Quality Fables Competition

One cool winter afternoon few millennials (Sam, Leena, Kelvin) were playing at their glory on smartphone games. Team leaders tried to stop them & reminded their next assignment but of no use. Few logged in late & may have scored less in their report. Being little disappointed they went back home little boarded and complained to team leader for a change. News spread out and reached to tower head. Like a usual leader he called for a meeting to understand the case. Team came in with various solutions but not much of use. During refresher of these team they stayed inattentive & didn’t get into knowledge base for learning to avoid potential mistakes. Again the feedback went to the leader and Pied Pier (leadership) was called for a solution. Pied Piper did a workshop & formed a team to divert the requirement through gaming process called Gamification. Project team was formed to deliver the requirement and finally Sam,Leena,Kelvin was seen happy playing games & earning incentives at the month end. Customer voice was heard for these guys for delivering effortless experience. All work and no play makes these young guys a dull boy.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Life Insurance business was livid and blurted “How the heck did this village bumpkin crack my system to do this fraud. This can’t go on. We will be ruined and our reputation will be lost”. The complexity of the fraud really stared at him. “We need to find a solution to prevent this and also support the business to grow exponentially”.

The Group Head Risk, could empathise with him and he made a bold statement “Let my crack team give you a solution that will give you peace and let you focus on the business”. The confidence and energy was suddenly high and the challenge appeared conquerable.

Being in retail business, the private Life Insurance service provider operates in a very competitive environment and frauds eat into the profitability.

Customers from all walks of life can take insurance cover and have different requirements, intentions and behaviour. It is challenging to manually understand and identify fraudulent intentions (aka greed) of a large range of customers.

COO team observed many patterns in historical fraud cases ranging from increased propensity of fraud during month-end pressure, to the role of collusion among distributor agency and involvement of doctors.

A multifunctional team with domain experience and knowledge was formed to create an innovation solution for identification of fraud and provide early warning signals.

Machine learning tools and artificial intelligence tools along with Statistical best practices were combined powerfully to create the innovative solution that had scalability. A two pronged attack of analysis of past cases and emerging fraud patterns through outlier detection techniques was rolled out.

Once a fraudulent pattern has emerged in a particular region the model could learn and predict similar trends in other regions and immediately raise a red flag for the same. Several ratios were identified that were used to identify potential red flags of a fraudster. The Machine learning could identify several such behaviour patterns that now could be recognised as suspects for further investigation. The model helped us in identifying the wolf in sheep’s clothing i.e. could sieve a fraudster from genuine customers.

By adopting the innovation model we could sieve the bad customers from good one, thereby reducing the cost of poor quality (prevention cost, failure cost). It also improved the TAT for processing, as good customers were allowed straight through approvals and thereby greater customer satisfaction and reputation.

The COO called the Group Head and said “Thank you for making the fraudsters Rest in Peace (RIP). You have really taken this monkey off my back”. There were smiles around and a sense of readiness for what could lie ahead.

60 year old Anandibai from PatilPada was running a continuous high grade fever since 3 days. She had heard about the big city hospital that came to the village with a big van where the doctors provided free treatment and medicines. On her 1^st visit the doctors examined her, did her blood tests and gave her medicines to take for the next week. She was asked to follow up after five days of taking medicines and instructed to get all the documents with her on her next visit.

Five days later, she visited the doctor again but without the papers.It was a rainy week and her house got flooded and the medical papers were destroyed. The doctor was perplexed! He saw over 250 patients a week and was not sure of the diagnosis and treatment given to Anandibai since he did not have any backup documentation. So the entire process of history taking, examination, etc. was repeated!

The doctor was hassled; this was the 9^th case of the day where the patient failed to bring along the medical records.

The Rural health programme in-charge realised that this was a repetitive issue and needed to be tackled on a war footing. Another problem he came across was that because of the paper records given to the patients, data analysis was very difficult. Lot of man-hours went into data mining and that too was not 100% accurate. This data would be very important to start any new programmes or create any new specialized facilities.

In this regard the team planned to build a module through which the data can be entered , stored , viewed and monitored over a period of time.The team with the help of Hospital IT Dept , started exploring various possibilities of developing the module which will serve the purpose and user friendly.the IT team started roping in different vendors who fit the criteria and can deliver according o the expectation of the hospital. After lots of scrutiny , the vendor was finalized.Post finalizing the vendor , discussions began for the roadmap of implementing the module. The replica of the current form and various activities of the programme were shared with the development team.After multiple discussions and meetings , a final draft of the module was out which was then shared with rest of the team for further inputs.

