8:00 Chairperson’s Welcome And Opening Remarks

8:15 Enhancing The Customer Experience By Applying LSS And Other PI Methodologies To The Most Critical Customer Processes

In this opening kick-off session you will discuss the “main points of process pain, and opportunities” when it comes to dealing with the end-to-end customer experience, specifically focusing on the service recovery aspect, and its importance to the customer experience. Topics for discussion will include:

• Customer behaviour: Recession and its impact on the environment and our customers
• Starting from the outside in: Working from VOC and other metrics back in
• Connecting the dots: Using VOC and other means to layout the service delivery chain
• Process Control and Communications: Who cares about what and how do we get them timely and accurate information?

Steven Wrenn
VP, IT Service & Quality Operations
CVS Caremark Corporation
Adjunct Professor, Operations Management and Decision Sciences
University of New Hampshire, Whittemore School of Business

9:00 Extracting “Raw” VOC Data To Identify Critical To Quality Requirements To Select Most Important For LSS Processes.

“Raw” data has been a challenge for LSS professionals for years. However, as a result of recent changes in the economy, the complexity of this has escalated. Accurately collected data is necessary for identifying CTQs that in their turn determine the success or failure of any process improvement initiative. During this interactive session, you will learn how to:

• Develop a data collection plan for all touch points and internal data sources describing the customer experience
• Ensure compatibility of methods and classification schemes used in all systems to support integration
• Develop analytical means of extrapolating the information to the marketplace as a whole

Jennifer Rauworth
Director, Quality & Operations
Northwestern Memorial Hospital

10:45 Determining The Value Of The Business: Value Stream Mapping Through The Eyes Of The Customer

With all their customer touch-points, sales and marketing areas can leverage the use and power of a Value Stream Map to determine the process gaps. In fact, customers can more readily understand the need to simplify, standardize or re-design after participating in a Value Stream Map session. Incorporating the customer perspective is essential to establish which activities truly do not add value to the process and to determine the opportunities to improve the measure of success. Attend this interactive session and learn how to:

• Get the most participation out of your customers for the VSM
• Utilize the Benefit and Effort Matrix to prioritize your opportunities
• Turning the VSM into a company culture

Ingrid B. Redmon
Residential Sales and Marketing
Shaw Industries, Inc

11:30 Obtaining A Baseline Measure Of Customer Satisfaction To Enable Fact-Based Decision Making

Because customer satisfaction is harder to achieve today than ever before, it is imperative to make sure that your company has realistic yet accurate measures in place. During this session, you will learn how to:

• Identify or validate measures based on trends on what customers are saying about your company’s products or services
• Identify short-term and long-term needs of the customer
• Develop mechanisms to gain an understanding of the current and evolving motivations and expectations of customers
• Utilize various software tools to analyze the results

Tim Ruzbacki
Senior Business Process Consultant
Wachovia, a Wells Fargo Company

1:15 Maximize The Results Of Customer Feedback Analysis By Applying Advanced Survey Skills

Have you ever completed a survey and wondered what ever happened with the results or why the survey was so long? This session will provide participants a perspective on the complexity of gaining actionable VOC information as well as how to analyze and display the results, in order to tell an impactful story of what was learned so that improvement efforts can improve customer satisfaction. During this interactive session you will learn how to:

• Plan and create an objective-based survey
• Utilize Net Promoter Score
• Create a survey that can become qualitative once the results are captured
• Apply various tools required to prepare and launch survey (Zoomerang, Survey Monkey, etc.)
• Review and clean up of results
• Use Mini-Tab and other tools/methods to analyze results

2:15 Business Process In Focus: Applying LSS Methodology To Billing And AR Processes: Case- Study

One of the critical processes that significantly impacts customer experience is billing. Highly transactional, repetitive billing systems require responsive, impactful and efficient bill audit processes. Process improvement tools can greatly enhance the bill audit function and significantly improve the customer experience. But what are the critical components of this process that make it efficient and effective from the customer stand point of view and how to achieve that? Attend this interactive session and learn how to improve each step of the billing process:

• Invoice generation: billing mode
• Batch generation
• Batch processing or exporting

During this session we will discuss approaches to maximize the value proposition of internal auditing systems with the use of VOC, VOB, XY matrix and process maps for process improvement purposes. Also we will discuss employing effective transition plans to sustain bill audit performance.

Bruce Warner
SS BB Organization Performance Improvement
JEA

3:45 Roundtable Discussions: Utilizing Hoshin Kanri Planning Process To Enhance Employee Engagement In Process Improvement Initiatives

There are number of ways to ensure that company policies and strategies are communicated to everyone in the company but Hoshin Kanri is one of the methodologies that has proven to be most effective. Attend this roundtable discussion and discuss how to:

• Ensure understanding and implementation of strategic plans of the enterprise
• Streamline the direction of improvement projects
• Put systems in place to check the progress and ensure accountability

Michael Bullock
MBB
Quest Diagnostic Inc.

Designing and Implementing Lean Six Sigma Blended Learning Curricula: Meeting Needs of Internal Customers
The current economic meltdown and curbs on travel cost have made it increasingly difficult to impart Lean Six Training to your internal audience. Learn how a Blended Learning Curriculum can impart the same quality of training and also reduce travel costs. Attend this roundtable discussion and discuss how to:

• Use design approach – projects leads
• Identify Key Instructor Learnings
• Apply LSS to Training

Lester Mascarenhas
Master Black Belt
Praxair Inc.

4:30 Panel Discussion: Gaining Competitive Advantage By Collecting And Analyzing The Data On Local And International Competition

One of the areas that is often overlooked is how customers view your products or services in comparison to the one of your competitors’. What are the ways that would allow you to extract that data and ensure that you know where you stand as a business? During this session you will learn how to:

• Identify and select focus groups
• Apply root-cause analysis to retrieve an information on your competitors products/services
• Integrate the retrieved data into VOC reports

5:15 Close Of Day One