Business Improvement

PERFECT HOLDINGS LTD
IMPROVEMENT RIGHT NOW

Neil Alexander – Business Improvement

Neil's first experience with significant business improvement was in 2009 when he used the Vanguard Method to intervene with Portsmouth City Council's repair service. He learned that repairs could be completed at the exact time a tenant requested and how to ensure the right materials were always on the van to complete the repair. This resulted in a significant decrease in costs and an increase in morale and customer satisfaction.

Neil has since continued to achieve remarkable results by refining his system and creating Stock Right Now, which focuses on improving van stocks and achieving high first-time fix rates. He has successfully replicated his approach with other like-minded organizations, including Stoke City Council, Incommunities Housing Association in Bradford, and Flagship Housing in East Anglia. With Flagship Housing, he set up the entire repairs and materials provision from scratch to provide an excellent in-house service.

He also helped Great Places Housing Association double their first-time fix rate while simultaneously providing visibility, control, and improvement of their van stock and reducing the value of stock by over 50%. Neil also intervened in the repairs system at Clúid Housing in Dublin and, more recently, at Coastal Housing in South Wales using the Stock Right Now App.

For more information or to contact Neil, please call 07525 909445.
  • ➥ Vanguard Method

    About the Vanguard Method

    Since 1987, John Seddon developed both systems thinking and intervention theory, combining the two to create the Vanguard Method. Uniquely, this method’s sole purpose is to transform organisations by changing management thinking and helping this translate into a better system. It significantly improves performance, lowers costs, increases customer satisfaction and improves staff morale – What’s not to like?


    Click the Vanguard logo to learn more about them.


  • ➥ Vanguard Method Book

    Beyond Command & Control Book

    John Seddon has always supported our work, and Stock Right Now is the only Vanguard Method approved software. We are highlighted in Johns latest book, so if you want to know more about the thinking behind our software then have a read. You won’t be disappointed.


    View the book here

                                Case study

Anglian Water- Water Recycling Repairs - 2018

Vanguard check and redesign of Water Recycling responsive repairs operating model from initial call to problem resolved

Key Timelines 

• Identification of issues impacting on performance of operation within 10 days
• Identification of better ways of working during 4 weeks of experimentation
• Delivered new ways of working with measurable benefits for staff, customer and business within 12 weeks

Challenges

• To expose & reduce the 37% of calls from customer into the call centre as a result of not doing something or not doing something right – 
   (we call this Failure Demand (a failure of the system to do something or do something correctly, and it eats up capacity and drives in costs)
• Reduce the number of visits where they attended but did not fix (for whatever reason)
• To better understand what mattered to the customer and redesign operation to deliver what matters while reducing costs
• To improve customer journey from reporting of a repair to resolution
• To make changes sustainable and ensure internal capability to undertake further improvements
• To embed a better way of using data to learn & improve performance

Achievements

• Created capacity for the team to undertake changes to their current ways of working and develop capability to study, experiment and roll in new ways of working
• Imbedded new measures and measures methodology using Capchart to demonstrate improvement over time
• Piloted potential new ways of working and test at volume taking live work, staff and managers for an entire local area to show scalability and cost savings
• Developed and finalised new roles and embed into the team structure
• Ensured a sustainable solution was left in place, designing ourselves out, not in
• Increased flexibility within new roles resulting in the right resources and equipment being deployed first time
• Provided safe environment for middle managers to question assumptions about how operations are designed, measured and managed
• Retrained staff in new measurement methodology and hard-wired new measures for the future


The Results: 

Note: During the trial demand was normal, but capacity was reduced due to abstractions)

• The work sent to outside contractors reduced by 9% and shows the lowest consistent 5-month period for 4 years
• End to end time from a customer reporting a repair to it being completed, is the lowest consistent 5-month period it has been in 4 years (we are doing the right work quicker)
• The mileage travelled by the operatives has shown the lowest 5-month period in 4 years (we are not driving to jobs multiple times)
• The number of jobs completed at day one from reporting, has shown the highest 5-month consistent period in 4 years
• The number of jobs completed at day 3 or more from reporting, has shown the lowest 5-month consistent period in 4 years
• The number of customer chases (people calling to find out the progress of a repair) has shown the lowest 5-month consistent period in 4 years
• The number of customers compelled to call or write in to say ‘thank you’ has shown the highest 5-month consistent period in 4 years


What the Anglian team thought

"The Vanguard Method has shown us a better way, and to see the work from a different perspective, they showed us how to remove things that get in the way, and have 
actually become a hindrance, and to trust people to do the right job. 
As a manager of an operation al team I now look forward to going to work every day – for me after the best part of 30 years in this industry it’s the most thought 
provoking and engaging trail I have ever been on" 
Chris (Collection Manager)

"I don’t regret a minute of it, and I will carry on doing it, they have shown me ways of working that I never thought were possible" 
Steve (Dig Gang Member)

"The customers are a lot happier at the end of the day and some are really shocked as to how quickly we get to them"
Mark (Front line worker)

"This new way of working is different to how it was before, or has ever been"
Katherine (Improvement Manager)

“I have no idea how I’ve ended up with so much time… but I’m spending less time checking and sorting our problems and more time in the field and thinking 
about improvements and the future” 
Chris - (Collection Manager)

“In the past I have always had to defend change. For the first time I see them [staff supervisors and frontline managers] absorbing the change and taking it forward” 
Katherine (Improvement Manager)




“
Stock Right Now uses historic data to predict material requirements, allowing purchasers control over how many days stock they want to hold. It is both simple and highly effective."
John Seddon, Vanguard - Beyond Command and Control Book
“Neil is one of the very best Systems Thinking logisticians that I am aware of in the UK and Ireland. He delivers effective solutions that address the needs of their clients, designed specifically against demand. Effectiveness leading to efficiency and delivery of true economy through a focus on flow.”
John Little, Vanguard - Ireland
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