Energy Systems Product Delivery Project

Abstract

Energy Systems, a part of AT&T Power Systems, initiated a project to plan, develop, and deploy effective business processes and tools. The objective of the project is to increase customer satisfaction by reducing delivery intervals to less than industry standard. Energy Systems redesigned its product, product documentation, and product delivery process to achieve that objective while continuing to minimize inventory. The project is broad in scope and addresses all aspects of the complete end-to-end order to shipment process flow. These include the Design-To-Bill-Of-Material, the Forecast-ToProcurement, and the Order-'To-Ship Processes. The project is significant in that it demonstrates the direct impact of product design on the Material Provisioning and Order Fulfillment Processes. The project also demonstrates the use of multiple small interdisciplinary process improvement teams cooperating to define and implement a significant, cross functional end-to-end process re-engineering, During 1991, Energy Systems personnel redesigned the Cellular Battery Plant as a building black product and defined new end-toend business processes. Current processes were baselined, a target system was defined, and initial feasibility was demonstrated. The pilot, or test, of the end-to-end target processes and a crisp, clearly defined common goal were key to focusing the efforts of the fifty or so cross functional, part time and full time persons involved in the project. With the re-engineered product delivery process, all the components of an order for Ciellular Battery Plants are shipped to arrive as a consolidated whole on the customer's requested delivery date. This paper will review the project and the methods used to reduce the total cycle time required to fulfill as a total package "custom orders" for the Cellular Battery Plant, a building block product with multiple options. Business Environment and Strategies The mission of Energy Systems is to offer system solutions that provide superior quality, cost effective energy transformation, reserve, and monitoring capabilities. Energy Systems services six major customer groups: 1. Regional Bell Operating Companies, 2. AT&T Network Services Division, 3. Independent Telephone Companies, 4. International Telecommunication Corporations 5. AT&T Equipment Divisions, and 6. Original Equipment Manufacturers, Telecommunications and Data Processing Companies. -Energy Systems plans to achieve its business objectives by delivering products much faster than industry standard intervals. The Energy Systems products are being designed or redesigned to be built from standard building blocks. The strategic move to building block products supports the ability to deliver systems in less than industry standard intervals. In response tO customer's requirements, Energy Systems is moving to provide full stream customer oriented service. The service will provide pro-active customer service, sales application engineering, and a re-engineered product delivery process. This project, the h d u c t Delivery Project, was established to reengineer the product delivery process. 1991 Business Processes and Key Issues Figure-1 provides an overview of the 1991 Energy Systems Product Delivery Project. The process evolved over many years to satisfy the changing needs of internal organizations. The process evolution was not driven by sufficient global vision toward maximizing effectiveness to the customer nor minimizing cost to the Business. The process was not adequately responsive to customers. The regionally deployed sales force worked with the regional engineering organizations to translate customer requirements into "valid" material lists. One or more copies of product drawings were typically used to assist the regional engineer in the highly manual translation process. Once a "valid' material list was prepared, it was manually entered into the AT&T Order Entry Program by a regionally deployed customer service representative. The orders were split electronically into components, or items, that were transmitted for order fulfillment to one or more of the AT&T Material Distribution Centers, the Power Systems Factory in Dallas, and multiple other suppliers. Eleven percent of the Cellular Battery Plant orders received during a three month window early in 1991 were invalid. This necessitated non-value added order editing and rework before the order could be accepted at the Power Systems Factory. Product drawings were a primary cause of the invalid orders. The product drawings, developed to satisfy many business functions, were complex and difficult to use. The static information available via geographically distributed product drawings also contributed to the cause of the problem. There were multiple loosely synchronized sourzes of product data and no single point of responsibility for the fulfillment of an order. Lack of a single source of information for material availability caused the process to be driven by standard intervals rather than by the suppliers' ability to deliver product. Awareness of Energy 0-7803-0755-OB2 $3.00 01992 IEEE 249 1992 IEEElCHMT Int'l Electronics Manufacturing Technology Symposium ES Product Delivery Process (1991 View) Suppliers (e.g.. Battery) ......................... q Product Marketing Customer Service Engineering SALES Order Scheduling .