When onboarding new FedEx team members, part of the process includes an introduction to Quality Driven Management (QDM). For one particular team at a newly acquired FedEx facility, that meant adopting a fresh approach for process improvements.
During this time, the existing FedEx team members collaborated with the new individuals to overhaul the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) facility-wide as a way to demonstrate QDM in action.
Existing FedEx team members reviewed the current SOPs for the facility to walk new team members through:
• Each QDM tool they planned to use (specifically the ABLE process explained below)
• How it would help empower the team members
• The steps required to ensure the project would be successful
ASSESS PHASE: Whiteboard sessions allowed every employee to share their thoughts.
BUILD PHASE: Reviewing initial drafts of the new SOPs helped employees believe that the changes would be implemented, providing buy-in from all the team members, including management.
LAUNCH PHASE: Through orientation meetings, management determined which tools would be required for training and how to explain the new SOPs to team leads.
EVALUATE PHASE: While SOP development is ongoing, the initial implementation saw huge benefits for the entire facility, including:
INCREASED EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
BOOSTED EMPLOYEE MORALE
GREATER TIME SAVINGS
The work included the Receiving team and the Data Capture team — groups that historically had different ideas about the ideal SOP. Management described it as "one of the best meetings they had ever experienced" between the two teams, and it created a stronger working relationship, thanks, in large part, to QDM. The facility receiving team can now process more packages with fewer employees within the same eight-hour workday.
EMPLOYEES |
TRAILERS |
HOURS |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Before QDM |
18 |
2 |
8 |
After QDM |
16 |
4 |
8 |
Senior Engineer in Package Recovery Operations, Josh Russell is a QDM advocate. While working on the SOP project, Josh saw the importance of using QDM to address inefficiencies: "Using all the QDM tools really works. I learned that they're interdependent, meaning each one depends on the other, and you really have to do them all to be effective with QDM."