Fall

08
16

Summer

Wilson Language Training, Inc.

Jill Joy
Professor LaVigne
June 29th, 2016
Operations Management
Research Project

I work for Wilson Language Training, Inc. (WLT) out of Oxford, Ma. as an
accounting specialist, roughly translated I do accounts payable, accounts
receivable, service billing, collections, returns and I also deal with contract
management. I have been with the company for nine months and have had
the opportunity to implement and share some more efficient ways of doing
daily business. I will share with you the current operation of our review order
process that I am working with my manager to get approved and implement,
first let me give you some history and insight to WLT.
Wilson Language Training, Inc. is a literacy company based out of Oxford, Ma.
with a second office in Portsmouth, NH. WLT is dedicated to Literacy for All
for over three decades, teacher mastery and skill is at the core of our
mission.

Mission
Ourmissionistoprovidequalityprofessionallearningandongoingsupportsothateducatorshavetheskillsand
toolstheyneedtohelptheirstudentsbecomefluent,independentreaders,whoarereadytoexploretheendless
possibilitiestheworldofreadinghastooffer.

Barbara and Ed Wilson a husband and wife team own and operate WLT, but
their mission did not start here. Barbara was a special educator for
Massachusettss public schools for many years and completed training in the
Orton-Gillingham approach to literacy. She then went on to work for
Massachusetts General Hospital Language Disorders Unit working with adults
with Dyslexia. Continuing on their journey Barbara and Ed founded the
Wilson Learning Center for students with learning disabilities. With all of her
experience working with adults and students she was able to develop the
Wilson Reading System (WRS) to teach students the structure of words in a

systematic and cumulative manner. With the success of the learning center
school districts reached out for assistance with their challenged readers, this
led Barbara to create a year long or multi year process to guide and support
teachers with their challenged students.
Currently WLT offers three learning programs for teachers and students,
Fundations, Just Words, and Wilson Reading System. Fundations is a
program for students PreK-3 to give them a solid foundation into the critical
skills needed for reading and spelling with a 30 minute daily lesson. Just
words is for students in grades 4-12 and adults who have word-level
deficits, it is a class that provides reading and spelling basics for older
students. The Wilson Reading System is for the most challenged students
and adults with individual or small group instruction with highly skilled and
certified teachers.
WLT in Oxford is home base for the company and houses all the
departments needed for success in our mission.

We not only have many

different programs at WLT we also have a warehouse in which we call the

MDC that houses all of the programs materials.

The company generates

revenue through district and partner workshops, Service plans for individual
schools and districts and materials orders.

Throughout the years the

company has made leaps and bounds with growth and with that many
processes need to be revisited for a more efficient way of being done. One
process I am going to focus on is the current review order process and
proposing to implement sample kits for review instead of the current process,

I believe the sample kits will eliminate multiple steps throughout several
departments. This will make a more streamlined flow, save time for
employees, and save money. At WLT to keep in line with our mission we allow
individuals and schools to review some of our materials products for
potential implementation in their schools. This process is time consuming for
multiple departments, costly for the company and causes confusion and
errors. The current process starts with a customer representing a district or
other organization that will be reviewing a Wilson program for possible
adoption contacting WLT customer support requesting to review materials or
for a donation. Donations are usually on done for areas that may have been
through a natural disaster and need replacements materials or at the request
of Barbara or Ed Wilson or the assigned outreach associate. Once the
customer support person has the details of the School/educator, what they
would like to review (guided by the customer support specialist) and the
length of time they think they would need, that information is sent to a
supervisor or a manager for approval. If the request is approved a customer
support specialist creates the order with the materials requested, shipping
information and assigns a review order hold to the order for billing purposes.
Then creates a blank RMA (Return) to provide the customer with return labels
in the case they do not wish to keep the materials. (See figure A) Once the
order is places by the customer support person it is then sent to the MDC for
fulfillment, the order is fulfilled and shipped to the customer. This part of the
MDC process is the same for any order type. My proposal of the sample kits

would not affect the MDC current process in order fulfillment but eliminate
the whole returns process they currently face. Currently when a review order
is returned by a customer, the MDC has to contact customer support to full
in the RMA to be able to properly process the return. The RMA is originally
not completed, as the customer support person does not have all the
necessary information needed at the time of the order placement.

This

current process causes confusion and re-works for both the customer support
person and the MDC associate processing the return.
The current process (see figure E) for my department financial services
group (FSG) has multiple steps during the original order and also the returns.
The FSG converts all shipped orders to invoices once the orders have
shipped from the MDC this process is called end of day or EOD. Once or twice
a day as needed all shipped orders are transferred to FSG, we then transfer
those orders to invoice. Capture any credit card payments and process any
special handling orders such as the Review Orders. During the EOD process
any orders that had been placed with the review order hold by customer
support get special review of the notes to determine length of time of the
review. Then the hold is removed so the order can be transferred to invoice
and posted to the customer account. But because the order is a review we
dont send the invoice to the customer at this point.

FSG then posts a

receivables credit memo to the customers account for the full amount of the
invoice. The credit memo is applied to the invoice; this prevents a balance
due from showing on the customers monthly A/R statement. FSG then adds

a collections management note to the customers account for follow up when

the review period is complete. If the customer returns the review order, we
will be notified through returns management. FSG will then create a debit
memo for the full amount of the original invoice, as long as all materials
have been returned, and offset the debit memo with the RMA. In the case
the customer wants to keep the materials FSG will void the credit memo to
open the original invoice for payment. Also if the review period is met and
the materials are not returned the credit memo is voided and the invoice is
forwarded to the customer.
I determined this process is not efficient for any of the departments;
there are multiple steps involved and inconsistencies with those steps. My
recommendations go along with chapter two and taking the current job
process and streamlining it to be in line with the current orders process,
which is a small to large batch process.

Orders are similar between

customers but items and shipping information still make them customizable.
Creating a sample kit to for customers to review will have costs, however the
with current process roughly 65% of the materials cannot be returned to
inventory. The customer is handling and reviewing the materials, which
causes damage or missing parts upon return. With my recommendation we
would have a small sample kit of the most popular items that the customer
can handle and mark up if needed. The recommendation would eliminate the
customer support person gathering information for the manager to review
and approve and having to contact the customer after approval, ultimately

saving time and reducing work flows. See figure B the revised workflow of
the review order process.
The recommendation of the sample kit eliminates the returns process
completely for the MDC (Figure C & D). No confusion for the returns coming
in blank and having to contact customer support before processing the
return and delaying credit to the customer account. The new process would
be streamlined with the current batch process of orders.
For FSG this eliminates special handling of the orders to invoice and
eliminates creating debit/credit memos to offset invoices and returns (See
figure E revised). No longer would we need to carefully analyze each review
order notes and time periods of reviews. No collections management notes
would need to be created for follow up; with the new sample kit the line item
would default to zero dollars creating a paid invoice and no further action.
The small cost of a sample kit at zero dollars to the consumer compared to
the time spent on each review order within each department should save
money for WLT overall. The sample kit would be eliminating processes and
creating a more streamlined flow of orders; from original request by the
consumer, to fulfillment and finally invoicing.

References:

Operations Management process and supply chains, eleventh edition;

Kajewski . Malhotra . Ritzman

www.wilsonlanuage.com