A case study of the Elite College of Technology (ECT)
Identifying the Problem using Flowchart
Performance Consulting
Key Topic / This case study illustrates the sequence of operations to be performed to identify the solution of a problem within an organization using Flowchart technique.Background
Information / The Elite College of Technology (ECT)— isa private technical college thatlocated in Jeddah, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).The college offers more than 30 majors. The ECT has 470 faculty and staff members and more than 9000 students who enrolled in different disciplines.
Presenting
Problem / Several complaints from new applicants were receivedabout the college admission office on how their applications are handled. Number of new applicants said that the admission office keep asking them to submit their new enrolment applications and documents several time and apparently the office keep losing these documents.
Solution / The ECT management has urged the admission office to look at the highlighted problem and propose a solution. Accordingly, the admission office decided to form a team and evaluate their existing admission process. The team agreed to use micro level Flowchartto display detailed picture of the sequence of work steps that make up the admission process for better understanding and to identify problem areas and improvement opportunities.
Thus, the team began first listing the major steps of the admission process then the sub steps. After that they have determined who is involved in each of the process. As a result, the team was able to comprehend the whole process and identify root causes of the problem. Some tasks were overlapped and three individuals in the admission office have access to the system where applications were stored electronically. Each of the individual downloads the new application into his/her system and begins processing it and this cause duplicate work for same application. Communication among different department and individuals was also another issue where application sometime kept pending in the employee’s tray assuming the other department or employee will follow up. Therefore, the team proposed new way to streamline the process and handling the new application. They suggested that one individual should be receiving and sorting the online applications and then distributed to the three employees in the admission office for further action and follow up with the applicant. They also suggested that the IT department in the college develops a web based intranet system that saves and tracks the application information and actions records. The system forwards the application entirely online to the concerned department to proceed with the second necessary steps. Moreover, the team has eliminated four sub steps that were causing duplicate work and delay on processing applications. They also have suggested hiring one more academic advisor to review and evaluate applicants’ documents and to enhance communication among the different departments in the college. Finally, the team recommended to provide training to the admission office employees on how the new process works
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