Pilot run was initiated with the rural team so as to test the viability and functionality. Certain inputs were received from the team which were shared with development team for upgradation.The team met for discussion of the pros and cons of this module and how to solve the queries.

The planning for Go Live of this project was started after the success of the pilot run. All the team members were called and the date was announced for the final day. Finally the day came when the module was officially launched and open to use for the team. The team started using the same . The feedback was satisfactory.

The system is running successfully and has benefitted all.Thus the aim of being eco friendly with  an ability to view and retrieve historic data , capture and monitor critical modalities and treat patients accordingly was achieved.

“Means justifies the end” in Digital Transformation Overcoming the ‘Achilles heel’ of Digital Transformation The CEO had flown down from US to Bangalore and was reviewing various initiatives of the organization. The office was buzzing with activities all around. He was walking the floor, meeting people, sharing his views and listening from them. Over years he had been aggressively driving the vision of digital transformation. 2017 was a year of change for many reasons. Spending capacitiesacross customers were changing with the impact of digital. There was gloom across traditional IT sector in India with many retrenched across organizations. During the visit, he was discussing with the CIO on the digital transformation of Brillians. CIOpresented the OnTheGO digital app, its features, its ease of use and highlighted how the app has a “soul” that they brought lifestyle thinking into a corporate app. Seldom he expected the sharp questions that made him uncomfortable “How many as a % of employees use it?”, “How much impact has it brought?” Thud came the command, “If you cannot commit an impact, stop the initiative”. However, shortly after this event, the CEO unveiled his commitment to the digital program as part of his goal sheet “five key processes have to be mobile first”. What went without saying is that the app must be a delight to use and this should be our testimony of creating delightful moments to our customers. Also, digital solution should be of “Apple” quality – intelligent, easy to use and reliable. This demanded one key shift – “Master few and not be jack of many” i.e., take few features and go deeper to see that 100% would delightfully adopt. Two aspects stood out as we researched what’s out there. First, there should either exist a crying need or we should be able to create a demand. Team came up with ideas to create a demand by integrating with other systems and made this the only channel. Second, new product must break real world barriers to create “moments of delight” and habitual usage. Team designed the app with intelligence to create moments of delight. App fills the weekly time for the employee based on projects involved and leaves/holiday availed during the week. If a person doesn’t come to office, app auto-fills the leave information and presents to the employee. All basic organizational activities are fueled by intelligence to be completed in less than 10 seconds compared to 15 minutesfor web. Also, the app socially integrates users in nudging employees to celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries of colleagues. Adoption of the app has been tremendous, and it has won many external awards. Today OnTheGO has become a testimony for Brillio, a delight for Brillians, a brand in the market place, a pride of Brillio’s Systems team. Takeaway 1. Digital transformation is about adoption and impact, not about the idea 2. For long lasting change, theremust be a crying need or must instill a need 3. For deeper impact, break real world barriers and create moments of delight 4. Executing with vision in mind is important

Mahesh was on a train journey to his hometown. He happened to get into a conversation with his fellow passenger named Dinesh. Mahesh introduced himselfas MaxLife Insurance employee. Hearing this, Dinesh said that he recently bought a life insurance policy from XYZ company. Topic being from same industry, Mahesh got curious to know how was Dinesh’s experience. Dinesh complained that he got the policy in 15-days which is not expected in this digital age. Every industry be it e-commerce giants like Amazon, Dominos, banking, everything is instant. Even in insurance sector, general insurance is available Instant. Without being in a defensive mode, Mahesh tried explaining as to why it takes so long to issue a life insurance policy. He added that issuance of life insurance involves, risk assessment, underwriting, tele-verification etc. and hence it is a time intensive process. To which Dinesh said if it involves so many steps, if not instantly, it should not exceed 1-2 days.

However, Mahesh’s mind was stuck on the question which Dinesh had raised “Why can’t we issue life insurance instantly”?

After returning, he had a long discussion around this with the Policy Issuance Head who appreciated his idea and took it forward to the senior management. The idea was well accepted by all and with this MaxLife embarked on a journey for issuing life insurance policies in 1-day. This project was sponsored by Chief Operating Officer (COO) of MaxLife.

While the journey was kicked off, but the reasons cited by Mahesh to Dinesh were the actual road blocks in achieving the vision of 1-day issuance and a lot of work was to be done.

With the help of brainstorming, team came up with possible causes of delayed issuance viz. movement of application in physical form, incomplete documentation and delay in closure of customer verification call.

