Our Design Thinking approach to a custom application building saves over $300k for our manufacturing client
Company Overview
The client is the largest manufacturer of flooring products in the world. The company produces a wide variety of carpet, tile, and other hard surface flooring products for use in commercial and residential buildings of all sizes. Their brands include both Do It Yourself options available through major providers like Home Depot for personal use and large-scale options designed for contractors during the construction of everything from hospitals to apartment buildings. In addition to the products themselves, the company provides a wide variety of interior design services for customers and potential customer to experiment with and visualize their choice of flooring before installation. Previously, the company had been operating a custom, on-premises claims management system application running from a mainframe. The application processed hundreds of thousands of transactions per year and was used by over 100 employees, but challenges with the architecture and user interface had become apparent overtime:
- Outdated programming language and database structures made the application incredibly difficult to maintain
- Limited number of resources specializing in the software stack resulted in challenges filling staffing needs
- Monolithic architecture resulted in a poor performance, increased downtime, and struggles to keep pace with the needs of the business users
- Poor user experience and limited automation capabilities resulted in a substantial increase in time to complete each transaction, plus the potential for error throughout the process
Key Objectives
The overall objective of the project was to identify the optimal user experience, feature set, automation opportunities, and technology stack for the next generation application. The application to be redesigned was one of over six in use by the company, and the success of this initial project was a major corporate initiative mandated by the C-Suite that would drive digital transformation for the next several years.
The flooring products manufacturer was able to save 45 minutes per associate, which means an immediate savings of $383,000. As efficiencies improve and operations are scaled, additional savings of 1 to 3 hours are expected with a savings potential of over $1.5 million.
Reimagine the user experience and ease-of-use
Ensure the display of relevant data and insights
Increase automation throughout the process
Better integrate Shaw teams, partners, and systems
Improve performance, stability, and the pace of upgrades
About the Project
Korcomptenz partnered with the organization to conduct a thorough, innovative Design Thinking Process that would ensure the next generation application met all corporate objectives and demonstrated real return on investment. Design thinking is a human-centered process for creative problem solving. The goal is to approach a project by first considering the optimal solution from a given user or stakeholder’s perspective, and then align those requirements with the technical, resourcing, and effort/timing needs of the program. This “user-first” approach helps organizations better understand the needs of users before technical aspects are finalized, expand the space of possible solutions, reduce the risk associated with large projects, and ultimately deliver faster.
Keys to Success
Comprehensive Design Thinking Approach
The project was part of a company wide initiative that involved over 100 associates throughout the organization.
Process and Deliverables
The Design Thinking process included both a core and extended teams. The core team was engaged on a weekly basis for iteration sessions to discuss every aspect of the system from a user perspective. Additional user groups were engaged for 2-3 sessions each to address their unique needs including reporting and analytics, functionality for extended teams such as lab and quality assurance, integration with existing applications, and conformance with their corporate technology governance and security. Throughout the process, recommendations and deliverables were developed in agile, iterative manner that explored the space of possibilities. In addition, multiple surveys were used to gather quantitative and qualitative feedback. The deliverables included:
|
User Experience |
Comprehensive wireframes and clickthrough prototypes for all major screens and functionality with supporting workflow diagrams |
|
Next Generation Features Functionality Specifications including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Capabilities |
Detailed documentation and use cases for all new features and functionality supported as needed by business cases, workflows, and diagrams |
|
Functional Specifications and Database Designs |
Detailed documentation of all existing use-cases that would need to be supported by the new system, and database schemas covering thousands of potential datapoints, parameters, and variabiles |
|
Technology Architecture and DevOps |
Next generation technology architecture describing a fully cloud-based, decoupled system with orchestration and DevOps |
Measurable Results
The Design Thinking approach that brought together people, systems and processes led to $383,000 in immediate savings and over $1.5 million in potential savings as the new systems improve efficiency and scale.
The iterative nature of the process with innovative-thinking built-in throughout every step combined with quantitative and qualitative feedback allowed the company to accurately measure the return on investment for the next generation claims management system. The system was designed from the ground up to realize real return on investment by increasing velocity, accelerating claims processing, minimizing manual tasks, reducing errors, and improving stability and performance. Significant gains were also expected in training, onboarding new employees, and management and reporting.
The company identified a minimum time savings per day of 45 minutes per associate, for a total estimated annual savings of $383,000. As the level of efficiency is scaled by the new system, additional savings of 1 hour to 3 hours are expected to be seen.
| Time Saved per Day per Associate | Total Hours per Day | Total Dollars per Day | Total Hours per Year | Total Dollars per Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
45 minutes |
43.5 |
$1,594.28 |
10,440 |
$382,626 |
| Potential Range of Time and Efficiency Savings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 hour |
58 |
$2,125.70 |
13,920 |
Up to $510,168 |
|
2.25 hours |
130.5 |
$4,782.83 |
31,320 |
Up to $1,147,878 |
|
3.3 hours |
191.4 |
$7,014.81 |
45,936 |
Up to $1,683,554 |
These gains would be realized in part by a sophisticate next generation user experience that would allow team members to process claims faster than ever before, reducing the process to as little as a single click for applicable claims. This included a Consolidated Claim Information on a Single Screen driven by the ability for users to process claims as quickly and effectively as possible. The next generation user interface consolidates all necessary information and functions into a single view, enabling Claims Managers to close basic claims without the need to navigate at all. A new Multiline Selection with Integrated Workflows to Process Claims was also included, reducing the number of clicks and embed context sensitive functionality to support complex actions such as embedded calculations.
Additional features included:
