Latest Trends in Applied Informatics and Computing

Continuous Service Improvement Using DMAIC Methodology

DZENANA DONKO Faculty of Electrical Engineering University of Sarajevo Zmaja od Bosne bb, Kampus Univerziteta, 71000 Sarajevo BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ddonko@etf.unsa.ba
Abstract: - This paper describes how application of Six Sigma methodology in the area of Continuous Service Improvements can help service provider organization to improve quality of its services and achieve planed goals and objectives. It is shown how DMAIC methodology can be used in the ITIL framework as its complementary discipline. The five steps of DMAIC are applied in the context of Continuous Service Improvement cycle and for each of stages different techniques are used to identify problem, gather right data, convert to useful information, and propose implementation. The rights Key Performance Indicators are identify, and continuously monitored. Clustering of measured data is performed to simplify data analysis and identify possible areas of improvement. The most effective project for improvement was identified and implemented. Key-Words: - Service Management, Continuous Service Improvement, Change Management, Affinity Diagrams, Pareto Diagram

1 Introduction
Applying ITIL as the best practice in the service management became widely accepted by the service providers organizations. Currently in its update version number 3.0 and after more that twenty years, ITIL stays the most recognized framework for the IT service management (ITSM). Every ITIL implementation are usually long, expensive, and very risky and different research work is done to apply different methodologies to support it and to apply best practices [1][2]. By definition, service management is set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to the customers in the form of the service [3]. So value is what meters to the customer, and we want to be able to measure our processes against key performance indicators (KPIs). Beside that, we have seven steps improvement process as the only process in Continuous Service Improvement (CSI). There are many best practices, standards, recommendations, models and quality systems that support CSI and seven steps improvement process. In this paper we will show how Six Sigma methodology as one of complementary guidance improve quality of ITIL processes. Organizations that practice Six Sigma management treat these processes with great care and combine continuous process improvement with planned life-cycle process management [4]. Effective management of service management processes requires detail descriptions of key processes and their specific

requirements. In this paper is used DMAIC SixSigma sub-methodology that is an improvement method for existing processes for which performance does not meet expectations. During the implementation of Six Sigma the current strategy and strategic initiatives are reviewed and strategy is aligned as needed to ensure it is aligned with the refresh organization vision [5]. It is in direct support of CSI process and continuous service management lifecycle.

2 Problem Formulation
The DMAIC process starts with identification of a problem and the first step is to define problem statement [6]. In problem analyzed in this paper the mobile telephony service provider company during the six months received form 85% of their customers complain about quality of the service. This caused low customer satisfaction and 20% of the users unsubscribe from the service and move to the other providers that at the end cause significant lost in revenue. To identify the most relevant issue in process of dealing with customer and fixing the issues, CSI is enforced and process is run through DMAIN steps. In the fist Define phase the high level process mapping for Incident management process is created (SIPOC). Suppliers: Users Event monitoring tools

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Service Desk System support teams Availability monitoring tools Capacity management tools CAB (Change Advisory Board) Inputs: Time and data of users calls Incident descriptions Knowledge base Availability data Capacity trends SLA Underpinning contracts (UC) Customer survey Change closure record Process: Incident Management Process Outputs: Time and date of incident resolution Users feedback Escalation level Total support hours Request for change System unavailability report Incident report Customers: Users Incident Manager Service Manager Availability Manager Change Manager We can compare seven steps process with DMAIC steps. Table 1 shows relation between these two processes. Continuous Service Improvement Process Step 1 Identify the strategy for improvement Step 2 Define what to measure Step 3 Gather the data Step 4 Process the data Step 5 Analyze the information and data Step 6 Present and use the information Step 7 Implement improvement Table 1. CSI and DMAIC DMAIC Define Define Measure Measure Analyze Improve Improve, Control

In this phase we identify the problem and strategy for improvement. We also define what to measure to be able to manage and control process.

3 Measuring Process

and

Analyzing

the

First step in measuring process performance was to create Critical to Quality (CTQ) specifications. A key concept is to determine how CTQs are mapped into customer driven Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). That is at the end link to data that needs to be collected. The main questions are: - what are the key data that has to be collected - how do we track CTQ Flow-Down - what are the main conclusions For specific process of Incident Management following KPI tree is created: a) CTQ1: All incidents fixed according to defined SLAs - KPIs: 80% of the call resolved with Tier 1 support, 99.95 % incident resolved within time defined in SLA - Data: Time to resolution for each incident; priorities assign to incidents b) CTQ2: Customer informed every time when incident is resolved with clear description of resolution - KPIs: 100% of incident reported to customer after resolution; - Data: Incident management records updates after closing incident; number of users complains after incident that has been reported as resolved c) CTQ3: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) options are covering most of recurring incident with clear instruction to user which action to take to resolve incident - KPIs: 30% of incidents are resolved by customers using interactive guide through FAQ database - Data: Number of incident resolved by user using FAQ d) CTQ4: No voice service interruption - KPIs: 99.96% service availability - Data: Number of major incidents that caused full service unavailability. e) CTQ5: Timely announcement of any schedule maintenance with minimum service interruption - KPI: Zero incidents cause by unplanned changes; 100% changes approved and users

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informed two days before any schedule maintenance Data: Number of changes; number of incidents caused by changes; number of unapproved changes

The other categories will not be considered in this project of service improvement.

