This case study focuses on the eCommerce portfolio of a prominent supermarket chain in Australia. Despite being a major player in the industry, the organisation faced challenges with a high staff turnover rate of 20% quarter-on-quarter, as well as a long history of quality issues and troubled feature deployments.
The quality issues within the organisation were primarily related to test environment instability. Although these issues were known to management, no action had been taken to address them for over 12 months. Moreover, the actual financial impact of these issues had not been quantified, leading to a lack of prioritisation in resolving them.
To tackle these challenges, the organisation implemented a comprehensive solution. They utilised Value Stream Mapping techniques to identify improvement opportunities within their delivery pipeline. Each improvement opportunity was assigned a monetary value based on the cost of delay and operational expenses associated with it.
To gather relevant data, the organisation extracted feature delivery information from their project management tool using custom JavaScript. They meticulously mapped out the value delivery steps for a significant number of teams, identifying key bottlenecks that hindered efficient delivery. These bottlenecks were then prioritised based on the cost of delay and internal dissatisfaction metrics, ensuring that critical issues received the necessary attention and resources.
The implementation of the solution yielded significant outcomes for the organisation. Through their analysis, they identified multiple bottlenecks in the delivery pipeline that were costing the organisation over $10 million per year in operational expenses alone. With a focused effort, one of the major bottlenecks was fully remediated within six months, resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings. Additionally, the organisation experienced a 23% increase in internal job satisfaction, indicating the positive impact of streamlining the delivery process on employee morale.
In conclusion, the organisation successfully addressed the challenges of quality issues, test environment instability, and delivery pipeline inefficiencies through their implementation of improvement initiatives. By utilising Value Stream Mapping, quantifying financial impact, and prioritising based on cost of delay, the organisation gained valuable insights, made data-driven decisions, and achieved notable improvements in operational efficiency. This case study exemplifies the benefits of a systematic approach to identify and rectify bottlenecks, ultimately leading to enhanced quality, reduced costs, and increased employee satisfaction within a large-scale supermarket chain.
