Strategy and Operations Playbook for a new Tech Campus
Pedro Miguel dos Santos Sousa
Master’s Dissertation
Supervisor: Prof. Eduardo Gil da Costa
Master in Engineering and Industrial Management
2023-01-20
To my family and friends, for being my safe haven
Strategy and Operations Playbook for a new Tech Campus Abstract
Metyis, a consultancy based in Amsterdam, is building a new campus which will serve as headquarters for its operations and clients. At this stage of development, the company has decided to create an Operations Playbook which reflects all activities related to the new campus.
Although the main focus of the project is on the location and documentation of new processes, four more semi-projects are included in the agenda:
• Implementation of ISO27001;
• Service provider discussion;
• Sustainability Plan for the new campus;
• A small addition, the organisation of a new office and the continuation of the Playbook point.
To help set up projects described above, the scientific knowledge of Lean Office and Daily Kaizen and their implications were taken into account, including an overview of the tools used by both methodologies.
An AS-IS analysis of all the states of the project was made to understand the methodology used.
After understanding the problem and the needs of the company a methodology was presented to obtain several solutions for each project which is described in the first section of the chapter.
Although it was impossible to obtain analytical results comparable to other processes, due to the fact that many will be used when opening, some conclusions were made:
• More successful implementation of ISO27001 in the Porto office;
• Several providers were well presented and selected;
• A better understanding of the environmental impact of the change of the office;
• The Operations team noted a more straightforward and better information capture by implementing new processes;
• Understanding the need for a good office layout.
On this point, some plans for the future were made and presented.
Manual de Estratégia e Operações para um novo Tech Campus Resumo
Metyis, uma consultoria sediada em Amesterdão, está a construir um novo campus onde será a sua base de operações para si e para os seus clientes. Nesta fase de desenvolvimento, a empresa decidiu criar um livro de operações que reflete todas as atividades relacionadas com o novo campus.
Embora o foco principal do projeto seja a localização e documentação de novos processos, mais quatro mini projetos estão incluídos na agenda:
• Implementação da ISO27001;
• Discussão do prestador de serviços;
• Plano de Sustentabilidade para o novo campus;
• A organização do novo escritório, que é uma pequena adição e continuação do ponto Playbook;
Para realizar os projectos acima descritos, foi utilizado os conhecimentos científicos das metodologias do Lean Office e do Daily Kaizen. Incluido uma revisão geral das ferramentas usadas pelas duas metodologias e os cuidados que uma empresa deve ter ao implementar soluções identicas.
Compreendendo a metodologia que antigamente era utilizada, foi feita uma análise AS-IS de todos os estados do projeto.
Após a compreensão do problema e das necessidades da empresa, foi apresentada a metodologia utilizada para obter várias soluções para cada projeto.
Embora fosse impossível obter resultados analíticos comparáveis a outros processos, uma vez que muitos serão utilizados na abertura, foram tiradas algumas conclusões:
• Implementação mais bem sucedida da ISO27001 no escritório do Porto;
• Vários fornecedores foram bem apresentados e selecionados;
• Uma melhor compreensão do impacto ambiental da mudança do escritório;
• A equipa de Operações observou uma captação de informação mais direta e melhorada através da implementação de novos processos;
• Compreensão da necessidade de um bom layout do escritório.
Sobre este ponto, foram feitos e apresentados alguns planos para o futuro.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor at Metyis, Felipe Josué, for always being available to share his technical knowledge and guidance and supporting me throughout this project.
I would like to thank the Metyis Enabling Functions team, particularly David Gonçalves, Filipa Almeida and Rui Araujo, for accepting my knowledge so well into their team and my knowledge as a way of improvement.
To my academic supervisor, Professor Eduardo Costa, I would like to express a word of gratitude for the technical inputs, support, and guidance during the project.
I would like to thank Professor Sital Nandakumar, for the techincal support through out this project.
I would like to dedicate my project to my family for always being present and for their unconditional love and support throughout this academic experience, to all of my friends, particularly João Alvim, for knowing him since day 0 at FEUP, and for supporting me throughout everything. And lastly to Andreia Lopes for the support and love throughout this project.
Index
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 About the Project ... 1
1.2 Metyis New Technological Campus ... 2
1.3 Goals of the project ... 2
1.4 Methodology ... 3
1.5 Structure of the Document ... 4
2 Literature review ... 5
2.1 Process Modelling ... 5
2.1.1 Swimlane ... 6
2.1.2 Flowchart ... 6
2.2 Lean Thinking ... 7
2.3 Lean Office ... 7
2.3.1 Lean Waste ... 8
2.3.2 Lean Principles and Practices ... 9
2.4 Implications and Dangers of a Lean Implementation ... 10
2.5 How to Implement a Lean solution in a Company ... 11
2.6 Kaizen Methodology ... 12
2.6.1 The difference between Kaizen and Lean ... 12
2.6.2 Daily Kaizen ... 12
2.6.2.1 Team Organization ... 13
2.6.2.2 Workplace Organization ... 13
2.6.2.3 Standardization ... 14
2.6.2.4 Autonomous improvement ... 14
2.7 Office Layout ... 15
2.7.1 Implications of layout change ... 15
2.7.2 Layout designs ... 16
3 Problem Description ...18
3.1 The current state of the company ... 18
3.1.1 Current Organization... 18
3.1.2 Current Processes ... 20
3.2 Preparation for the change to the new Office ... 23
3.3 ISO 27001 ... 23
4 Methodology ...25
4.1 ISO 27001 certification ... 25
4.1.1 Before auditorship ... 26
4.1.2 During the auditorship ... 28
4.1.3 After auditorship ... 28
4.2 Providers discussion ... 28
4.3 Sustainability Plan ... 29
4.4 Creation of the Playbook ... 35
4.4.1 Operations processes ... 35
4.4.2 IT Processes ... 37
4.4.3 HR Processes ... 38
4.5 Organization of the new Office ... 38
5 Conclusions ...41
5.1 Conclusions of ISO 27001 ... 41
5.2 Conclusions of the Discussing of the New Providers ... 41
5.3 Conclusions of the Sustainability Plan ... 41
5.4 Conclusions of the PlayBook ... 42
