FUJ00080678
FUJ00080678
ICL Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: IA/REP/o19
Pothway
Version: 1.0
Review” Date: 15/02/00
Document Title:
Document Type:
Implementation 11 Week Plan Review
Report
Abstract: This document presents the findings of a short review into
the activities documented in the ’u Week Plan’, a planned
series of internal review activities carried out by
Implementation during the December/January break in
National Roll Out.
Status: APPROVED
Distribution: M. Coombs M. Stares
M. Bennett J. Flynn
J. O'Grady D. Groom
Library
Author: J. Holmes
Comments to: J. Holmes
Comments by:
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© 2000 ICL Pathway Ltd
FUJ00080678
FUJ00080678
ICL Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: IA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review Date: 15/02/00
O Document controt
0.1 Document history
Version Date Reason
O.1 21/01/00 First internal draft for comments
0.2 25/01/00 I Second draft for comment
1.0 15/02/00 Raised to Issue status
0.2 Approvel authoritiey
Name Position Signature Date
M. Bennett Director Quality & Risk
0.2 Associated documenty
Reference Vers I Date Title Source
fi] TA/REP/o13, 1.0 (08/09/99 __ I Audit of Implementation PWAY
[2] I IA/CAP/006 10 [09/12/99 __I Schedule of Corrective Action PWAY
3] I IM/REP/o44 10 [17/1/98 __I Implementation of PowerHelp for the Roll Out_I PWAY
Help Desk and Service Providers.
[4] CP 1667 25/1/98 Requirements for Rollout Helpdesk Call PWAY
Management System
[5] CP 1667a 26/01/99 Requirements for Rollout Helpdesk Call PWAY
Management System
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FUJ00080678
FUJ00080678
ICL Implementotion 11 Week Plow Ref: IA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review- Date: 15/02/00
0.4 Table of content
UMtOMUCTION .....essesscessesseesseeseessessecsseesecssesseessesssssecsssesecssessecseesssasecseesseeseessesseenseeses 2
Scope & CONMUCE wo. ececeecececsessececeseseesesesesesseseseesesnesessesecsessesesnesssesasseseeesesees 2
3Management SUMMALY .........cccceeseeseeeseeseesesseseeseessssesessecseseesssssaesseesssesseeseenesesses 2
3.10verall Opinion
3.2Exceptions
3.2.1Roll Out Help Desk.
3.2.2Inventory Management.
3.3Recommendations
4Detailed Observation - ROHD......cccsssessseesssesseseeessesesseseeseenssnesseseenssseansneesenenee 2
4.1Requirements and Reality .........cccsscsssesseeseeceeseesseeseesesseeseeenesseesssneesenneeses 2
4.2Staffing and Facilities... ccccsessesseseesessesesseesseeseeseeessescssesesssscsseseeseneere 2
4.3Call Monitoring and Progress.......c.scccscssesseesesseesesseeseessesseeseeseessssesseessessee 2
4.4Call Reporting and AnalySis ...........sccsscssseeseesseesesssesseeseeseeseesseesesssesseesseseeses 2
4.5PowerHelp Corporate Red Alert ........:csssecsseessssesssessseeesseesseessseesseessseessestesee 2
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FUJ00080678
FUJ00080678
ICL Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: IA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review Date: 15/02/00
3.14
Introductiow
The ’ Week Plan’ was the name given to a collection of review activities put
together by Implementation for action during the Christmas break in Roll Out.
The Implementation Audit [1] identified a number of areas for improvement,
particularly around the area of training and customer education, and a number
of these were rolled up into the Plan.
Although any final decision to re-commence NRO is in the gift of POCL, and
would be based on their assessment of Pathway’s readiness, it is sensible and
prudent to undertake an internal assessment of the state of readiness and to
provide an opinion to that effect.
Scope & Conduct
No formal Terms of Reference were issued for this review although
management at all levels in Implementation were advised of the activity and
were very co-operative with their availability and responses. For this I want to
record my appreciation.
