FedEx never stands still. We're always looking for new and better ways to do our jobs and deliver exceptional experiences for our customers — and Quality Driven Management (QDM) and the ABLE process give us the tools to succeed.
Within FedEx Express, the Air Operations Process Improvement Office is a team with a mission of leading continuous improvement projects, teaching other FedEx employees how to make quality improvements using the tools at hand, and coaching those members to guide other cross-functional teams.
While QDM comes naturally to this team of professionals, they recognize that many employees may be learning QDM, ABLE, and the concept of continuous improvement for the first time. The team starts small with exercises designed to teach employees how to identify areas of waste quickly and easily in their own department. Once the employees see how simple it can be to apply QDM to small projects, the coaching often expands to larger scale projects.
For example, when the 767 aircraft was fairly new to FedEx Express, there was an issue with excessive damage to the edges of the lower cargo door. The incidents required maintenance and, thus, caused flight delays.
The Air Operations Process Improvement Office led a cross-functional team to assess the situation and to collect data from various steps in the loading process. In conjunction with personnel from Ramp Operations and Aircraft Maintenance, they developed charts and diagrams of the primary strike points, allowing them to show the loading teams how to avoid collisions as part of recurring training. They also worked directly with the manufacturer to fix part of the hardware on the door that was causing problems.
Once these solutions were launched, the team evaluated the new processes to gauge success. After 90 days of evaluation, damage was reduced by 67%. As a result, there is now a standard process in place to avoid similar issues in the future.
Every training session is different. The Air Operations Process Improvement Office team embraces standardization in the classroom, but also adapts to circumstances when assisting with on-site improvement activities. Ultimately, their goal is to ensure people feel confident using the tools and principles to do their job better and to keep looking for quality improvement opportunities along the way.
In recent years, the team has hosted numerous sessions for employee groups around the globe and inspired FedEx Express team members to pursue QDM certification. With innovation in mind, the team assessed a need to provide QDM Practitioners with QAT Leadership experience prior to becoming QDM Experts; currently, the team is piloting a QDM Professional designation, which involves additional courses, a project leadership requirement, and an exam.
275–350 Employees taught each year
QDM Apprentice certifications
QDM Practitioner certifications
QDM Expert certifications
Sheri Hill and Chris Riggen are true QDM advocates. Every year, they work with many employees to break down the principles of QDM and share the immediate impact that these tools can have on the process.
While training employees across the globe, Sheri and Chris try to tell each employee that not every project needs to be a huge process change. The little adjustments can save a surprising amount of time and money for the company: "It's most often the everyday, simple things that nobody has looked at for 30 years that have the biggest impact."