5.5 Conclusions of the Organization in the new Office ... 42
5.6 Future opportunities ... 42
Biography ...44
Annexx A: Dangerous from access 1 ...47
Annexx B: An action plan for the construction of the new access ...48
Acronyms
L&D- Learn & Develompent KPI- Key Performance Indicators OA- Office Assistant
OM- Office Manager ROI- Return of Investment
Index of Figures
Figure 1: Metyis New Campus ... 2
Figure 2: Swimlane diagram (Armaya’u et. al, 2022) ... 6
Figure 3: Flowchart diagram (Armaya’u et. al, 2022) ... 6
Figure 4: PDCA cycle retrived from https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/18/6332 last check 14/01/2023 at 12:30 ... 14
Figure 5: Process Layout retrieve from Coelho (Coelho, 2022) adapt from (Molla, 2018) ... 16
Figure 6: Cellur layout, in https://audaces.com/qual-a-importancia-da-cronoanalise-no- processo-produtivo-de-moda/ last consulted in 13/01/2023 at 18:46 ... 17
Figure 7: Organization before September 2022 ... 18
Figure 8: Growth of employees ... 19
Figure 9: Organization After September 2022 ... 20
Figure 10: Delivery package ... 21
Figure 11: Reserve a room ... 21
Figure 12: IT problem ... 22
Figure 13: Creation of new card ... 22
Figure 14: Current Office space ... 23
Figure 15: ISM (Figure retrieved from a Metyis presentation) ... 24
Figure 16: Unprotected assets ... 24
Figure 17: Timeline of all the activities... 25
Figure 18: Risk Analysis matrix ... 27
Figure 19: Closet now used ... 27
Figure 20: Current Accesses ... 31
Figure 21: Road used for the study the impact of traffic (off rush hours vs rush hours) ... 32
Figure 22: New Access ... 33
Figure 23: CO2 Impact of the different routes ... 34
Figure 24: Social Impact vs Environnemental Impact ... 34
Figure 25: Personal Deliveries ... 36
Figure 26: How to reserve a meeting room ... 37
Figure 27: New office ... 39
Index of Tables
Table 1: Number of employees per county ... 30 Table 2: Conclusions on the current routes ... 32
1 Introduction
The present documentation reflects the project development at Metyis for the Master thesis of master’s in engineering and Industrial Management of the University of Porto.
This chapter gives an overview of all projects, including the objectives that establish, the methodology used, a history of the company and lastly, an understanding of how the document is organized
1.1 About the Project
The following project is described in this document, inserted in the Master of Engineering and Industrial Management, and defended and published as a dissertation in the area previously referred to.
As described in the Master’s program, the related topics are critical to any enterprise's well- being. Since with project management, it is possible to create a good design plan for any project which can have positive outcomes along with a correct the involvement of the different teams and stakeholders; more can be added that could be a blueprint for future projects on the same topics. The importance of analyzing the business processes is to understand better the day-to-day operations and essential processes for the company; with this study, anyone knowledgeable about the procedure can understand who is responsible for what and, in terms of management, acknowledge where the process is failing and where is taking to long to resolve (to this we can call the bottleneck of the process). The last point of the main topic is the definition of the company’s KPIs; the indicators could be of all types (cost, productivity, levels of internal happiness, stock...) and should be defined by the managing team.
Other topics to be discussed should be Lean Office as an instrument to redefine new processes and organization methods.
In terms of where the project was developed by a consultant called Metyis. This company is based in the Netherlands, and its service is based long term consultancy in several areas, but it seriously impacts areas like IoT and E-commerce. The operations in Portugal started in Porto about two years ago, and since then, the company has expanded to Lisbon and Faro. However, it never lost the main centre of operations in Porto, in terms of Portugal and even Global, with close to 200 employees in the Invictus City.
Inside Porto Operations there are six main teams: E-Commerce Team; Enabling Functions Team; Big Data and Analytics Team; Software and Hardware Development Team; Design Team; and Strategy and Execution Team, the department where this project was included.
One of the reasons for Porto being one of the most important and also the reason for this project is the construction of the new Campus of Metyis in Gondomar, Porto.
1.2 Metyis New Technological Campus
As referred to in the previous section, Metyis is building a new campus from scratch. The photo below (figure 1.1) should represent the final version of the campus when finished.
Figure 1: Metyis New Campus
The new campus will be home not only to a workplace but also to Metyis Academy (a program developed by Metyis to give training sessions to the employees) and to receive clients (known as Partners as well) from working closely with the consultants that are in the project.
The problem with this escalation of the Office in Porto is based on the fact that Porto operations were, until two years ago, a start-up and a force to grow in an exponential rhythm and did not have time and experience to grow into a big corporation in terms of internal organization.
Another problem is present inside the company, based on the fact that it is willing to have more sustainability plans but not having a plan on how to do it and how to manage some of these ideas.
1.3 Goals of the project
To answer the problems described in the previous section, the work was divided into four main projects:
1. ISO 27001
2. Discussion of Providers for the New Campus 3. Sustainability plans
4. Playbook of the new Campus
The Playbook should answer more operation problems that Metyis was facing, this includes:
• Workplace rules;
• Redefinition of internal processes;
This document's importance is to avoid failure in the fast growing rate of Metyis.
The Development of Sustainability Plan has two main objectives: the studies and development of a road that connects the new campus to the highway and; the implementation of solar panels in the new campus. Both projects are slightly different from each other because they must include the city mayor and city planning for the project to be implemented.
1.4 Methodology
As analyzed in the last section, there are four main projects, and although the projects differ, both have a strong index of action on Process Manager. Because of this, most of the methodologies developer similar for both.
