How HYS Enterprise Improved

Production with Epicflow

KPN is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company that was

founded in the 19th century. It began functioning as a public telecom company

and now has around 6.3 million fixed-line telephone customers. Its mobile

division, known as KPN Mobile, has over 22 million subscribers around Europe

(the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain). KPN also functions as

an international Internet provider with more than 2.1 million customers

throughout Western Europe.

• Delivery reliability went from 18% to 80%.
• Sales know what they can sell.
• 21% Improvement in efficiency.
• Employees are proactive rather than reactive.
• Completion time halved.
• Stress caused by overload significantly decreased.
• Sales department is aware of the lead time.
• Calm workplace, no more escalations.
• Late orders are analysed and structural problems are addressed.
• Number of late orders is reduced by 80%.

Production Challenges

Being an Internet provider, KPN’s output is dependent on the fiberglass market.

In 2008, when the market boomed, the production of the company lagged

behind sales. That is to say that there was much more demand than actual

output (around 150 projects sold vs. 70 projects delivered). Challenges were

snowballing: the number of projects in progress went from hundreds to

thousands, delivery time doubled with multiple projects failing their deadlines,

customer satisfaction rate dropped, capacity was lost to escalation

management, while employees were submerged in an unceasing state of stress

because of the feeling that no work was getting completed. With new people at

the company and more orders to deliver, the company’s output increased, yet

also led to extra overhead for managing escalations.

To strengthen their production and improve delivery rates, KPN Starts Using

Epicflow software solution. As one of the initial cooperation steps, our team

helped them to develop better commitment and trained company managers

for them to perfectly understand how the tool works. Among the main tasks for

Epicflow here was not only on-time delivery rate improvement, but also

reduction of the number of projects in progress. Following the tool’s strategy,

the main focus was on resource management, which helped to deal with

various bottlenecks, ensure that everyone had an optimal workload, and train

employees to gain new skills so that they could assist in other departments, if

needed.

Start of Using Epicflow

After less than one year of cooperation, KPN saw considerable

production improvement. Namely, on-time delivery went from 18% to 80%,

efficiency rose by 21%, and lead time halved. Furthermore, employees noticed

a change in their working environment: everything turned calmer and more

organized with much less stress burdening them. With the tool, employees got

the chance to be proactive rather than reactive, to predict bottlenecks before

they turn into a production threat.

Results

After less than one year of cooperation, KPN witnessed considerable

production improvement. Namely, on-time delivery went from 18% to 80%,

efficiency rose by 21%, and lead time halved. Furthermore, employees noticed

a change in their working environment: everything turned calmer and more

organized with much less stress burdening them. With the tool, employees got

the chance to be proactive rather than reactive, to predict bottlenecks before

they turn into a production threat.