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A Lasting Impact

Process Palooza started as a one-day event but has evolved into a movement. The outcomes from that first conference have rippled across the UC San Diego campus and beyond. Read below for a snapshot of all the positive outcomes.

Business Excellence Community of Practice

  • Process Palooza turned out to be the ideal incubator of our unique Business Excellence Community of Practice (BECOP). Open to all, BECOP addresses the intersection of organizational change management, continuous improvement and project management. Members come together to share best practices, learn from each other and look for opportunities to strategically deploy skills. Process Palooza served as a central point to both fully explain the concept of BECOP and actively recruit. Since Process Palooza 2017, a formal board of directors was formed, 130 people have joined up BECOP leadership enters its second year. Learn more: becop.ucsd.edu 

Lean Bench

  • Process Palooza was  key in populating the UC San Diego Lean Bench. The “Lean” is from Lean Six Sigma and the Bench refers to a roster of 12 process improvement experts. A highly selective application process resulted in the identification of these 12 LSS experts. Lean Bench members are assigned to assist departments in need by applying their expertise to optimize clunky or inefficient campus processes. The concept of a bench means that members keep their normal positions in their home department. Through interdepartmental consulting agreements, they analyze processes with an objective, outside perspective. 

    The Lean Bench has already been deployed to provide process improvement reviews to multiple large ERP-renewal efforts, including Research Administration, Financial Services, Academic Personnel, with several others waiting in the wings. These ERP-renewal efforts are equal parts process improvement and technology upgrade – there’s no reason to apply new tech solutions to bad processes.  

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Real Processes

  • The competition element of Process Palooza is fun, but also impactful for the departments that put their processes through extreme scrutiny. Following the 2017 Process Palooza event, participating departments implemented some of the solutions, and realized the following results:  

    2017

    Associated Students travel request process: $96,000 savings, 41% reduction in processing time, 50% reduction of rework, 50% reduction of advising time, increased customer satisfaction by 80%, increased process understanding by 100%. 

    Transportation Services new employee commute: By implementing only a small number of improvements, achieved $105,000 in labor savings and 30% reduction of in-person procession.

    2018

    Fleet Services Vehicle Request Process: Request process cut down to three days from up to 20, 50% vehicle reduction, overall $1.7M savings in capital costs.