Starting with ISO 27001, the steps were:
1. Understanding the ISO 27001;
2. Evaluate the level of security of the current access;
3. Create new solutions;
4. Present to the rest of the employees;
On the discussion of providers for the new campus 1. Study the providers;
2. Select which ones are mode suitable for Metyis;
3. Listen about the solutions;
4. Present the solutions to the administration;
5. Sign contract;
For the Sustainability plans, the steps were:
1. Study of the current situation (costs and ecologic Impact);
2. Interview providers, this only happened in the solar power project;
3. Analysis of different solutions and understanding what is the ROI (either financial or ecological Impact);
4. Understand how to get financing;
5. Presentation of the developed project to the Stakeholders for each project to be approved.
Finally the Playbook, some of the steps were:
1. Definition and presentation to the team involved in an action plan;
2. One on one meeting with all the Stakeholders of the project so it is be possible to understand the current situation and what should be improved;
3. Drawing up of a first draft of the Playbook;
4. Feedback sessions and current improvement;
5. Delivery of the final document.
This topic should acknowledge the importance of constant contact with stakeholders because they are the first users of the final document delivery and are the ones who present the best knowledge of the current situation and how to fix it.
In this topic, it is essential to retain that when designing sustainability projects, the ROI study should not be the financial return, in other words, "how long it takes to obtain the financial investment back", but what the project's ecological impact is vs the current solution.
1.5 Structure of the Document
After the presentation of the developed project, it is essential to describe how the current document is organized.
Chapter 1 is an overview of the work developed, a short description of the company, the problem and how the solution was made.
Chapter 2 is the presentation of literature and methodologies that support the work done during the project.
Chapter 3 uncovers the current state and the improvement opportunities.
Chapter 4 presents the steps taken to get the final delivery of each project.
To finalize, Chapter 5 describes the most important results, the main takeaway of the work presented, and future improvements to be considered.
2 Literature review
This chapter reflects on all the scientific studies made to create and support the methodology used to create a solution for the problems found.
2.1 Process Modelling
In the same sense that Martins (2020) reflected on the work of Leopold (2013), process modelling is one of the essential methods to understand the company and their work method and how well there are survive change. In terms of how to represent, there are many methods to do representation, but crucial thinking must be in place: knowing many details should be added since too much detail could lead to confusion in understanding the process to a lack of detail could lead to missing crucial takeaways; the language used should be simple and correct (Santos, 2019).
To understand the process better, Martins (2020) uses the reference of Braga (2018) to establish a workflow on how they should be created the process of modelling in order to obtain the objectives stated in the first paragraph:
• Understanding the business as an all: understand the company's current process, what is their core business and know the client's needs and some goals to accomplish;
• Preparation for modelling the process: this step is to define how long the duration should take the process to map and what elements will be delivered for the client;
• Process survey: within this step, several meetings are scheduled to understand all the steps involved in the business. Including meetings with administration, clients and providers. It is essential as well to take note of all the documentation used in all the steps;
• Create the AS-IS scenario: the AS-IS model reflects on the lessons learned from the previous steps and represents how the current business work;
• Study the AS-IS and find improvement opportunities: when studying the AS-IS scenario it is possible to find new solutions and create a more well-designed business process. These findings should be used in designing the next step;
• Design the optimal solution: these steps reflect all the lessons learnt from the previous steps and design a new business process, TO-BE scenario. This would include all the new documentations created and implemented, including the new designed processes and presenting the process and documentation maintained from the AS-IS scenario.
2.1.1 Swimlane
One of the most used ways of representing any business process is the Swimlane, represented in Figure 2, due to the fact that it is intuitive and easy to read.
This diagram works by representing the stakeholders of the process on the left of the figure and describing each task and decision the stakeholder is involved in on the right of the diagram and in front of the stakeholder’s name. Each task is connected to the previous one by a line, no matter who is the owner of the previous task.
Santos (2019) reflected on the benefits of this diagram when a process has tasks from different stakeholders and should be prioritised when describing processes involving different departments inside the same company.
2.1.2 Flowchart
The flowchart is a diagram, represented in Figure 3, that states the step-by-step process, stating all the tasks and the next step or decision in great detail. The usage of this diagram is usually associated with understanding the details needed (Martins, 2022).
Figure 2: Swimlane diagram (Armaya’u et. al, 2022)
Figure 3: Flowchart diagram (Armaya’u et. al, 2022)
2.2 Lean Thinking
After World War II, the Japanese economy declined throughout the 1940s. National businesses were compelled to look for innovative ways to manage inventories and production to lower manufacturing costs. Imagine the only way that would be able to survive in a bear market, where demand was dwindling, and substantial financial issues were typical for numerous enterprises (Krafcik, 1988). Because of the adversities, Ohno and Shigeo Shingo, to improve the Toyota business, used tools and implemented tools developed by Henry Ford, used to eliminate waste and optimize their resources and adapt them to Japanese culture (Womack, 1990). From França (2013), it is possible to learn from Drew et al.(2004) from this new system were born three new concepts:
• Multiuse machines: Machines that could be changed easily what they are producing;
• Skilled labour: Workers were valued for their work and not only seen merely as a method to “get the job done”.
• Pull system: This system is close to the just-in-time method. The companies stopped stocking inventory and only produced what the clients requested.
With time the methods used by Ohno and Shingo were developed and studied more in-depth to create Lean Manufacturing today (Drew at all, 2004; Reinsertsen, 2005). This method allowed Toyota to be more competitive against the American automakers who had the possibility of mass production and use of economies of scale and become more adaptable to adversity (Hopp & Spearman, 2001).
2.3 Lean Office
Lean Manufacturing was a step for reducing waste and optimizing the systems of industrial enterprises and industrial environments. However, using Lean tools in other environments was a good assessment for improvement, creating ideas like Lean Office (Keyte & Locher, 2004). Even though the wastes in the office are more challenging to identify in an office environment than on the industrial floor, several studies state that using these methods gives the employees more knowledge to understand and improve an office or a corporation.
Increasing the number of opportunities to use this method (Rüttimann, Fischer, & Stöckli, 2014).
As stated in the first paragraph, even though Lean Office has a positive impact on enterprises with office systems, the corporate environment presents many difficulties in evaluating the results of whether office waste is beginning to be reduced or not (Andrés-López, González- Requena, & Sanz & Lobera, 2015). Because of the challenge, companies started to study more effective ways to evaluate their results using different methods and strategies generally on the industrial shop floor but never letting go of the principles of the beginning (Damrath, 2012; Rüttimann et al., 2014).