Core team was formed and Maheshalong with the team started working on arriving at solutions for all possible causes.

One major roadblock was high discrepancy rate for customer’s identity and address proofs etc. To resolve this, MaxLife introduced online validation of PAN and Aadhar card.

Another roadblock was delay in completion of pre issuance verification call. There were many customers who were non contactable.Digital modes of verification were introduced, like resolving pre issuance verification though SMS (iSMS) and introducing the feature of inbound call, i.e. customer can call up MaxLife at his convenient time to complete pre issuance verification process.

One big roadblock was that the application used to travel physically. To address this, MaxLife brought in digital application submission workflow. This was another big step for faster issuance of application.

MaxLife was issuing 37% policies in one day that too with no structured approach.With the help of above initiatives, MaxLife was able to issue 63% more policies in 1 day.

This also helped in improving the customer loyalty index and MaxLife moved from 6^th position (2016-17) to 1^st Position (2017-18).

This initiative gave a boost to Mahesh’s morale. Now company is working on issuance of policies in 4 hours. This initiative also helped the sellers to spend more time on new business sourcing instead of spending time on resolving discrepancies.

There were three friends Tom, Dick and Harry. They lived in same street, identical houses and they all had the same problem. Each wanted to put up shelves in an alcove beside the fireplace. Not so difficult, you might think. But the standard shelves did not fit and this would mean some awkward measuring, cutting and fitting. As you might expect, each chose a different method and that forms the crux of our story.

Tom talked to a relative & her advice was that the measurement was extremely important. This seemed sensible enough to Tom, so he sought out a piece of equipment that would be up to this precise job. After a little effort, he came across Sigma Saws. That had assurance of max. 3 out of every million pieces would be the wrong. This looked perfect and he ordered for it. Dick searched the internet for the solution to his shelf cutting problem. Everyone was blogging about Japanese saws. He was drawn in by the popularity of these saws. He placed order for saw. Sometime later, the three friends were sitting drinking coffee at Harry’s house. The conversation turned, enough to the problem of the shelves. Tom puffed his chest out and stated proudly that he was training to become a master of Sigma Saws. “But where will you put your saw? Those things are huge.” asked Dick. Tom answered, “I am clearing the garage. I never used that place anyway. Before Harry could ask anything else, Dick launched speech about Japanese saws. “Did you know that Japanese saws are not like normal saws? There is a whole art to learn about these saws. I have signed up with a Japanese sensei, who will guide me through the process towards becoming a Japanese saw master. There is so much to learn, that this will take at least 18 months.

Tom and Dick turned to Harry as if to say, “What have you done?” Harry seemed a little sheepish, but said “Oh, I have not tried anything near as complicated as your systems. I remembered that I had a simple tool, called a hand-saw, in my toolbox. I was not sure how to use it or what to do about the shelves, but I found a book that showed me a simple step-wise process. I may not have the precision or the fancy tools, but my shelves are up.

Do you want to see them?”

The three friends went to other room, where, true to his word, Harry had installed the shelves. Tom and Dick inspected, trying to fault it. But the shelves looked good and were obviously strong enough to hold up all the things that Harry had put on them. Harry had solved his problem using a simple tool and a simple step-wise method. He turned to the other two, “I have a few other simple tools in my toolbox and I plan to use them to fix some other problems that I have around the house. Once I do that and move on to more complicated problems, I may need your Sigma Saws or your Japanese implements. But that will be some time in the future.

As a bunch of unknown and unfamiliar persons got together, the only thingthat we knew was that we were on a New Journey, unknown to the  Division. The employees in the plant murmured in hushed anticipation.  “Something new is about to happen”. In the ‘more than two decades’ no one had dared to step into the areas where we were about to tread, modifying the existing ways and traditional systems, rejuvenate the processes and infuse fresh thinking into the mundane process. “Do you really think this bunch of guys can do anything at all?”, many asked, mocking us more than really supporting us.

Indeed, over the past few years small incremental improvements had been done but flittered away over time with no significant impact. Market demanded not just being reliable but also cheap, sustainable and process-oriented. A pensive Head of Operations, Shekhar got into ahuddle with the unfamiliar faces under the guidance of Supratik at Jamshedpur and Rashmikant at Mumbai. “The stakes are High and we have a mountain to climb” he quipped. “Can you guys give us something different?” he asked the sombre group. Mail exchanges soon turned to frequent VC session as the project steps unfolded one by one. Indeed, we had to bring down the Flue Gas Exit Temperature, ensuring better combustion in the boiler and lesser atmospheric heat up. The challenge was huge.

