The report that takes all morning
The monthly report takes a clerk fifty minutes, and mistakes creep in. The manager asks: "Where does the time go, and what should we change?"
You answer by analysing the current process, then drawing a conclusion you can defend.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Current process | how the work is done now |
| Bottleneck | the slowest step, which holds up the whole process |
| Manual step | a step a person does by hand |
| Automated step | a step a computer does by itself |
| Conclusion | a judgement supported by evidence |
| Recommendation | a suggested action that follows from the conclusion |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can analyse a current process and draw a supported conclusion.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Map the current process first
List every step as it happens today, in order. For each, note who does it, how long it takes, whether it is manual or automated, and how often it goes wrong.
Do not guess. Time it, or ask the person who does it.
Try it: where does the time go?
select step, minutes, kind, errors_per_month
from process_steps
order by minutes desc;
-- Try it: add up the minutes of the manual steps only.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.