From an office point of view, it is crucial to analyse the operations side of things and understand the service generated and the support activities created. Using swimlane diagrams is more advised since it better illustrates the company's reality, including current solutions and problems (Chen & Cox, 2012). However, some data necessary to end a process originates from several business communications, and this results in challenging different types of processes and making it harder to understand the performance of all processes (Rüttimann et al., 2014).
It is possible to conclude that Lean Office tools are still limited and do not give the actual processes and evaluate them. Because of that, several Lean Manufacturing methodologies are being adapted to the reality of the office (Chen & Cox, 2012).
2.3.1 Lean Waste
Ohno identified seven types of Muda, which represent wastes that should be minimised or even eliminated, and are crucial to a company's well-being (Ohno, 1989):
1. Overproduction;
2. Waiting;
3. Transportation;
4. Overprocess;
5. Motion;
6. Stock;
7. Defective Parts;
Although the original seven wastes were an excellent addition to Lean Thinking, they were not prepared for an office environment and did not involve a crucial type of waste: underuse of the employees' potential and resources. Not using every resource to the maximum leads to many lost opportunities to improve the company's current process and value. Because of that, the authors (Wijnohoven et al., 2016) adapted the original Muda to evolve lean office principles applied in services companies and increased to nine types of adaptation:
1. Eliminate resources that do not add value for the customer;
2. Information overflow: the approximation of office overproduction since there is no material flow and too much information leads to time waste;
3. Waiting: one of the essential aspects for a client, this waste can occur for several reasons (incorrect way of working, under-utilization of resources,…);
4. Excess Inventory: this inventory can be associated with too much paperwork in the office area, losing the focus where are the critical documentation;
5. Motion: this waste could be associated with two different situations: a bad office layout, having different departments who co-work within distance from each other, and unnecessary meetings, if the employees have unnecessary meetings, they have to stop their work and have attended the meeting;
6. Defective information: every company's task needs the correct information.
Without this correct information, the task could be done with errors and can require to redo of all of the processes;
7. Extra processing: usually the result of the waste described above. If an error happens, a process could start from the beginning;
8. Lack of standardization: some of the daily base's operations are routine and could be reduced and optimized. Not doing that optimization reflects on a type of waste;
9. Under-utilization of people´s talents and systems capabilities: in several enterprises, the IT systems are not used to the maximum, which leads to not taking every opportunity for a company to improve.
To continue the adaption, the authors created a method for companies to identify their errors and wastes called Lean Evaluation and Future Improvement. With this tool, companies could quickly solve waste and improve their processes. (Wijnohoven et al., 2016)
2.3.2 Lean Principles and Practices
After understanding what the wastes were, there is a need to understand what the main lean practices are. Several concepts and techniques were created to achieve better performance and workflow in the office environment and reduce overall performance close to the concept of Lean Manufacturing, but after giving a better look at the office performance (Wijnhoven, Beckers, & Amrit, 2016). In fact, as referred in Martins (2020), the authors used two more concepts that were the focus of several “waste” creatures: improving communication and designing better integration with information systems.
The primary practices were:
• Reduce waste: reducing and eliminating waste from the process chain is vital in lean.
This reduction intends to obtain the exact value of the product with fewer resources and processes used (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Focus on customer value: This practice could lead to the customer becoming part of the process, subsequently increasing the value of the product and opening new opportunities for the supplier (Ashkanasy, 2011). Improving the customer's concerns is associated with quality provision for the company. Consequently, if the quality is good, customer satisfaction will increase and, with that, have a good impact on the business's success (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Promoting the utilization of the employees: This practice is on the rise because it has been proven in services businesses that the more employee involvement in the business process, the more competitive advantage that company has due to the fact that their primary resource is human behaviour (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Take the holistic perspective: to design lean implementation well, the company's view should be as an all. In other words, the company should be analysed from top to bottom and include cross communications departments and processes and should be implemented in all the departments, not only in a few or where the company is having the most problems (Bortolotti, Romano, & Nicoletti, 2010).
• Standardized work: standardisation allows the company to reduce variation in the process, resulting in more product quality, more productivity inside the company, and reduced cost(Wijnhoven et al., 2016). With an automation queue, the producers can reduce errors (Bortolotti et al., 2010), reducing the waiting in the process and consequently reducing the waste for the company even more.
• Make the steps follow: one way to improve the flow is by placing people close together to increase flow and reduce the amount of information and people needing to move. (Swank, 2003). Information can be streamlined by using software to improve the interface between automated and manual processes, leading to enhanced flow (Bortolotti et al., 2010).
• Reduce inventory: inventory refers to all types of resources and data companies have that could negatively impact the company's workflow. Reducing this waste is possible by a refined flow, by shortening work cycles and creating small batches, which culminates in a reduced need for space for inventory (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Definition of KPIs: the introduction of these procedures in the continuation of the implementation of lean and even in daily operation is vital to measure the time of the process and the quality of the end product. With this information, it is possible to evaluate if the company could access and keep track of current operations where it
could become better. These are essential aspects for controlling operations performance in the Office (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Creation of visual dashboards: this tool is one of the most innovative and agilely used for communication about specific topics inside teams by making everyone understand the current status of any process or even the enterprise, be the usage use of charts, graphs, signs, images, colours or even electric lights. The goal is to increase operational efficiency by visually showing the following steps and making employees aware of them. In service businesses, this tool aims to shine a light on the processes that in the Office are slightly challenging to notice (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
• Balance the workload: this parameter constantly correlates with the client's requests.
The workload can be balanced by dividing it up into several difficulty levels. This is accomplished through proactive planning, ensuring that operations are carried out continuously and efficiently. (Wijnhoven et al., 2016).
2.4 Implications and Dangers of a Lean Implementation
When changing to a company, methodology and way of thinking always have dangers related to it. França (2013), using the knowledge of Drew et al. (2004), defines three main keys for good implementation of Lean:
1. Operations systems 2. Infraestrure management 3. Organizational culture
As explained by França (2013), an operations system is responsible for exploring the resources of a company in order to make value for the client and increase the flow of the process. From there, it is possible to access an overview of the company, in other words: “take a holistic perspective” and understand where the company could be changed to make processes without many “blockers”(França, 2013).
