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July 1997 Volume 1.11

Parallel Processes

When you have worked out the market positions your products & services need to occupy and determined the factors you need to change to achieve that position, the question remains as to what you must do to drive the changes. A good place to start when the area needing attention is caused by cycle time or customer commitment needs, is with a study of business processes. Many businesses undertake work using processes that follow in a sequence (serial) when it would be better for two events to occur at the same time (parallel).

Consider the security arrangements at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. When you enter the museum, the guard takes your bag, and gives you a numbered token. After you browse around the museum taking in the antiquities and works of art you leave by a side door. To retrieve your bag, you then need to walk back to the main door through the museum or walk along the front and go in the main door. This is a serial process. Note the additional time taken by the museum visitor to recover their bag. This adds to the time taken for the museum visit resulting in a greater total cycle time.

The security arrangements for the State Apartments at Windsor Castle are quite different. In the same way as the Fitzwilliam Museum, when you enter the Castle the guard takes your bag, and gives you a numbered token. After you study the multitude of ancient weapons of war, visit the Royal bedrooms and reception rooms you leave from a side door. At this point, which is some distance from the entry point, you hand your token in and pick up your bag. Her Majesty has arranged for your bag to be transported from the entry to the exit. This is a parallel process. The total cycle time is equal to the time needed to view the State Apartments. As would be expected, Queen Elizabeth has well designed business processes.

In business situations such as the Internet companies we have been looking at in previous newsletters, Sales processes are often conducted in series when a credit check is undertaken. This usually results in long cycle times and many dissatisfied customers.

A change to parallel processes is a simple but effective way of reducing the cycle time for the Sales and Connection cycle processes:

By starting the Connection process at the same time the Check Credit process is started, checking the customer's credit no longer adds to the total cycle time. As only a small percentage of customers usually fail a credit check, the work on connecting the customer will only need to be stopped before completion in a few cases.

Seize the Opportunity

"The Glyndebourne Festival Society is currently full. Those on the Waiting List are offered membership when they have reached the top of the list. This could mean a wait of 25 years." (Extract from handbook of the Glyndebourne Festival Society, which operates an exclusive opera house in a rural setting in the south of England.)

We had just had lunch at Rose Cottage. I had enjoyed an absolutely scrumptious meal of plaice. Our host Frank was now continuing our tour of the beautiful villages and hamlets of the Sussex countryside. We drove past Glyndebourne and saw that there was an opera on today. Frank thought that perhaps we could explore the grounds. But how were we to pass unnoticed in our tourist garb amongst people all dressed in black tie? As Frank parked the car we saw that many people were in semi-formal clothes and some men had no ties. We could merge with the crowd very successfully as this was a rehearsal day, when the friends of performers are allowed to attend. Frank took us on a tour of the grounds as people were setting up their champagne picnics for the long interval in the early evening.

As we moved around the grounds, Frank introduced us to his friends that we encountered amongst the crowd. Mozart's 'Wind Serenade No. 11 in Eb Kv 375' wafted around the trees as a curtain raiser provided by the London Philharmonic. He managed to get us inside the old library with its organ, and the Opera House where we admired the design of beautiful timbers. Unfortunately we were asked to leave when Mozart's 'Le nozze di Figgaro' began. We watched on the closed circuit TV monitor for a while before departing, after having enjoyed a unique opportunity.

In business as in life, it is important to seize opportunities as they come along.

Regards,

Rodger Gallagher