Low-code delivers lean methodology efficiencies
UK Power Networks uses our low-code platform, Liberty Create, to deliver lean methodology efficiencies to drive CX.
Project highlights
- Efficiency saving of 83%
- Prompts for proactive assessment preparation
- Consistency applied across all assessments
- Enabling effective data gathering, benchmarking and analysis
UK Power Networks own, construct and maintain the electricity infrastructure across London, the South East and East of England. They deliver energy infrastructure solutions for millions of customers, from rural farmhouses to the Houses of Parliament and every type of home and business in between.
High-performance programme
The standard of service that UK Power Networks deliver to customers is stringently measured by their regulator, Ofgem. Excellent customer experience (CX) is one of the highest priorities for the organisation and as such, they continually drive innovation, efficiencies and work on staff development for optimum performance.
Their Lean Improvement Team implemented a lean improvement framework to up-skill and empower employees to consistently achieve better business results. The lean improvement programme uses recognised lean manufacturing methodology, which help align services to customer needs.
Their goal is to engage and empower employees to drive performance enhancements and develop more effective ways of working through innovation. This increases skills and job satisfaction for employees. It also supports UK Power Networks in their strategic aim of investing in their operational workforce to deliver better CX to customers.
Developing a more efficient platform
The Lean Improvement Team work with a growing number of people and teams across UK Power Networks.
They needed a more efficient, effective way to collaborate as they had established that 60% of their time was spent administering the process and on communications to arrange assessment appointments. This reduced the time they had available for working with people on driving performance benefits.
They also relied heavily on spreadsheets and manual interactions, with the user errors and inconveniences that these bring.
UK Power Networks turned to the speed and flexibility of our low-code platform, Liberty Create, to build a platform for the Lean Improvement Team.
- A team of four people used Create to build their application in low-code
- Using just one technically trained member of the team, some support from Netcall, plus the 3 remaining members covering some simple testing work
- Using the Lean Application helped the team to expand their work scope from 6 to 75 teams within the business, which could not have been done otherwise
The successful use of the Liberty Create platform for lean improvement planning, led to UK Power Networks adopting Create to build a larger system for external customer connection applications. This delivered a dramatic improvement to both the internal order processing quality and efficiency and the customers’ experience. This subsequently contributed to improved customer satisfaction scores and Ofgem ranking for CX.
Driving business efficiency
One of the first major issues that the lean application resolved was reducing the wasted time in travelling to missed performance assessment appointments. Using a combination of automation and low-code, they completely refined their communications when setting up assessments, sending reminders and handling re-schedules.
Their administration time reduced to just 10% of their weekly work time, from 60%, representing an efficiency saving of 83%.
Create was very intuitive to use. One of our team members, with some training and support from Netcall, was able to quickly learn how the platform worked, allowing us to adjust workflows, create our own automated comms and store relevant data, all in one platform. This saved significant time and cost.
Valuable functionality
The lean application enables staff to review their contribution before meetings, storing their evaluation scores plus any images and documents to support this. This was not possible before.
The ability to proactively prepare reduced the time taken for performance assessments, freeing up time to focus on improvement actions. It also allowed for a more consistent approach in the adoption of the methodology across the organisation, no matter which individual reviewer conducted the assessment.
The application also enabled effective data gathering and benchmarking. This allows for analysis of how effectively teams are being supported to drive value and improve the way they work, all of which contributes to the continual drive to improve customer experience and innovate to more effective ways of working.
Examples of performance improvement and innovation are saved within the application. These compelling stories are motivational for staff and demonstrate their involvement in driving improvement. This also assisted UK Power Networks in providing evidence for the Investors in People (IIP) accreditation, for which UK Power Networks achieved the highest Platinum IIP Award, a standard held by just 1% of UK organisations.
Building continuous improvements
Unlike traditional digital transformation programmes, low-code is fast, flexible and agile. It doesn’t demand an overhaul of your operations or additional pressure on IT.
As the lean platform shows, low-code development enhances and improves systems and processes which are already in place, allowing for iterative deployment.
UK Power Networks has been able to utilise the platform to empower their teams to significantly improve their performance, further boosting the company’s business performance and customer satisfaction.
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