A MANAGER TAKE S CHARGE Audatex Uses PDCA and ITIL to Improve Its Service Offerings Audatex is a UK-based subsidiary of the Soleara Company. It operates as a servioe pro- vider for body shops and insurance companies. Audatex offers an integrated suite of soft- ware to support auto insurance collision repair shops in automating claims processing. repair job estimating, and shop management. The Audatex software enables insurance firms to increase customer satisfaction by shortening repair times, reducing loss adjust- ment expenses, and improving claims processing control and efficiency. The system includes support for such actions as ordering courtesy ears, sending text messages to customers to provide them with progress updates on their repair job, ordering parts from suppliers for repairs, invoicing insurance companies, and matching invoices to repair estimates o The firm must invest heavily in product development, new technology, and improved products and services to remain competitive. To that end, Audatex recently converted from a stand-alone software package that ran on a user's personal computer to a Web- based service that users access over the Internet. The new infrastructure allows prod- uot specifications and other information to be updated once at a central point rather than multiple times on a site-by-site basis. Ross MeEleny, IT services director at Audatex, recognized that running the Web-based system would introduce new, demanding requirements for security, regulation, and service kevels. Audatex must not only moet these requirements but avoid passing unnecessary costs along to its customers. Also, because Audatex stores and manages data centrally on behalf of its many clients, it has a legal lkevel of responsibility under regulations such as the Data Protection Act, the main legislation that covers the protection of personal data in the UK" From an insurer's point of view, Audatex has to make data both highly available and highly secure, as well as keep it safe for seven years in case of legal or fraud-related action. With all these issues in mind, MeEleny formed a process improvement team. MeEleny said, "It's no ood having high-performance systems that aren't available, or highly available systems that don't perform." During the Plan step, the team defined the goal as being able to deliver a consistent and measurable service to Audatex elients. The analysis began with an audit of existing sys- tems and processes. The ITIL framework was used as a standard for comparison, which allowed MeEleny to check the efficiency of processes and identify gaps where new sys- tems and standards needed to be introduced. The team identified the need for addi- tional staff training and capturing useful data from each customer call. During the Do step, the team introduced staff training in two separate areas: service support and service delivery. They also implemented the ITIL program best practices for call logging and problem resolution. During the Check step, the team introduced useful charts (dashboards) to measure up-to-date progress on problem resolution. Not completely satisfied with the results, Audatex established a continuous improve- ment loop that uses many of the techniques built into ITIL to capture calls from custom- ers and feed them into the firm's incident management and system development processes. Audatex also uses customer surveys to measure progress. The company emphasizes that it is just beginning a long journey of continuous improvement. Discussion Questions: What role did the ITIL guidelines play in this process improvement project? 2. Can you identify areas at Audatex other than customer service in which ITIL guidelines and the PDCA process could be brought to bear and achieve signifi- cant benefits? 1. At what point would a team atop this ongoing process improvement