Animal Welfare and Rescue

Organization Mission:

To improve the operations of animal shelters in the United States in order to increase adoption
rates over 25% and ensure animals are provided the highest level of care while being processed
through an efficient supply-chain management system, designed to get them adopted within 90
days.

Operation Strategies:

Create a standard practice of shelter operations to maximize efficiency across shelters

throughout the United States
o Develop operational process flows for "soup to nuts" release / rescue, rehabilitation,
and delivery of animals into households / release
Cut down on the bottlenecks that exists between the animals entering the
shelter for the first time and being adopted
Poor quality is poor effectiveness in shelters as animals are not goods that can
just be stored by improving the efficiency of shelters, we will also improve
their effectiveness of having animals adopted faster
Unite all animal shelters onto the same process flow in order to accurately track
all animals in the system and determine the next steps for an animals path to
being adopted (stay at shelter, relocate to another shelter, move to a medical
care center etc.)
Unite the 5,000+ animal shelters across the country on one unified database system (the
National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy is working to facilitate this but not
operationalizing a database)
o This database will help reduce costs in over-packed shelters by moving animals to
locations that are under capacity. This will aid in the quality of care the animals receive
and help individual shelters remain within their tight budgets
Use inventory management optimization to relocate animals that are not being
adopted in one shelter to higher adoption locations (for example, dogs of the
Hound variety are sometimes hard to adopt in Southern states but find more
success in Northern states)
o Will lead to higher adoption rates by moving animals to places where they are most
desired and ensuring that some shelters are not under-capacity while others are
overflowing
Link unified database system to informational websites to help the public access the shelter
animal inventory
o Only 21% of dogs owned in the US were adopted according to the US Humane Society
An easy to access online database will help potential owners have access to
thousands of potential dogs without having to go from shelter to shelter looking
for the right one

Will cut down on time animals spend in shelters

Potential owners will not need to wait until the right animal enters the shelter
nearest them but can instead browse online for the right animal and request
they be transported to a shelter near them

Process Flow Diagram

See attached Process Flow Digram.pdf file for the process flow diagram and throughput and cycle time
calculations. The recommended process changes layer on top of existing animal shelter operations and
provides:

A new process to support a nationwide animal shelter linked network

Process flow for intake, diagnosis, and transport

The ability for 6 animals each day to leave an animal shelter, with the overall goal of moving
populations of animals to different geographic locations for better adoption rates

Assumptions incorporated include:

Each animal shelter has 1 truck for transport

Shelters are staffed with a minimum of 4 people

A unified database for animal data exists shared amongst the shelters

Trucks leave at 5 pm and arrive return by 3pm the next day

Distance between shelters can be traversed within a 11 hour time period

Shelters follow daily shelter operations based on guidelines set by the ASPCA
http://www.aspcapro.org/mydocuments/generic-sop-manual.doc

Quality Objectives:

To evaluate animals disposition and behaviors and match them with owners with similar
interests and preferences.

To ensure owners can meet the criteria of animals and are suited to take care of them. A high
degree of compatibility will ensure that both animals and owners needs are met.

Quality Measures:

Only animals that score 1 or 2 on the behavior assessment should be cleared for adoption.
Animals that score 3, 4, or 5 should be sent back for retraining and aggression suppression.

All animals must be spayed or neutered before adoption.

Medical assessment by qualified veterinarian, behavioral inputs from trainer, and feedback from
shelter personnel are required to make decision for adoption or euthanasia.

Ensure potential pet owners have reasonable adoption household conditions and are not
intoxicated or under influence of drugs.

Quality Management:

Meet Your Match Safer program is conducted by a certified assessor and a trained observer who
observes behavioral traits of animals. The assessment results are reviewed by both the assessor
and the observer to assign scores.

Program for analyzing progress of animals undergoing behavior modification either via training
or through foster care to ensure appropriate training is being applied.

Shelter personnel evaluate potential owners by conducting survey of pet owners, performing
yard check, conducting interviews of all family members, and providing them with the records of
the pet and the medical history.

Setup follow-up interviews to ensure continued compatibility between animals and pet owners.

Adoption contracts are filled by the pet owners with a staff witness who also signs the adoption
terms and conditions.

Variance Reduction:

Success rate of good matches can be increased by standardizing checklist of steps such as
medical checkup and behavioral evaluation to ensure compatibility before relinquishing animals
for adoption.

Quality Methods- Six Sigma and DMAIC:

All the animal shelters should adopt the Six Sigma philosophy and methods to rapidly improve
the operations and quality of animal care and reduce costs.

These proven strategies follow the animals from the front door of the shelter all the way
through discharge, examining key aspects of flow and quality. The trail of billing and collections
is also followed to discover and eliminate cash flow leaks. The goals are reduce the "three
demons of quality"--delay, defects, and deviation.

Used in a systematic project- oriented fashion through define, measure, analyze, improve, and
control (DMAIC) cycle

Define
o

Evaluate the operations of animal shelters and define critical-to-quality characteristics

Set response time of each process with upper and lower limits, e.g. call center,
housing assessment, transport preparation

Standard operation checklist

Effective use of Unified Inventory database and informational website

Measure
o

Conduct customer service survey to determine customer satisfaction, and identify the
most likely causes of defects of the key processes

Key processes

Adoption

Strays/ Lost

Owner Release

Reclamation

Registration

Transfer/ Transport to other shelter

Dispatch

Veterinary Operations

Field Operations

Analyze
o

Setup a Project Committee comprised of staff, volunteers and advisors

Committee is to review the survey result and understand why key defects are generated

Assess technology capability to ensure up-to-date software and hardware support

Improve
o

Identify the maximum acceptance ranges of all the standard process

Identify means to remove causes of defects

Modify process to stay within acceptable range

Control
o

Continue to conduct periodic customer service survey to identify improvements

Assign roles and responsibilities to the staff for commitment of this quality management

30

15

Intake: Accept
New animal arrivals, complete
paperwork, enter
arrives
into system
2

60
Storage:
Temporary
Holding (new
arrivals)

20

Housing
Assessment
(medical exam,
scan for microchip)

20

On its way to
another
shelter?

Wait for truck to be

available

12

No

240

Prepare for
Transport

Yes

Load Animal On
Truck

12

Identify best place

(Inventory DB)
TP
min

CT
min
1

Resources

CP / hour

Deliver to nextclosest animal

shelter with room
on next leaving
truck

12

Is our shelter
the best place?
(Inventory DB)

Existing Shelter
Operations

Yes

Drop off at new

shelter
No

15

[Shelter is open 8 hours a day]

THPT: 30 + 60 + 20 + 240 + 5 + 5 +(10) = 360-370 min ~ 6 hours
Cycle Time: 20 min
Each day, 6 animals can leave a shelter for a better location

15

Confirm with
recipient Shelter,
check truck
schedule
1

240

Wait for truck to be

available