Ace - -e GRADUATE "CI | SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

DIPLOMA IN LOGISTICS AND OPERATIONS 2020

Course: Operational Management Strategy

Teacher: Silvia Ponce

PRESENTED BY:

Paolo Livias Aliaga

2020

CASE SUMMARY:
In Japan, there is a company called Tessei that provides cleaning services to the Eastern Railway Company.

Tessei has the task of cleaning each train in 7 minutes every time it arrives at the platform, but it started to have
safety problems, operational errors (impossibility to finish cleaning in 7 minutes), customer complaints and staff
turnover.
Tessei's job is one of the most complicated cleaning tasks in the world. Cleaning a bullet train in exactly 7 minutes
was equivalent to cleaning 6 Boeing aircraft in less than half the time it used to take to clean one. Customers are very
demanding since traveling on the bullet train cost the same as an air ticket, so perfect hygiene and punctuality were
characteristics that the service had to maintain.

Yabe, a manager with a distinguished and successful career, reached his retirement age. In traditional Japanese
companies such as the Railway Company, high-level positions are often offered to successful career managers.
Therefore, the company's vice president directly asked Yabe to take charge of Tessei's transformation.

Yabe was hesitant because of his lack of cleaning experience and especially because of Tessei's negative reputation.

EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS OF PROBLEMS:

1. Failures in the performance of the service by Tessei personnel.

Employees try to complete the task in 7 minutes, but due to time pressure and supervisors, they often make
mistakes. These errors have a direct impact on customer perception and lead to complaints.

Arriving trains were not standardized, depending on the route they could vary in number of cars, distribution
and arrived at different locations on platforms, which also made the employees' task more difficult.

The employees were mostly new and inexperienced and this caused them to make mistakes due to the
complexity of the cleaning task which consists of a strict step-by-step manual.

2. Difficult to recruit.
In Japan this work is considered dirty, difficult and dangerous (3K: Kitanai, kitsui and kiken) so it was difficult
to find people willing to work in Tessei. The personnel currently recruited were personnel who had had
difficulty finding work, so they were "forcibly" working at Tessei.

3. Work environment.
The staff felt under a lot of pressure from the supervisor, and there was no good treatment or openness to
receiving ideas.
This reduced staff performance and increased the possibility of task errors.

4. Decrease in Tessei's income.

Since 2001, due to management mismanagement, commissions paid to Tessei were reduced and this caused
the company's revenues to drop by 12%. On the other hand, the number of railcars cleaned had increased, so
Tessei tried to reduce costs by increasing the proportion of part-time employees.

5. Increase in occupational accidents.

Despite having instructions and guidelines to prevent occupational accidents, these were on the rise. This
could be a consequence of performing work too quickly and under pressure. In trying to comply with the 7-
minute time limit, the personnel overlook the proper procedure by not following safety measures.

SOLUTION IDENTIFICATION

1. Motivation of personnel:
Unmotivated personnel will always perform poorly when it comes to performing their tasks.

It is important to change the mentality of the personnel, to erase from their heads that the cleaning job
contains the 3K. Motivational talks can change this mentality by convincing personnel that their job is "THE
MOST DIFFICULT AND UNIQUE JOB IN THE WORLD" and that "ONLY THEY CAN DO IT". Convincing staff of
their capabilities and that their work is unique will boost their morale.

On the other hand, contact with the public should also be promoted in order to integrate cleanup work into
society and not to be underestimated. Have janitors be courteous to customers: greet or say hello or
 goodbye upon arrival or departure, smile, and provide assistance or guidance to customers. In addition, the
promotion or diffusion of the "MOST DIFFICULT AND UNIQUE JOB IN THE WORLD" will serve to make the
cleaning work more appreciated by society.

In this way, personnel will feel valued both internally and externally and will increase their productivity.

2. Teamwork:
Teamwork should be promoted by listening to the opinions, suggestions or proposals of the workers.
Supervisors and superiors need to be more open and integrated with the workers. This will not only improve
processes more accurately by listening to the voice of the person performing the activity, but also establish
better relationships between supervisors and operators.

3. Cleaning method:
The cleaning method or procedure that exists in the manual should be reviewed and modified by listening to
the suggestions of the operators. Suggestions will contribute to the development of a new manual detailing a
more efficient cleaning method.

Due to the reduced time available for cleaning the rail cars, it is necessary to hire more personnel, so that the
tasks will be better divided and the operators will not work under so much pressure and make mistakes or
have accidents.

4. Ongoing training:
Although the cleaning work is carried out on the basis of a manual, it is always necessary to carry out training
to disseminate changes or only with the idea of reinforcing the cleaning method, which over time can
become distorted due to "small habits" that are created in the day-to-day work of the operating personnel.
In addition, safety methods are always forgotten or neglected by staff, reinforcing the dangers and causes of
not following safety rules creates awareness among staff.

Training for supervisors in personnel management, problem solving, conflict resolution, stress management,
etc., is also important.

At the management level, training in strategic decision making, planning and other related areas should not
be neglected.

5. Improve labor supply.

The part-time offer is not attractive to the labor market, which makes recruitment very complicated or
means that only people who have already had problems in other companies and whose work is deficient can
be hired, or that these people do not join the company because they want to, but only because they could
not find another job.

Full-time positions should be offered to attract talent, in addition to providing performance incentive
programs to promote improvement in the work of current personnel.

Materials such as cleaning solutions, soaps, bags and others should be recalculated based on an analysis of
their consumption during cleaning work. In addition, an emergency tolerance margin should be considered
so that, if at any time the consumption of these materials increases in a justified manner, the personnel will
not run out of material and will not feel that they do not have adequate conditions to perform their tasks.

6. Retention of personnel.
The above-mentioned measures will improve the staff retention rate and avoid constantly having new staff
who need training or who make mistakes at the beginning.

7. Renegotiate commissions to increase revenues.

Although the measures described above will increase Tessei's costs, by improving service, in the long term,
commissions will be negotiated due to the improvement in service quality and customer satisfaction. In
addition, just by improving the cleaning service, more customers will use the service or be willing to pay a
little more than they would normally pay.