Voice of Customer

Over lunch Eva and I sat down and caught up on how life was going. We swapped stories about kids, husbands, minor league hockey and vacation plans for the March Break.


During dessert Eva mentioned how nervous she was about the new aseptic line. Probing a bit, it turned out that she, as plant manager, was worried she was putting in a line that would ultimately fail in the marketplace, either because of cost or design.


"Well, what did you guys do to determine the VOC?" "The what???" "Ah!"


As we finished our cheesecake and settled down with our green teas, I proceeded to outline the idea of the Voice of Customer - or VOC.


The trickiest part is determining who is hte customer. Then, it is determining the need or want when the customers themselves doesn't know what it is.


Ultimately the customer is the person who uses the final product. But between you and that customer are many other customers; downstream equipment, the bank, company stakeholders, the distribution chain, the vendor and the government to name a few. Each one of them has their own needs and expectations. You need to prioritize them and find out which ones you need to respond to.


As far as knowing their needs and wants? You could look to your complaints file and find answers there, or you could conduct surveys, hold focus groups or do interviews. Or you can research on emerging trends to anticipate a change or look to upcoming regulations and laws which will change the operating landscape.


True, if you have managed to meet virtually all of the customers' needs (price, quality, functionality, aesthetics, ease of use....) and don't have a good sales and marketing program, you may not get far. Even with the best marketing plan but an unfulfilling product, you may get the initial buy, but not the repeat.

Chartering a Project

While waiting to hear back about the budget, the Munleytown team decided to go ahead and launch the aseptic packaging line project. According to the messages sent from head office, especially marketing, this new line was in direct alignment with the corporate strategy for 2010 and the next 5 years. So, the risk of the project being cancelled seemed low.

To make sure the team was headed in the right direction and all together, Eva had the team work on developing a Project Charter.

A project charter basically consists of the title, a description of the issue or situation, the impact it has on the business and what the key objectives are. It outlines the scope of the problem, overall timing, key metrics and milestones and the who the key stakeholders are.

While a charter should be an evergreen document, Eva knew it was essentially a contract between her, the team members and the key stakeholders. If something changed, whether it be scope, timing, personnel or even the objectives, the charter would need to be updated, reviewed and signed off again.

The first go-round for the team produced a charter with a lot of holes. They just didn't have enough information. Who should be involved? What was the impact of the issue? When did it need to be done by? What is the right amount of stretch in setting the goals? What are potential risks to the project itself? But now the team was in agreement about what questions needed to be asked and was able to fill in the blanks during the 2nd chartering meeting.

Leaving the 2nd meeting, Eva felt good about her team and a lot more confident that they were all heading in the same direction to solve the problem.

Stakeholders - identifying and communicating

When a project starts, there are certain people who want to see it succeed, who have or will be investing time, money and people. There are others who want to see it fail and there are those who don't even know the project exists until the end product is finally available. And there are those, I believe a forgotten group, who are not the customers but are the ones who foot the true customers' bills and often are the transition step from customer to supplier and vice versa.

Who is this? Well, in the world of community sports, it is the parents! Any product related to children generally means a parent or other adult will be paying at least a portion of the expense. You can have a great sports program and the best coaches interacting with the kids but if the information isn't getting to the parents, then the kids don't show up, bills aren't paid and the chance of the child coming back the next year are very slim!

In the manufacturing world, we can look closer into the plant itself. The customer can be defined as the next step in the process be it a machine, a person or pipe. The transition step would be that which takes it from one step to the next - ideally should be a step itself.

Let's look at the case of a finished part moving from packaging Machine A to Warehouse B. Much work has been done to organize the warehouse and make it more efficient and accessible to pick orders for delivery to the customer. One of the solutions to do this has been to apply UPC codes that can be wanded in. To do this, it required the packaging equipment (Machine A) to be upgraded to print these labels onto each box. What was missed in the project was the fact that the operator had to put the boxes onto a pallet for the towlift driver to move into the warehouse where the driver then put it on the appropriate racking.

Why is this an issue? Because no one ever told the operator who put the boxes on the pallet that the UPC code needed to face out to be read by a scanner. So, sometimes the box was put on the pallet with the code facing in, covered by other boxes. Now, according to production the inventory levels were fine, but the warehouse numbers were off because cases were being missed. Sure it is a simple fix - communicate requirement to the operator. But....

If the operator had been consulted during the design phase of the upgrades to Machine A, it would have been noted that the boxes have a tendency to hit a rail and get turned around before they reach the end of the machine. And it would have been noted that the operator had to do a lot of twisting to put the boxes on the pallet. Lastly, someone may have realized that once the UPC code was on, the box travelled 4 feet along a conveyor for no reason. Involving stakeholders would have changed the way Machine A was operating, reducing labour costs, safety issues, operating issues and improving overall efficiency while freeing up vital floor space.

Even if the operator was not spoken to until just before implementation, during a failure risk analysis stage, work could have been done to make the improvements with a lot less cost added and some removed.

Communication is key. Let people know with enough time to digest the information and respond. Let people know the timelines required for feedback so they can prioritize appropriately. Never assume the person has received your message. If timing is that vital, follow up e-mails with a phone call or a visit in person.

Lastly, know your stakeholders. Some are not going to be as obvious so think of all the energy and people that can come into contact with your process - whether it be deliberate or accidental (ie use that walkway to get to the only bathroom!)