Infrastructure Management considers all the departments involved in the operations side of the company, which are responsible for sustaining all the processes involved in the operations system (França, 2013). Because of this, Infrastructure Management and System Operations should be aligned when implementing the Lean solution so it is possible to implement the best tools and ethics in the organization (França, 2013).
The Culture of the organization reflects the way of thinking of everyone in the company (França, 2013). This factor is one of the most important aspects when implementing Lean. If employees do not accept the different way of working or the improvement of the processes by the employees from the company, the new solutions will not have the expected result. This aspect will be on study again in this chapter.
When creating the implementation team, it is fundamental to establish a connection and understanding of the present elements, but also three additional important aspects are needed (Drew et al., 2004; França, 2013):
1. Power of decision: the team needs the power to make decisions on the procedures of the company;
2. Leadership abilities;
3. Experience in implementing Lean solutions: this could come internally from the company or externally by contracting an external company. With this stated, if the company prefers the implementation team to be someone already inside the
organization but does not have any experience in implementing this type of solution, the enterprise could contract another company to give training to their employees on how to implement the methodologies (Drew et al., 2004).
A danger of the implementation from an external team is the lack of support to the team from the high levels of the managing team of the company (França 2013; XC Consultores, 2004). If these higher-level managers do not support, the employees could follow the example to support the changes implemented, and be more critical than any tool implemented in the company is the acceptance and involvement, in the long term, of the employees to change.
The final critical aspect is to involve any employee in the change of the company and present the results of the implementation as quickly as possible because if they see the results, it is expected that the company employees decrease the resistance to change for the new processes.
2.5 How to Implement a Lean solution in a Company
Because of the dangers described in the previous section, França (2013), with the understanding of XC Consultoress (2004), revealed that each enterprise has its own way of working which different from other companies and with that, there is no single solution for all the companies, but there is a specific solution for each company. Some steps should always be followed:
1. Inform about the implications: for a successful import, the company, especially the higher levels of the company, need to be aware of the changes that the company needs to make in order for a good transition;
2. Initial evaluation: this first evaluation gives knowledge to the implementer about all the processes that the company has to complete its product, how they communicate with each other, how the Data is collected and analyse the pre-existing data. With this, Knowledge a bigger picture of a company is obtained;
3. Workshops and definition of the action plan: the workshops should be taking place at the same time step 2 is occurring. They are fundamental for managers to be able to start detecting and seeing the problems in their company and start creating action plans the resolve such issues;
4. Creating a team which is responsible for the implementation: since the action plan is created and the problems are well documented, it is vital to define who the accountable people are for mobilising resources needed for the solution implementation.
5. Implementation phase: this is where the first solutions come to life, starting with the solutions requiring less investment and having the quickest results in order to keep all the employees motivated and willing to change from the old process. This phase will last until the end of the action plan.
6. Evaluation of results: this is the last phase of the implementation and involves a comparison between the AS-IS scenario and the final solution. This should be accomplished using different types of visual evidence (photos, tables and graphs).
Understanding that this should be a continuous process, this final phase and the following improvement steps should be presented.
2.6 Kaizen Methodology
Three years before Lean, Masaaki Imai created the Kaizen Institute Consulting Group and published a book called “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success” (Imai, 1986), describing Toyota's management in his view. Against the Western management system's view of short-term results, Imai believes in a long-term and process-oriented solution, the kaizen way that translates to “change for the better”. With this solution, the employees could be improved over the years by overcoming the problems and being part of the solution, as Imai explained years later.
2.6.1 The difference between Kaizen and Lean
Clarification is needed when talking about Kaizen and Lean. Although they are interconnected, they have they have differences. While Kaizen is more related to the improvement of an individual, Lean is more focused on improving the material or the processes. It could be said that Lean’s failure was a failure in the system, and when Kaizen failed, it was a failure in the person. (McLoughlin et al., 2018)
More could be said about the correlation because, with the person's focus on making Lean work in a long-term commitment, the same long-term commitment found in Kaizen will succeed even if all tools are being used. Although if Kaizen is used to engage employees in the process, Lean could be successful. (Rüttimann et al., 2014)
2.6.2 Daily Kaizen
The goal of the Daily Kaizen is to obtain better management of operational teams and involves everyone in the company in continuous improvement procedures inside the company, in a way, ultimately changing the company's mindset. This should be obtained using several management tools (Coelho, 2013):
• Performance measurement;
• Accountability and motivation;
• Suggestion systems;
• Work planning, workspace;
• Organization;
• Standardization;
• Improvement management;
• Structured problem solving.
As understood in the previous section, Lean system implementation has better results when the employees have daily accountability for the process. To obtain this result of accountability, Daily Kaizen suggests having frequent and structured team meetings daily on the Gemba, which means “the place where the value is created”, usually associated with the working place. These meetings should be used to plan the daily activities and the person in charge should analyse the indicators, and prepare the new way of improvement (Coelho, 2013).
The list presented at the beginning of the section was a list of solutions representing some of the tools presented in the Daily Kaizen methodology. Furthermore, that list can be divided into four main implementation areas:
• Team organization (staff meetings);
• Workplace organization (5S);
• Standardization (creation of work routines);
• Process improvement (structured problem solving).
In the next section, each area will be analysed more in-depth.
2.6.2.1 Team Organization
The first point reflects how teams should organize themselves, creating work groups. This process is natural since most of the companies have already established their groups and, with the leader defined, usually associated with Team leaders and Department leaders. It is essential to create a place where the team can meet and organize their materials; the meetings in there are typically the design spot. Moreover, this is where the team organizes its materials to support the daily plan, the performance indicators and other tools used to improve or resolve problems related to the processes (Félix, 2013).
More can be said about the teams and organization. Martins (2020) reflects more on how frequently the team should organize meetings. They could be daily, weekly or monthly, and a list of people who are present should be noted down, to understand who is involved in the improvement. The fundamental goal of the meetings is to understand how the team is doing regarding objectives. In other words, to analyse the indicators, and resolve any issue with the process.