The review was conducted during January 2000, and while POCL’s decision to
proceed with NRO on 24" January was announced before the production of this
report, its delivery is deemed necessary to provide assurance to Pathway
management that the planned activities have taken place, the desired outcomes
have been achieved and the remaining risks mitigated.
Management Summary
Overall Opinion
The ‘u Week Plan’ was developed to collect together a number of discrete
review activities that had been identified during the initial Roll Out Period.
These encompassed all areas of the Infrastructure and Installation phases of
Roll Out and were grouped into the relevant organisational areas within
Implementation. The plan was under the overall management of John O'Grady,
Business Operation Manager.
As at 24" January all but one of the 19 corrective actions [2] output from the
audit had been closed. Of the 19, 12 were included on the ’u Week Plan’ as items
for specific review. The top five areas of concern were :
a. Inadequate or missing processes (7. 4 were financial and 3 to do with
Inventory Management).
b. Training courses and reviews (4).
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ICL Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: TA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review Date: 15/02/00
c Inventory management and stock control (4).
d. Roll Out Help Desk (3).
e. Field staff procedures (1).
Following discussions with the Departmental Managers the overall opinion is
that the ’11 Week Plan’ has been largely completed.
3.2 Exceptions
There are a number of planned items that have not finished but these are not
considered to place a decision to restart NRO at risk. For example, how to
handle seasonal offices, ALPS migration which does not start until May, IPM
Operations Manual where the drafting is complete and distributed but the final
collation remains outstanding. There are also a number of documents and
‘agreements’ waiting for POCL approval/sign-off but again the opinion of the
Departmental Manager's is that their absence does not present a risk.
However, there are two areas that give cause for concern and represents a risk
to the maintenance of a smooth roll out programme.
3.2.1 Roll Out Help Desk
The Roll Out Help Desk (ROHD) is a discrete domain within the Horizon
System HelpDesk (HSH) and is based on the PowerHelp tool. PowerHelp is the
standard ICL offering for this application but the ROHD implementation
suffers from poor response times at the terminals. The impact on the ROHD
are extended call raising times and how this effects the ability of the
department to adequately support the roll out and deal with queries and
problems within acceptable time limits.
3.2.2 Inventory Management
The audit [1] identified weaknesses in control in the management of roll out
inventory and stock movements between the various organisations involved in
roll out. Effective stock control is important to NRO for a number of key
reasons :
a. The value of the stock itself, some £28m, warranted effective control.
b. Certain items (CTX flat screens) could be considered ‘attractive’ and
subject to loss.
c Certain items are subject to extended lead times and stock outs would
halt the roll out programme.
d. High concentrations of key items in a single storage location present a
risk of total loss through a single event.
e The impact of a slow down or temporary halt to roll out on ICL
Pathway’s revenue and the next payment milestone.
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ICL Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: TA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review Date: 15/02/00
The 1 Week Plan’ and the audit Corrective Action Plan [2] both addressed
these issues and this review identified that improved reconciliation processes
and stock movement controls have been implemented. In addition, more
stringent reporting mechanisms have been put in place with key players in the
supply chain and this, coupled with regular physical stocktakes at the various
warehouses, should reduce the risks identified above becoming manifest.
3.3 Recommendationy
It was not intended that this report would produce recommendations but the
following are made in light of the current position of the ROHD, and the
impact that its failure to meet operational needs could have on the overall roll
out programme.
1. I understand that there have been no payments to OSD thus far for the
provision of the ROHD service. This should continue until such time as
OSD provide a service that meets the performance criteria established
for it.
2. OSD should be made aware of the consequences to ICL Pathway (and
ICL Group) of NRO failing through the inability of ROHD to manage
effectively incidents raised in the field.
3. Improved information regarding the state of the PowerHelp Red Alert
should be made available to ROHD management ona regular basis.
4. The possibility of increasing ROHD headcount within the existing shift
and terminal constraints should be considered.
5. The IP Teams should be ‘encouraged’ to take a more pro-active attitude
to closing calls. The introduction of internal SLAs, currently under
investigation by ROHD management, may assist in this.
6. While the primary activity for Implementation is NRO itself, continued
effort must be put into completing the unfinished activities on the Plan.
