Led by finance: Ranjan de Silva, group director of shared services at AMW, a Sri Lankan auto sales and servicing specialist, explains his part in implementing kaizen working practices in order to improve customer service and secure a competitive advantage.

THE BACKGROUND A decision by Sri Lanka's government in 2010 to reduce import duties had a tremendously stimulating effect on the automotive market--particularly the private car segment, in which the largest duty reductions were seen. As a result, my company experienced an exponential growth in sales, leading in turn to a rise in demand for after-sales service. But this meant that large numbers of customers were dropping off and picking up vehicles during peak hours, leading to site congestion. People were also having to wait two to three weeks for a service appointment, which caused dissatisfaction.

THE PLAN Rather than pursuing a costly expansion, we decided to re-engineer how we serviced vehicles, reinventing the process by implementing the kaizen doctrine of continuous improvement. This approach would also be consistent with the company's long-term goal of becoming the market leader through a strategy of differentiation.

THE PROCESS We moved from a traditional hierarchical system of employment and adopted a participative, innovative learning culture. A project team was set up, advised by external consultants. To overcome the capacity constraints and prevent unscheduled visits from customers, the entire service process was restructured, adding end-to-end control from the point of a customer's arrival until the completion of their payment. This resulted in a reduction of waiting times to no more than two days. A standard operating procedure was introduced, too. This was broken down into small components, measured in seconds...

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