2.6.2.2 Workplace Organization
The goal is to keep workplaces clean and organized so people can use the space more efficiently. Since they are the ones who know the procedures best and who will benefit from the deployed solutions, all employees must be involved for the application to be successful.
This makes it easier to develop solid solutions and instil a sense of ownership in the teams, encouraging them to continually maintain the working environment. The 5S method, which is the instrument utilized for this, should be carried out in a campaign setting with as much participation from the team members as possible. Although, it is occasionally impossible to cease all work and guarantee everyone's attendance (Félix, 2013; Santos, 2015; Visco, 2016) The 5S tool origins from five Japanese words:
• Seiri (Organization): Select what is needed from the office and eliminate what is no longer needed, reducing the excess inventory in the office;
• Seiton (Set): Anything used for daily operations should be organised and visible with labels and other methods. Anyone who needs that resource knows where to get it;
• Seiso (Shine): It is vital to maintain the office clean and organised so there are no distractions and there is no mess in the office;
• Seiketsu (Standardize): this step is a guarantee that the employee fulfils the previous three steps;
• Shitsuke (Sustain): the final step is pay attention that all the steps described are maintained and being carried out. Usually, managers play a big role here since the employees follow their leaders
2.6.2.3 Standardization
The standardization of work procedures is the third stage, aiming to implement improved working practices to boost productivity, ensure that the level of service delivered to clients is up to par, and support and preserve expertise. As a result, by establishing the standards to be reached, processes and their outcomes become more predictable, enabling managers to assess their teams' performance fairly and consistently.
The Standardize, Do Check, Act (SDCA) cycle, which seems to guarantee that improvement processes are consolidated throughout businesses, or the development of One Point Lessons (OPL) are only a few methods that may be used to normalize the task. An OPL should provide a detailed description of each step in a task. (Félix, 2013).
2.6.2.4 Autonomous improvement
The last step focuses on autonomous improvement, which is to obtain a well-designed structure for problem-solving. The teams discussed in the first point must be prepared to observe, identify and resolve any existing problems in the current process and create a solution for that problem, improving the company value. One of the tools used is the Plan-Do- Check-Act diagram (Félix, 2013), represented in Figure 4.
Another author (Martin, 2013) presents the 3C methodology as a problem-solving tool. This tool has the following steps
• Case: understanding what the problem is;
• Causes: identify what caused the stated the problem above;
• Countermeasures: creating solutions for the resolution of the problem;
• Analysing the results: verify if the problem was resolved.
Figure 4: PDCA cycle retrived from https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/18/6332 last check 14/01/2023 at 12:30
2.7 Office Layout
As stated above, the organisation of the office is vital for a good result for the company, and this reflects on the performance of the employees of any given company. If the employee does not perform, the company suffers bad results. Ornstein (2011) states that a work environment affects satisfaction and productivity.
2.7.1 Implications of layout change
It is a complex and stressful task to change a workplace layout to support an organizational change. Increasing collaboration and openness in the workplace can lead to better organizational performance. The idea that a company's ability to adapt to the changing business environment should not be hampered by its workplace, has been well-researched.
The authors came up with the concept of workplace flexibility, which is a straightforward method of designing offices. Their argument centres on keeping an organized, clutter-free office to improve the workforce's capacity to respond to demands (Bradley & Hood, 2003).
To help this change, the authors created the following rules:
1. Consistently cleaning to maintain mobility in the Office;
2. Plan the design to sustain stress hours;
3. Choose relocatable components;
4. Consistently audit the need for space and technology, and follow the flow of innovation.
However, Martins (2020) presents other facts as well on an excellent design office layout:
• Aligning office layout and work processes;
• Physical Proximity;
• Architectural Privacy.
Aligning office layout and work processes
Not correlating the job performed in an office setting and the environment may cause productivity losses. Utilizing work patterns to control the physical layout of the office in order to establish the best possible alignment between work procedures and workplace circumstances. Researchers found that when workplace spaces are created without a thorough understanding of the occupiers' necessary use of space, it negatively influences their productivity. They used metrics like face-to-face interaction in the office. (Haynes, 2008).
Physical Proximity
The physical distance between people is another aspect of workplace design that is frequently studied. The frequency of interactions and communication effectiveness among people is increased by physical proximity. The presence of co-workers nearby can create a setting for the practical information sharing required for successful partnerships. Face-to-face communication is still more effective than virtual communication methods for completing complex team tasks, although communication technologies have significantly increased the number of users. For this reason, organizations must continue emphasising teamwork and collaboration's importance. (Zerella et al., 2017).
Influence on employee distraction
When considering job satisfaction, productivity, and organizational commitment within the work environment, the workplace, such as "local of collaboration and teamwork", is correlated with not being distracted. This means that employees stay more focused on the tasks when there is a physical rule reminding them that they are at work. However, because human behaviour is erratic and unpredictable, additional modifications are required to offset such behaviours. One is the correlation between office commute time and accessibility, and interaction frequency. (Colonial Academic Alliance, 2010).
Architectural Privacy
Architectural privacy frequently refers to the influences that determine how exposed people are to disruptions and diversions while working in the community. Office layout describes the actual office space, its components' locations, and the limits made by physical obstacles like walls and other items. The amount of architectural privacy is raised by walls and other physical obstacles. Conversely, open office layouts with no physical partitions between workstations are associated with less privacy, creating more significant opportunities for connection, communication, collaboration, and, regrettably, distractions. (Zerella et al., 2017).
2.7.2 Layout designs
The design of the physical arrangements must adhere to a few fundamental principles. The placement of resources like desks and equipment on the operation's premises and how information is distributed across the operation are all considerations for the office layout.
Office design can anticipate business culture, which can influence employee behaviour, especially the calibre of interactions in work settings (Zerella et al., 2017).
The more typical office layouts are:
• Process Layout;
• Cellular Layout.
