Facilities Management Contract Transformation

The approach

A comprehensive review of current operational practices was facilitated to identify critical bottlenecks and inform the design of a Lean management system capable of real-time performance management across the statewide contract organisation.

The review involved analysing how team members in critical roles completed their jobs each day through Day in the Life (DILO) studies. The activity focused on a sample group of Service Delivery Leads (SDLs), the organisation’s frontline leaders.

The DILO studies assessed the SDLs’ actual day-to-day activities vs their roles and responsibilities and highlighted the problems that the customer agencies were experiencing. The ad hoc nature of deliverables management was apparent, and a lack of role clarity coupled with the application of non-standard processes resulted in significant performance variation between individual tasks and delivery leads.

Significant underperformance was identified in the execution of planned maintenance activities due to work orders needing constant follow-up and amendment. This was a critical bottleneck in the organisation.

The study also indicated that 70% of the activities being completed by SDLs were non-value-added and could be eliminated through process improvement.

The solutions

The implementation phase involved four distinct activities.

1. A series of workshops was facilitated with the planning team to analyse the end-to-end execution of planned maintenance activities and determine why the work order completion rate was low.

The workshops utilised the expertise of the planning team to determine the root cause of low work order completion rates, lagging closure, and lack of status visibility. The team designed a series of ‘leading’ key performance indicators for work order management and then implemented a visual management framework to control the metrics and other relevant data in a daily performance review meeting. A new work order management workflow standard was also established.

2. An organisation-wide Lean training program was initiated to educate all team members and develop Lean Champions who would lead the program at the end of our engagement.

To create a sustainable culture of continuous improvement, a bespoke Lean training program was developed and delivered through a series of face-to-face sessions across the entire organisation. The training focused on Lean deployment, waste identification, visual management, and process optimisation. Several Lean Champions were selected and provided with deeper training to embed implementation further and enable Champions to lead Lean and continuous improvement activities in the future.

3. A tiered Visual Performance Centres (VPC) framework was designed and implemented to establish meeting forums for contract delivery governance, performance monitoring, and problem-solving.

The VPC framework, consisting of three tiers, was constructed and introduced into daily operations. Regular meetings were scheduled to review metrics, identify underperformance, and initiate resolution actions. The system cascades through different management levels to ensure clear visibility of the team’s performance and accountability. The visual management forums also provide a platform for escalating and managing improvement opportunities.

4. Leader standard work was established for the SDL role. This created a baseline for each SDL to follow daily to meet the expectations of their role and responsibilities and increase the time they would spend working on value-added activities while reducing the time spent on non-value-added activities.