£102K worth of time saved by A2 Dominion

Results & ROI

A 33% reduction in the end-to-end time and a 30% reduction in touch time resulting in a cashable benefit of approximately £102,000

The client

A2Dominion, formed in 2008, is a leading not-for-profit housing provider with over 34,000 homes in London and southern England. They cover a wide geographical area from Bristol to Kent and Cambridgeshire to the Sussex coast, including London. With a 60-year history in total and being part of the G15, they are founded on strong community values and a desire to improve.

The challenge

A2Dominion have key business objectives to provide high quality homes, deliver excellent customer service, improve existing homes and places, strengthen local communities and to develop a stronger organisation. It is in this context that their strategy turned its focus to business process reviews using Lean techniques. A2Dominion engaged us to lead a review of their voids and lettings process. The objectives were to reduce the time it takes to re-let void properties and improve the customer offering, while in parallel evaluating the use of Lean in the organisation and training internal Champions.

The approach

The review was broken down into three distinct phases – Diagnostic of the current state, development of a new future state and implementation. This was supported by training internal Champions and implementation of Lean Foundation tools.

Diagnostic

Value Stream Mapping and other diagnostic activity identified the key areas for improvement. Key findings included issues around quality of repairs, duplication from team to team, variation in working practice across the different geographical areas and unnecessary hand-offs.

Redesign

This focussed around two key principles – Error Prevention and Simplification.

Implementation

The management team signed off the main process, before operational staff, led by the Lean Champions and Ad Esse consultants, worked up the detailed process.

Lean Foundation

The physical environment was made fit for the new process using 5S and an Information Centre set up for the team to monitor key metrics and continue to improve.

The benefits

The benefits stretched further than the financial savings and increased income. The number of steps in the process and the number of forms was greatly reduced, new steps were introduced to reduce rework and tenant satisfaction was improved. Using Lean Foundation tools means the process is more visual and clearer to follow, while the organisation also have an established internal resource of Lean Champions trained to support the implementation of Lean.