Scenario We consider the following process performed by an IT helpdesk that handles requests from clients. The clients are employees of a company....

Scenario

 We consider the following process performed by an IT helpdesk that handles requests from clients. The clients are employees of a company. There are about 1000 employees in total. A request may be an IT- related problem that a client has, or an access request (e.g. requesting rights to access an IT system). Requests need to be handled according to their type and their priority. There are three priority levels: "critical", "urgent" or "normal".

The current process works as follows. A client calls the help desk or sends an e-mail in order to make a request. The help desk is staffed with five "Level-1" support staff who typically are junior people with less than 12 months experience, but are capable of resolving known problems and simple requests. The hourly cost of a Level-1 staff member is EUR 40.

When the Level-1 employee does not know the resolution to a request, the request is forwarded to a more experienced "Level-2" support staff. There are three Level-2 staff members and their hourly cost is EUR 60. When a Level-2 employee receives a request, she evaluates it and assigns it a priority level. The job tracking system will later assign the request to the same or another Level-2 staff depending on the assigned priority level and the backlog of requests.

Once the request is assigned to a Level-2 staff member, the request is researched by the Level-2 employee and a resolution is developed and sent back to the Level-1 employee. Eventually, the Level-1 employee forwards the resolution to the client who tests the resolution. The client notifies the outcome of the test to the Level-1 employee via e-mail. If the client states that the request is fixed, it is marked as complete and the process ends. If the request is not fixed, it is resent to Level-2 support for further action and goes through the process again.

Requests are registered in a job tracking system. The job tracking system allows help desk employees to record the details of the request, the priority level and the name of the client who generated the request. When a request is registered, it is marked as "open". When it is moved to level 2, it is marked as "forwarded to level 2" and when the resolution is sent back to "Level 1' the request is marked as "returned to level 1". Finally, when a request is resolved, it is marked as "closed". Every request has a unique identifier. When a request is registered, the job tracking system sends an e-mail to the client. The e-mail includes a "request reference number" that the client needs to quote when asking questions about the request.

The helpdesk receives approximately 50 new requests per working day.

The current process is known to be error-prone. The most frequent types of errors include:

• Many requests take too long to be processed. Clients need to call often to remind the helpdesk that their requests are still unresolved

• When the client asks what is the status of a given request, oftentimes the helpdesk gives an incorrect answer. In other words, the Level-1 helpdesk staff are Assume that:

• Submitting and registering a new request takes 5 minutes on average.

• Requests spend on average 1 hour waiting for a Level-1 staff to check them. This applies both to new requests and to re-submitted requests.

• Checking if a new request is "known" takes on average 10 minutes. In 20% of cases the request is known. In this case, it takes about 5 minutes for the Level-1 staff to communicate the resolution to the client. Once this is done, the request is marked as "closed". On the other hand, if the request is not "known", the request is automatically forwarded to Level 2.

• New requests spend on average 2 hours waiting for a Level-2 staff to evaluate them. Level-2 staff take on average 20 minutes to evaluate a new request.

• Level-2 staff take 5 minutes to prioritize a request.

• The time between the moment a request has been prioritized, and the moment the request is

picked-up by a Level-2 staff member is 20 hours.

• The time required to research and resolve a request is on average 2 hours.

• The time to write the resolution to a request is on average of 20 minutes.

• Once a Level-2 staff has written the resolution of a request, it takes on average 20 hours before a the request is fetched from the job tracking system by a Level-1 staff.

• It takes on average 20 minutes for a Level-1 staff to send to the client a problem resolution previously written by a Level-2 staff.

• It takes on average 20 hours between the moment a resolution is sent by the Level-1 staff , and the moment the resolution is tested by the client.

• It takes the client around 10 minutes to e-mail the test results to the Level-1 staff.

• In 20% of cases the request is not resolved, and it needs to be forwarded to Level-2 again. In this latter case, it takes about 2 minutes for the Level-1 to forward the request to the Level-2 staff. Unresolved requests that are forwarded in this way are automatically marked as "prioritized since they have already been prioritized in the previous iteration.unable

to accurately determine what is the status ❖ Tasks:

1. Task 1 [4 points]. Model the "as is" process in BPMN.

2. Task 2 [5 points]. Apply the qualitative analysis by identifying at least 3 issues in the above process. Analyse these issues by using

a. Adding-value and Waste Analysis

b. Issue register or any other analysis method given in Chapter-6. If you need to make

assumptions to fill in the issue register, please write them down in an "Assumptions" column. If you find that there are more than three issues, you can focus on the three issues that have the highest impact.

3. Task 3 [3 points]. Calculate the cycle time efficiency of the as-is process. You can assume a working week of 40 hours. In case there is missing information, you can make assumptions about the missing information (e.g. assume a given processing time for a task). In this case, you have to explicitly state your assumptions.

4. Task 4 [3 points]. Propose a set of changes in the process. For each change, you should provide: a. A brief description of the process change

b. Which issue(s) are being addressed by the proposed change

c. How feasible is this change? In other words, how likely it is that the change can be implemented in a way that the benefits of the change exceed the costs in the medium-term (six months to one year timeframe). If the change requires an upfront investment, describe what investment is needed and how likely it is that this investment is justified given the impact of the issue that is being addressed.

5. Task 5 [3 points]. Draw a "to-be" BPMN model that incorporates your proposed changes.

6. Task 6 [2 poi. Oral presentation.

open requests, the Level staff often find many requests marked , but these requests are fact already resolved.