Kanban as a Business Analysis Tool

A Case-study

Introduction

Clarinha Prado

• Consultant in business analysis and information technology.

• 20 years of experience in companies from various branches, mainly in the financial sector.

• Graduated in computer engineering, with postgraduate studies in business administration.

clarinha.prado@giganteconsultoria.com.br

Introduction

• Gigante Consultoria is a consulting company that works with:– Business Analysis– Project Management– System Analysis– Training

• This presentation refers to one of our projects, where we worked to improve the procurement process of one customer.

Objective

• Present the Kanban as a tool to support business analysis.

• Describe the introduction of Kanban in the procurement process of Poiesis – a Culture, Language and Literature Support Institute.

Agenda

Contextualization: • Description of the

company, the procurement area and

its process.

Problems Encountered:• Problems that

prompted the hiring of consultancy.

Suggested solution:• Suggested actions by

consulting.

Deployment of Kanban:• Stages of deployment,

key challenges, obtained results.

Conclusion:• Main conclusions and

recommendations.

Contextualization

Poiesis - Culture, Language and Literature Support Institute

• Where are we? São Paulo – state of Brazil.

SÃO PAULOArea: 248.209 km2

Population: 43.663.669 inhabitants

Poiesis - Culture, Language and Literature Support Institute

• Non-governmental organization, qualified by the State Government of São Paulo.

• Promotes socio-cultural and educational development, focused on project management in cultural spaces.

• Develops programs and research in cultural spaces geared to the training of students and the general public.

Poiesis - Culture, Language and Literature Support Institute

• Performs the management of 29 cultural units :– 21 Cultural workshops, – 5 Culture factories,– 2 Museums, – 1 Reading space.

• Responsible for making purchases for cultural spaces managed by Poiesis and to the headquarters of the Organization.

Approximate volume of 400 procurements/month.

Procurement Department

Procurement Department

Organizational structure:

Administrative Manager

Contract Manager

Procurement Manager

5 buyers 1 intern

Procurement Process

Receive Request

Assign Buyer

Quote or Negotiate

Get Signatures

Approve Purchase

Wait For Delivery

Validate Delivery

Request Payment

Draw Up A Contract

Motivation to Contract Business Analysis

Problems Faced by Poiesis

• Lack of transparency to solicitants.

• Process time consuming, complex and bureaucratic.

• Lack of clarity in the distribution of responsibilities.

• Lack of knowledge of business rules.

• Problems in the purchases prioritization.

• Uneven distribution of workload between buyers.

• Lack of management information.

The Business Analysis

The Business Analysis

• The consulting company Gigante held a job of diagnosing problems and proposal for improvements.

• Several actions were proposed to address the problems singled out, among them the introduction of a Kanban.

The Kanban Proposal

• Use the Kanban as a tool for:– Increase the transparency of the procurement

process. – Enable strategic management over acquisitions.– Control the flow of the department

purchases.– Optimize productivity quickly.

The Kanban Proposal

1st phase – Physical Kanban

Deployment of Kanban

1st phase – Physical Kanban

• Start: May 14, 2013.• Used for about 2 months.• Deployment steps:– Process modeling with managers.– Team training.– Monitoring the deployment.– Use of available materials: brown paper, masking

tape, post-its, A4 sheet.

1st phase – Physical Kanban

Identification of bottlenecks

Staff overload

Profile of purchases

1st phase – Physical Kanban

Non-instant availability resource

Capacity-constrained

resource

Manually Extracted Metrics

Board Customizations

• Suggestions from the team, during the daily meetings.

Board Customizations

• Stamp: standardization and practicality for a low cost.

Last Board Configuration

Main Challenges

• Fixing the frame and the cards.

• Motivation for the team to use the new tool.

• Establishment of new concepts.

• Manual generation of metrics.

• Maintaining the daily meeting.

Obtained Results

• The team's involvement in the proposed improvements and troubleshooting.

• Customer awareness.

• Sharing information.

• Workload visualization.

• Analysis of performance metrics.

• Reducing the index of complaint.

2nd phase - Automated Kanban

Deployment of Kanban

2nd phase - Automated Kanban

• Start: September 16, 2013.• Deployment steps:– Selection and hiring of the Kanban application.– Team training.– Import of the cards.– Customization of indicators.

Kanban Products Analysis

A B C D

2nd phase - Automated Kanban

2nd phase - Automated Kanban

Obtained Metrics

Obtained Metrics

Main Challenges

• Choice of the Kanban tool.

• Two months interval between automated and physical Kanban.

• Adaptation of the team to the new system.

• Loss of board visibility, that used to be displayed on the Department wall.

Obtained Results

• Ongoing purchases controlled by Swift-Kanban.

• Metrics to support managerial activity:– Data in real time, backlog, productivity, costs, purchase

volume, lead time, cycle time.

• Customized web page to search for the purchase status.

• The contracts area wants to start using Swift-Kanban.

Conclusion

Conclusions

• Kanban is a solution easy to adopt, with an affordable cost.

• Helped solve the main encountered problems.

• Gave the manager support through the workflow visualization and analysis of indicators.

Kanban as a Business Analysis Tool

A Case-study