4 Detoiled Observation - ROHD
41 Requirements and Reality
The original requirements for the ROHD [3], authorised through CP1667 [4],
anticipated a maximum call rate of 2,000 calls per week, 14 ROHD operators,
terminals at key suppliers, call resolution no later than the end of the next
working day and a number of performance related requirements measured in
seconds per activity. The anticipated time to raise a new call was ~3 minutes.
This exercise would cost in the region of £528,211 for the two years that ROHD
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ICL
FUJ00080678
FUJ00080678
Version: 1.0
Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: IA/REP/o19
Pothway Review- Date: 15/02/00
4.2
4.3
was expected to be live. CP1667a [5] increased the overall costs of the solution
to £974,587 and the headcount to 16, the current complement at KIDo1.
The current position is that while the call rate is expected to be as anticipated
(~1,400 calls/week during initial roll out @ 66% steady state) the performance
characteristics have resulted in unacceptable response times, with as long as 14
minutes quoted to raise a call. The average is claimed to be about 6 minutes
with 5 being considered ‘a good day’. This effectively doubles the amount of
time required to raise a call with no corresponding reduction in overall call
volumes or increase in headcount over that anticipated in the original
requirements and against which the current installation was made.
Staff L Faciliti
The ROHD is fully staffed with operators and terminals and there is little or no
room for expansion at KIDo1 to cater for increases in complement. The existing
staff operate a rolling shift pattern to lengthen the working day and this results
in a number of terminals being unused at any point in the working day.
At the end of the initial roll out period there was a backlog of ~3,500 open calls
and despite dealing with ~2,000 new calls during the 1 week gap this had
reduced to ~2,300. While this is a welcome reduction it was only achieved
through voluntary and unpaid overtime by members of the ROHD team.
Call Monitoring and Progress
The full complement of terminals has been rolled out to suppliers and the IP
Teams. Suppliers are able to communicate with the ROHD and are considered
to keep their call stacks carefully monitored and progressed. There has been no
two way traffic between the ROHD and IP Teams and while calls can be routed
to the IP Teams for action there is no reciprocating action by IP Teams to
update call status or close calls down. This is achieved through fax, email and
‘phone calls but is usually initiated by ROHD in an attempt to keep up to date
with progress. There are some 650 ‘open’ calls with the IP Teams and a further
475 with POCL Regional Teams with whom the IP Teams liaise directly. Trials
were conducted after Christmas to effect the link between ROHD and IP Teams
but these was abandoned due to performance problems with PowerHelp.
As NRO restarts the ability of ROHD and its Exel equivalent to deal with calls
efficiently becomes crucial to the activity at the outlet on installation day. Exel
are fully supportive of Pathway and have increased to four the number of
terminals linked directly to ROHD. However, concern was expressed that any
problem with PowerHelp may cause Exel to revert to the fax, email and ‘phone
method for call progressing which will exacerbate the problems facing the
Pathway ROHD team.
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Implementation 11 Week Plaw Ref: IA/REP/o19
Version: 1.0
Pothway Review- Date: 15/02/00
44
45
Call Reporting and Analysin
One manifestation of the problems being experienced with PowerHelp is the
lack of reporting available from the ROHD, either in terms of performance or
any form of root cause analysis. Comprehensive statistics of calls raised, their
distribution and current status are maintained by the Team Leader but these
are all manually generated via Excel spreadsheets.
Changes and additions to Call Codes have to be made via Customer Services
who own the relationship with OSD. In October 1999 a request was made for a
revised set of codes and delivery was stated by CS as December that year. I was
advised that a CP was circulated for comment w/c 17 January with no
anticipated delivery date.
PowerHelp Corporate Red Alert
PowerHelp has been on Corporate Red Alert since November 1999 and it is
unclear to the ROHD team and their management how the Alert is progressing.
The relationship between OSD, supplier of PowerHelp, and ICL Pathway is
owned by Customer Services and while details of progress might be
communicated to them by OSD concern was expressed that this information is
not made readily available to ROHD management.
It is noted that the performance problems associated with PowerHelp were
identified in the impact statements to CP1667a.
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