This KPI tree contains a balance of measures covering both the efficiency and effectiveness of the Incident Management Process. There are also lean measures of process that are mainly defined as: - time of each step during the incident resolution - total time for incident resolution - the queuing time during reporting of incident Number of KPIs is appropriate for analyzing this process. Effective service measures concentrate on meaningful indictors that will allow organization to achieve desired results. Too many measures can cause lost of focus. The primary goal is to align measures to the business and IT goals and objectives. The available data for analysis of the problem were output from customer relation manage system (CRM) where many complains and users incident problem were registered; data from mobile systems event monitoring systems, results from customer survey; users feedback; change management database records. Many different techniques for analyze of data have been applied. One of them was creation of affinity diagrams from customer complains data taken from CRM system During this process clustering of data and different data mining process are applied. Affinity diagrams help to identify following key categories: - inadequate change management process (A) - service desks issues (B) - no experienced support group (C) - lack of appropriate tools (D) - no monitoring capacity (E) - others (F) One of the steps in the process of analyzing data was creation of Pareto analysis. In this analysis previously categorized data are measured against cumulative percentage. From Fig 1, can be observed that inadequate change management process (A) and service desks issues (B) are in the target are of 80%. Recommendation is to focus on change management improvements, as it has biggest impact on customer satisfaction. The other area is service desk that created many issues and will be analyzed through each subcategory to identify possible improvements.

Fig 1. Pareto chart of reasons for complain Looking from Continuous Service Improvement seven steps process perspective, we are referring to following steps in this phase: Gather the data Process the data Analyze the information and data During the step of gathering of data, we bear in mind that CSI is focused on improvements that can be made to the existing level of service. Monitoring of data will allowed us to determine are the processes being followed, and how well they are working. Processing of data converted data into the required format. In the case of clustering data and creation of affinity diagrams we are converting data into the information. That will lead to the stage of knowledge and finally to the wisdom in the following steps of service improvement. During the data and information analysis we apply knowledge to our information. The main goal is to compare information with the objective set during Define phase. Output from Pareto chart and any conclusion has to be directly linked to the initial problem formulation. Looking into SIPOC, there is following flow: suppliers (users), input (incident description), process (Incident Management), output (users feedback), customers (Change Manager).

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4 Process Improvements and Control

In this stage we consider last two steps of CSI process: Present and use the information Implement improvement Presenting and use of information means taking generated knowledge from different reports and transforming it in the most understandable format. All stakeholders have to get information they are interested into. There is a gap between IT reports, and information that is important to business and customer. Implement improvement is final steps in which approved implementation will take place, and which will be measured against previously established baseline to detect any process improvements. From DMAIC methodology perspective, this is improve and control phase. The improve phase aims to develop, select and implement the best solutions, and control any risk. The effects are measured with KPIs that we specify in the problem formulation and Define phase through KPI tree. Focus is on the Change Management process and different techniques have been used during improvement to achieve better performance. One of the used tools was Prioritizations Matrix. Different solutions were discussed and analyzed by team: implementation of new Change Management tool, development of new Change Announcement system, perform ISO 2000 audit, training program. Applying weighted score, in overall ranking the extensive full training program was selected as the most appropriate. In the last Control phase the main goal is that implemented improvements stay sustained after project was closed.

The problem of low customer satisfaction has been analyzed in a structured way, identifying all activities and stakeholders that affect the process. Inadequate Change Management process has been identify, together with service desk issues, as the main reason for poor service. The organization with already improved process identify that not following procedures, applying unauthorized changes, lack of full impact assessment of change, not communicate changes to the customer, and not announcing them on time, all of them identify under inadequate change management process in affinity diagram, are areas for improvement. As the processes were well defined and tools were in place the most effective and quick project was implementation of training program on tools and awareness campaign of policies and procedures Second identified area that significantly affects the service quality and has not been presented in this paper is the service desk. Addition to that, new maturity assessment is performed after project implementation, and DMAIC methodology will be applied to the new service organization to identify new opportunities for improvement. References: [1] R. Pereira, ITIL maturity model, 5th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2010 [2] Esmaili, H.B., Gardesh, H. ,Sikari, S.S., Validating ITIL maturity to strategic businessIT alignment, 2nd International Conference on Computer Technology and Development (ICCTD), November 2010 [3] OGC, Continual Service Improvement, TSO, 2011. [4] Tomas McCarty, Lorraine Daniels, Michael Bremer, Praveen Gupta, The Six Sigma Black Belt Handbook, McGraw-Hill Prof Med/Tech, 2004 [5] Antony, J., Banuelas Coronado, R., Design for Six Sigma, Manufacturing Engineer, February 2002 [6] Gross, J.M. , A road map to Six Sigma quality, Quality Progress, Milwaukee, Nov.2001.

5 Conclusion
The paper describes service management improvements using quality improvement methodology. DMAIC is been proven as effective way of achieving the improvement in service provision.

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