Customer Meeting - Plant Ops - Bob Zinger

We had an initial customer meeting with Bob Zinger, Paul, and Larry of Plant Ops. at U.W. today. It appears that we would be best able to improve their workflow if we were to work with them.

NOTES:

Three modes of operation:

• contract work (work order)
• maintenance work (work order)
• emergency work (direct call through pager or radio)

Process observation (work orders):

• request for work made by customer to local contact
• local contact calls central contact to place order
• work order placed in database
• manager allocates work (1 day delay?)
• worker receives work order and performs work
  • worker maintains collection of work orders
  • worker usually verifies details with customer to ensure accuracy
  • worker will need to request additional work if dependencies exist (done through manager)
  • worker reports to manager work status

Process observation (emergency work):

• Emergency call placed to local or central contact
• Relayed via call to manager
• Mobile worker paged or radioed (new pagers can buffer voice message)
• worker may miss call if in noisy environment
• worker may need to go to phone if response required

Process improvement observations:

• work is done asynchronously
• current workflow system is synchronous
• opportunity to improve process by removing synchronization points

Bob's group is involved mostly with building work. Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical are separate teams.

Scope and cost observations:

• 70 - 80 tradesmen
• $500 per pager
• $1000 per radio

Contacts:

• Technical purchasing: Bill Carrol x2349, GSC 110A, wcarroll
• Work order placement (central): Donna McCracken x2018, GSC 257, dmccrack
• Work order placement (DC): Debbie Mustin x2252, DC 2117, dmmustin
• Overall Manager: Rick Zalagenas x3932, GSC 224, rszalage
• Building Foreman: Bob Zinger x3650, GSC 105B, rczinger
• Electrical Foreman: Gerd Kursikowski x2836, GSC 109, gkursiko
• Mechanical Foreman: Philip Simpson x3651, GSC 103A, psimpson
• Mechanical Foreman: Michael Wolfe x3850, GSC 103B, mwolfe

Direction:

• Observe Paul's workflow to make scenarios