UK Power Networks uses low-code to deliver lean methodology efficiencies and drive CX
The challenge
UK Power Networks own, construct and maintain the electricity infrastructure across London, the South East and East of England. The standard of service that they deliver is stringently measured by their regulator, Ofgem. Excellent customer experience (CX) is one of their highest priorities so they continually develop innovation, efficiencies and staff development for optimum performance.
High performance programme
The Lean Improvement Team are tasked with up-skilling and empowering employees to consistently achieve better business results. Their programme uses recognised lean manufacturing methodology, helping to develop more effective ways of working through innovation and align services to customer needs.
As 60% of their time was spent administering the process and arranging assessment appointments, they needed a more efficient, effective way to collaborate with teams across the organisation. They also needed to move away from heavy reliance on spreadsheets, with the user errors and inconveniences that these bring. They turned to the speed and flexibility of low-code, using Liberty Create, our low-code platform, to build an application for the Lean Improvement Team.
“The great thing about building the Lean App in Liberty Create is that it gives us the ability to expand, developing and building different elements to the platform. It has given us the tools to build a framework for driving innovation and improving performance.”
Lee Warwick
Senior Compliance Advisor & Network Operations Data Champion, UK Power Networks
The solution
A major issue that the Lean App resolved was reducing the wasted time in travelling to missed performance assessment appointments.
Using a combination of automation and low-code, they completely refined their communications to set up assessments, sending reminders and handling re-schedules.
Administration time reduced to just 10% of weekly work time.
The Lean App enables staff to review their contribution before meetings, storing their evaluation scores plus images and documents to support this. This was not possible before.
This proactive preparation reduced the time taken for performance assessments, which allowed them to focus on improvement actions. It also allowed for a consistent approach across the organisation, no matter which individual reviewer conducted the assessment.
The Lean App offers effective data gathering and analysis of how effectively teams are being supported to drive value and improvements. This benchmarking contributes to the continual drive to improve CX.
Examples of performance improvement and innovation are saved in the application. These compelling stories are motivational and also helped UK Power Networks to provide evidence for Investors in People (IIP) accreditation. UK Power Networks achieved the highest Platinum IIP Award (a standard held by just 1% of UK organisations).
“Create was very intuitive to use. Our team members, with training and support from Netcall, were able to quickly learn how the platform worked, allowing us to adjust workflows, create our own automated comms and store relevant data, all in one platform. This saved significant time and cost.”
Jon Hornsey
Lean Programme Manager, UK Power Networks
The result
A team of four people used Create to build their application in low-code, plus some support from Netcall
The Lean Application enabled the team to expand their work scope from 6 teams to 75 from around the business, which could not have been done otherwise
Admin time reduced from 60% to 10% of weekly work time – an efficiency saving of 83%
The app was so successful it led to UK Power Networks adopting Create to build a larger system for external customer connection applications
This delivered a dramatic improvement to internal order processing quality and efficiency as well as the customers’ experience, which subsequently contributed to improved customer satisfaction scores and Ofgem ranking for CX
Building continuous improvement
UK Power Networks learnt from the development of the Lean App that low-code development can enhance and improve existing systems and processes, allowing for iterative deployment. They continue to utilise the platform to empower their teams to significantly improve their performance, further boosting the company’s business performance and customer satisfaction.
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