purpose: to provide reliable and timely access to electronic materials to support research, teaching, and patient care at Emory

Our Approach: High Level Process Mapping

Major steps

• Handoffs• Feedback

loops

Who

• Who does what

• 85/15 rule

Emory’s methodology

Process map: high level - decide / approve

Process begins with Select Decide Approve License Process ends with

Subject Liaisons CMTAG / ElCoDe Licensors / ECR Outputs Customers

Requests from faculty, students and staff

Purchase decision form ECR Team

1

2

3

Parking lot:

Handoffs 1. single titles are not prioritized and placed at bottom of pile

1 Request Form (CMTAG or ElCoDe) 2. form is lacking info needed by ECR, cataloging, and accounting

2 Feedback 3. no formal process to review at renewal time

3 Purchase decision form 4. when invoice is received we have less than 1 month to respond/decide

5. no current way to notify campus/libraries of cancellations at renewal time

6. no formalized way to seek/use collaborative funding

8. communication between libraries needs improvement

9. This process does not fully reflect the decision process of other libraries. It could be good to identify the similarities and processes for the professional school libraries. Can Woodruff learn from the simpler processes? Are the professional schools the same or different? For instance, are GBL and Law similar because they each buy non-academic databases. How different is GBL because they purchase rights for alumni?

7. libselectors-l is not inclusive for other libraries need to explore expanding to allow for more communication during moving beyond projects

Reviewrequest

Identifyfunding

Requestapproved and

form submitted to Licensing

Prepare Request Form

Assign staff member to

license

Process map: detailed workflow

• Capture all the steps in sequence

• Structured: use of symbols

• Significant amount of effort to complete

Emory’s methodology

Start End

Process begins with:

Licensing Staff Authorized Signer

Licensor/Vendor E-Resources Staff Euclid Team Accounting Outputs Customers

Available Digital resource

GlossaryCMTAG - Collection Management Technology Advisory Group (Woodruff Library)Collection Management - Health library's decision teamECR = Electronic and Continuing Resources (Woodruff Library)EUCLID Team - maintains EUCLID; online catalogPURL - Persistent Uniform Resource Locator

Negotiate License License signed

License sent to Licensor for

invoicing/activation

Approved acquisition

request

Create,update,

communicate access points

Activateresource

Create Invoice

Determine if license

is required

FacultyStudentsStaffResearchersAccountingVendors

Completed Licenses

Bibliographic records

Order records

Paid invoices

Inputs from:CMTAGCollection ManagementVendorLicensor

Process: Licensing and making e-resources availablePurpose: to provide access to e-resources

Create bibs and order records in

EUCLID

Pay invoice

Approve/sign license

Send url for PURL creation Create

PURL

Problem Areas in Red Circles

"License sent to Licensor for invoicing/activation" - This box seems to describe a handoff. What task actually happens when the signed license is returned to the Licensing staff?

"Create, update, communicate access points" - A lot of tasks and work hours are reflected in this 'simple' rectangle. SFX, Metalib, DB@E entries, etc. Also included here would be troubleshooting (i.e. the Ask e-journals listserv), which is a considerable part of our work. Also, the work is continuous; creating the access points is just the beginning of the process

"Send url for PURL creation" (again seems to be a handoff) - we recommend that the E-Resources team takes over creation of the PURLS, thus eliminating this hand-off and allowing for a quicker process of creating access points .

"Pay Invoice" - Multiple arrows shown due to varying recipients of invoices. Can come via emory-eresources listserv, other email, paper, fax, etc. or liaisons. May go to Accounting first, or may go to e-resources staff first.

"Available Digital Resource" - E-resources staff find it difficult to maintain so many different access points. Users cannot do an integrated search as they may get different search results in EUCLID, eJournals@Emory, Databases@Emory, library web pages, discoverE, etc.

H2H1 H5/

I7

I6

H6

H4

I1

H3

I5

I3

I4

I2

HandoffsH1: CMTAG/Collection Management sends Licensing Staff approved request (form?)H2: License is not needed. Email sent to E-Resources StaffH3: Final negotiated license sent to authorized signer.H4: Signed license sent to Licensor/Vendor. Notification sent to E-Resources Staff.H5: E-Resources sends invoice to Accounting.H6: PURL request sent to Euclid Team.

InputsI1: Signed license returned to Licensing Staff.I2: Vendor sends final license to E-Resources staff.I3: Notification of invoice/renewal sent to E-Resources Staff.I4: Invoice sent to Accounting (input for Pay map).I5: Vendor activation notice emailed to E-Resources StaffI6: Euclid Team emails PURL to E-Resources Staff.I7: Notification of payment sent to E-Resources Staff.

End to end map:

End to end map:

What We Learned

Staff are deeply committed to the work; passionate about it

Difficult to talk about the work critically because it’s personal

We learned the value of focusing on handoffs and not individuals

Failures in the process are systemic; they are not the failure of an individual

Insight to systemic failures is found in the handoffs

Some staff feel that they can now make changes to how the work is done

Some of the work has been changed

What’s Happening Now

Roles & Responsibilities:investigation and recommendations

Documentation:investigation and recommendations

Phase 3

Works cited

Hamel, Gary. The Future of Management. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Library Press, 1997.

Scholtes, Peter. The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.

Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization . New York: Doubleday, 2006.

Resources

American Society of Quality. ASQ: Voice of Global Quality. Website. www.asq.com

Jude Heimel & Associates: Organization Transformation. http://www.judeheimel.com/