Process Layout
Characterized by the concentration of all operations and related tasks in one place. Where each employee is assigned a specific responsibility, regarding the high degree of variety in task flows, this structure delivers superior adaptability. However, high-intensity flow causes work to build up in the buffer, increasing lead times. (Slack, Chambers, 2009; Coelho, 2022).
Figure 5 is an example of a process layout.
Figure 5: Process Layout retrieve from Coelho (Coelho, 2022) adapt from (Molla, 2018)
Cellular layout
The cellular layout is similar to the one in Manufacturing (Figure 5), which is considered a significant improvement even in an office environment. When information enters the operation, it is already pre-selected to go to a particular area where the work needed to satisfy client needs is being done. This allows for more flexibility due to the open-plan layout and increases efficiency. Personnel specialisation is advantageous when labour division is necessary (Otterbring, Pareigis, Wästlund, Makrygiannis, & Lindström, 2018; Slack, Chambers, 2009; Coelho, 2022).
Figure 6: Cellur layout, in https://audaces.com/qual-a-importancia-da-cronoanalise-no-processo-produtivo-de-moda/ last consulted in 13/01/2023 at 18:46
3 Problem Description
This chapter describes all the problems found and resolved during this project.
3.1 The current state of the company
For a better understanding of the company, the following sections will be developed:
• Current Organization: Where the objective is to understand how the company is organizing itself, with a unique look into the Operations Team;
• Current Process: What the procedures are, and who is responsible for each procedure;
• Current Office Organization: How does the enterprise organize its office space, and what impact does the current Office have on the organization and workflow.
3.1.1 Current Organization
Previous to being a part of Metyis, the operation in Porto started as a start-up called Virtusai;
Virtusai was only acquired by Metyis in 2019 and transformed into a branch for the consulting firm. Because of it, Metyis Porto maintains the exact behaviour of a small company and not having a big structure organization.
Analyzing the Operations Team more in depth, the structure adopted since the beginning is close to the one represented in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Organization before September 2022
Examining Figure 7, it is possible to understand there are only two departments: the Financial Department, responsible for the financial part of the company, and the Operations department, which is not only responsible for the day-to-day operations but also for all the essential work for the company (RH, IT management and others).
Since all the information and most of the workload were in a small group compared to other companies in the area. This led to the following:
• Lack of documentation of the processes;
• Defective information;
• Overloading work in the Operations Department.
Although these were problems riskier to the company, the branch survived and more than doubled its employees from December 2021 until December 2022, as proven in Figure 6. This increase was due to the construction of Metyis New Tech Campus in Gondomar, announced in June 2021, that will become not only home for the Metyis Porto and their clients but also Metyis Academy, the company's training camp.
As seen in Figure 8, Metyis saw an accelerated increase until December 2022. This increase forced Metyis to:
• Have a better internal organization;
• Better prepared for any error.
The increase in the number of employees led to an increase in the Operations Team. In the new organization, represented in Figure 9, three new positions were created.
Figure 8: Growth of employees
Figure 9: Organization After September 2022
The new position was:
• IT Manager: Assumed the responsibility of overseeing any IT problem and IT inventory;
• People Engagement Manager: Assumed the responsibility of HR leader and dealt with any HR problem;
• Campus Experience Manager: Assumed the responsibility of organizing and preparing any event in the facilities in Porto and to prepare any visits by guests the Porto Office.
Integrating these members into the team reduces the workload on Operations Manager and Office Assistant, but since the additions were relatively recent, the team did not know how to work together and organize themselves, leaving doubts on the employees' side sometimes about when to talk to each team member. But a positive point was that they scheduled monthly meetings to discuss the following steps.
3.1.2 Current Processes
Before analysing the AS-IS processes, it is essential to acknowledge that some of the current procedures are dependent on the owner of the building where the current office is integrated, UPTEC.
Bearing this in mind, most of the operations processes that Metyis currently has is too many stakeholders leading to excessive motion and overprocesses. Especially the deliveries, Figure 10, that could be for personal deliveries, groceries, office materials, L&D or IT. Moreover, the only difference between personal deliveries and the other types is the fact that OM is the one who buys the materials used by Metyis.
Another process that should be improved is the “How to reserve a room”, Figure 11, in the AS-IS to pass by the security of UPTEC for the reservation of an extra meeting room. This process occurs on excessive waiting (Lean waste) and under-utilising possible solutions.
Although IT and RH are starting to act more in-depth, they are not adequately carried out. For IT, when any problem happens to an employee (Figure 12), an e-mail or a message on teams is sent to the IT manager to resolve. The problem with this process AS-IS is the lack of documentation that could lead to a lack of organization.
Figure 10: Delivery package
Figure 11: Reserve a room
A similar problem occurs in the case of HR. Everytime an employee has any problem, the system sends an e-mail or teams, leading once again, to a lack of documentation of the problem.
Other procedures are well designed and created, like in the case of the creation of a new card (Figure 13).
If a card gets lost, the procedure is similar to the one represented in Figure 11, adding a request to delete the previously created access.
In conclusion, most of the current procedures suffer from the following:
Figure 12: IT problem
Figure 13: Creation of new card
• Lack of documentation;
• Under-utilization of resources;
• Taking too many stakeholders leads to time-wasting;
• Overworking the OM and the OA.
3.2 Preparation for the change to the new Office
The office change could be challenging to deal with regarding expectations from the employees and the administration because many aspects need to be decided such as: “How to organize the office?”; “How will the new providers be?”.
In this case, Metyis is an excellent opportunity because the current office is small, as proven in Figure 14, and challenging to organize because it is too small. Not having the possibility to organize the office seating and going by the rule of “first come, first serve”, except for the IoT team that has three chairs and a desk to work near their products.
Not having a good workspace design and not creating a good workflow between the different departments opens the opportunity for a better overall organization and workflow model.
Another challenge of the new change is balancing the daily operations while still preparing the following office providers and creating a budget.
3.3 ISO 27001
ISO 27001 certification is about bringing information security risks under an enterprise's explicit management control and mitigating the risk through an Information Security Management System (ISMS), presented in Figure 15. Furthermore, at the same time, training the employees for some dangers in the real world, such as phishing, fake advertising, among others.
