With as many as 15 different technical specialties in the division, a customer's plan might spend weeks, even months, moving slowly from station to station. Enroute, it was difficult for staff, much less the customer, to gauge the exact status and timetable of a plan's review. Once that improved process is devised, a handful of customers is once again invited into the war room to critique the new process before it is implemented. A customer service workroom has been established near the counter, so a project engineer and a customer can easily go there to review plans, discuss changes, even approve a simple plan within minutes of the customer's arrival. The division also installed blueprint reproduction equipment, so simple plan changes can be made at the division offices.
Project engineers have the authority to handle exempt and express reviews quickly.
Though it's early in the reengineering effort, Conn says his division is seeing anecdotal signs of increased customer satisfaction. Conn concedes that many organizational issues remain to be addressed. There's the question of compensation for project engineers, who came from several different pay classifications before taking their current jobs. There's also the challenge of how to adequately cross-train teams, so they possess the technical knowledge needed to guide a plan through the entire review process. I've spent a career 'polishing the Chevy,' and it looked pretty good from the outside.