To automate... Or not to automate? You must start with the three T's.

By Ed Sweeney, Information Technology Manager

We all know the saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” and this holds true in the information technology environment as much as any other department in any business. As internal IT departments are constantly buried in work, it is usually the case that if something isn’t broken or no one is complaining about a process, it most likely won’t make it to the list of projects for a system or process upgrade. This should be a lesson to all of us in the technology industry; you must listen to the end user. Whether the end user of a system or process is the “squeaky wheel” or not, the end user is performing the work, so the end user is the person(s) that need to be involved when revamping a system or process. You can’t rely solely on management or the IT staff to fully design a system or process to make it more efficient.

We recently completed a system and process improvement project here at FCi (Fulfillment Concepts, Inc.) to make our Print-On Demand (POD) process more efficient so we could handle greater volumes. Where did we start? We started by shadowing the end users that perform the manual tasks from start to finish, from processing a POD order, to the time the order left the building. By doing this, you not only see first-hand the pain points, manual processes, and turnaround time,  but you also lend an ear to the end user to hear their suggestions and experience what their pain points are.

So, what to automate? Well, you start with the three T’s. You find areas to eliminate Time, Travel and Touches.

Please stay tuned for our next post to find out how FCi eliminated Time, Travel and Touches with our new Print-On-Demand process. We will also include what we found to be the "pain points" in our shadowing of the end user.