Figure 14: Current Office space
Even though the project was important for Metyis, at the beginning of the project, employees from Porto and Amsterdam did not know about this ISO, and what it meant for the company, and how Metyis employees had to adapt to the way they worked.
This ISO 27001 is about preparing and protecting sensitive data regarding employees and clients. Moreover, at first glance, Porto Team was not doing the “best of jobs” and made errors such as leaving unclosed IT equipment. Figure 16; having sensitive information which was not properly secured; and others. In conclusion, employees need to understand what ISO is about and how they should protect their assets.
Figure 15: ISM (Figure retrieved from a Metyis presentation)
Figure 16: Unprotected assets
4 Methodology
After understanding the company's needs in Chapter 3 and the theoretical knowledge acquired in Chapter 2, the fieldwork could be organized and defined.
From the information gathered in Chapter 3, the following projects were found and organised:
1. ISO 27001 certefication;
2. Discussion of providers;
3. Sustainability Plan;
4. Creation of the Playbook;
Although the projects above were the optimal solution to the problem described, one more project was added to have a complete spectrum solution to the problem:
5. The organisation of the new Office.
For a better analysis of the project, a Gantt Chart (Figure 17) was made to understand when each project was done within the duration of the project.
Figure 17: Timeline of all the activities
The following sections of this document will describe each project in more detail and how each was completed.
4.1 ISO 27001 certification
For the project of the ISO, there were two different times and methods of action:
• Before auditorship;
• After the auditorship.
These auditorship documents reflect an internal auditorship that Metyis prepared for the offices in Amsterdam and Porto to be prepared by both offices for the official auditorship to take place at the end of March 2023.
4.1.1 Before auditorship
After understanding the scope of ISO 27001, the following steps were made to prepare for the internal auditorship:
1. Documentation of all the assets present in Porto;
2. Understand how many security breaches the office had and document them;
3. Understanding some of the aspects of cybersecurity;
4. Keep the local team involved in the project.
Documentation of all the assets present in Porto
The first step was to understand how safe the company was prepared for each type of attack and how the Metyis should prepare so as not to suffer any attack. With this knowledge, a document was made stating:
• The name of the assets;
• Who was responsible for the asset;
• What type of asset is it;
o Hardware;
o Electronic File;
o Hard-copy;
• Whic type of information is contained in the asset;
o Personal Data;
o Business data;
• Confidentiality level;
• How protected the asset is.
After understanding which assets the company has, the team tried to understand how much is the problabitily of something happening, the risk of the asset, to each asset and the impact on the business if such of risk happens. To go futher into the study an matrix was made combining both variables state in the first stentence to obtain a more accurate Risk Analyis for each asset, presented in Figure 18. The avlues presetend were defined by the company.
Figure 18: Risk Analysis matrix
After understanding the “Business impact vs Probability” for each asset, some changes started to be made on how some assets were protected, for example, the substitution of closets without doors, where sensitive information was saved, for closets with keys the one represented in Figure 19.
With these small changes, the rest of the employees started to understand how serious the company is about this ISO 27001 and how small things could help to get to the certification.
Extreme Major Moderate Minor Insignificant
Complete operational failure, "bet the farm"
impact, unsurvivable
Severe loss of operational capability,
highly damaging and extremely costly but
survivable
Substantial operational impact, very costly
Noticeable but limited operational impact,
some costs
Minimal if any operational impact,
negligible costs
100% 80% 62% 25% 1%
(Almost) certain
We are bound to experience further incidents of this nature
- in fact they are probably
occuring right now! 100% 100% 80% 62% 25% 1%
Probable
We are likely to experience incidents of this nature before
long 80% 80% 64% 50% 20% 1%
Possible
It is distinctly possible that we will experience incidents of
this nature 62% 62% 50% 38% 16% 1%
Unlikely
Incidents of this nature are uncommon but there is a genuine chance that we may
experience them at some future point
25% 25% 20% 16% 6% 0%
Rare
Although they are conceivable, we will probably never experience incidents of
this nature
1% 1% 1% 1% 0% 0%
Prob a b ili ty
Business impact
Figure 19: Closet now used
Understand how many security breaches existed in the office and document them.
On this topic, the primary security breaches and common errors the employees made on a daily bases were examined, for example:
• Using a door stopper and always leaving the door open so that anyone could go in, including unwelcome people;
• Sharing sensitive information by leaving it on paper at the working desks opening the opportunity for anyone to get hold of that information;
• Leaving the seat with the screen turned on, sometimes with sensitive information on the screen;
These types of situations were corrected as long the team, with communications, via e-mail or during monthly meetings, the door stopper was eliminated forcing the employees to always pass the card on the door to go into the office area.
Understanding some of the aspects of cybersecurity
Since most dangers in protecting sensitive information are on the internet, it is necessary to navigate safely. With that team, those who were more responsible for implementing the ISO 27001, did an online course with Securframe to learn how to defend against some threats. For example, how to identify a phishing type of e-mail.
4.1.2 During the auditorship
To prepare them even better for the auditorship, the people selected to go on the interviews were submitted to practice interviews for a better understand what was expected from them.
The rest of the auditorship was based on visiting the office and understanding what procedures were in case of a security breach and how the Porto office protected its assets.
4.1.3 After auditorship
The result of the internal auditorship was not disclosed, but the audit showed how the Porto team was prepared, and how the Amsterdam office, should follow Porto office’s example in what concerns the ISO27001.
In global terms, more training programs were launched. The rest of the employees did the same cyber training as the experts, and e-mails pretending to be phishing were sent to train and prepare the employees better for the threats of the real world.
Once again, the employees were more involved in the change to be more ISO 27001- compliant in their way of working.
4.2 Providers discussion
As discussed in Chapter 3, some providers and services should be discussed and planned.
Nevertheless, another critical factor that should be disclosed is that the company was preparing to be ISO 27001-certification, so special considerations were made.
A first list of the suppliers was made, but since Metyis is currently undergoing the certification process for ISO 27001, a further research was done for each possible supplier to understand whether they were ISO 27001 certified and if they could give the company an ISO 27001 compliance solution.