The Team was enthusiastic right from the word GO and meticulously went through the process of the Define and Measure. It was here that with some small elementary improvements itself our target got closer. This gave us the necessary adrenalin in the dark forest of mystery. The cloud of uncertainty slowly started moving away and the sun seemed to shine brighter. Having gone half way, the Team now focussed on the root causes and interrelated factors that contributed to the High FGET. Each of the members from different backgrounds,Mohit, Santu, Tapas, Nitin and Mukesh put their head together to come up with the ultimate solutions. “Boss you will be surprised very soon” they told Namjoshi the Head of the Division.

Indeed, God helps those who help themselves as our shutdown was just when we needed it to be. One by one the screened ideas were implemented, and our refurbished baby was set to roll. As the first megawatt whizzed past into our customers premises, we all kept on looking at the Graphs of the multi display screens before us. We were on the verge of an important milestone. The whole division along with our Corporate Team waited and waited till it was established that we were well on our way to permanent glory, having established the system without any extra cost, just by the steely determination and the wonderful process we followed.

We implemented the solution to bring down the hot flue gas exit temperature from the furnace which resulted in reducing most vital parameter of Heat Rate and enhanced efficiency of the unit through the Six Sigma methodology. “Go and celebrate”, Namjoshi said breaking into a wide grin as he went through the before and after figures. We not only created history but also made a bunch of very good friends who stuck together during the hard trials and uncertain ups and downs of the process. The success became history and we were hailed as heroes in our own right.

One day as I was browsing through the TV channels casually I came across a program where Scientists were seen monitoring some of the endangered species,particularly the penguins.

Not only is the aerial tracking of the penguins difficult but even the traditional method of tracking adversely affected this animal.

By making use of high-quality satellite imagery,Scientists have been monitoring the travels of king Penguin groups and identified an additional ten colonies of penguins previously unknown to the conservationists.

Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world,he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.This observation triggered our understanding of the problems.

It was on one summer afternoon, we were in a monthly business review with the MD and the Departmental Heads.Weather inside the boardroom was as hot as it seemed outside. I still remember Boss coming out of the room with an anxious face.

We were hesitant to ask him about what had actually happened in the review. Rohit,the new management trainee couldn’t resist himself.He said,"Boss,Is everything ok? Why do you look so worried?" Mukesh replied,”Team,we are failing to manage performances of our TPAs,it is having an unfavorable impact on our toplines, customers are unhappy.Don’t you think this is a sign of worry?”

Next day,we met to discuss the problems ,reviewed the existing status of 3-key metrics of medical process-Customer TAT,Reports TAT & Quality of Medical Reports.All were showing a downward trend.Later,we did brainstorming followed by affinity exercise to broadly identify key-focus areas.

"Take a chill-pill guys! It won’t happen overnight.Let’s go and have some fresh air”Guess who said this?None other than Rohit.His words prompted us to look at the time.It was 10:30pm.With the weather being sultry all of us opted for a cup of fresh homemade icecream in a café near Bandra and headed towards our respective destinations.

In next one month we had almost completed 60 small improvement projects. However,to our utter dismay the monthly review revealed a negligible improvement in the graph.

That evening Mukesh again summoned a meeting and said,“Team,lets partner with Business &Service Excellence team and analyze the root causes of each metrics”

This led us to initiate RCA(root cause analysis)of 3-keymetrics for identifying root-causes.

Factors like manual activities,delays in customer connect & customers not willing to visit the DCs(Diagnostic centre)were impacting CustomerTAT.

Factors contributing to the Delay in ReportsTAT were manual upload of medical reports,user-error while indexing,unavailability of scanning centres.

Image-viewer issue, Manual MIS,Delay in report visibility were adversely affecting Quality of Medical Reports.

In a rather unconventional approach,we thought of leveraging technology to address these issues and implemented automated self-servicing tool, automated registration process(using BOTs)to improve customer-connect. Introduced video medical examination @home so that customers don’t visit the centre.

Manual reports upload was eliminated through Robotics Process Automation thus reducing user-dependence &saving time.Implemented Automated Indexing tool and paperless flow to reduce Reports TAT.

Introduced OnlinePDF tool,Automated Dashboard(MIS) & Flodox access(for users) to improve Quality of reports.

In the subsequent months we witnessed a considerable improvement in the key-metrics. Rework and overtime got reduced. At floor-level we implemented approximately 145-small improvement initiatives(Kaizen).Entire process resulted in improved cross-functional collaboration and overall team development.