One Stop Service Shopping at a University

Ours was a traditional university with most of the offices scattered in the three story administration building. Our student customers spent much lost time trying to find the correct offices for their needs like parking permits, financial aid etc. A small Kaizen team was formed to come up with ideas to alleviate this student confusion.

An As Is process mapping of the current state showed a confusing spaghetti diagram that students had to navigate just to get simple tasks completed. The Kaizen team quickly jumped to a conclusion for the To Be and established a central desk that students could go to first and be directed to the proper place of office. The central stopping point could also answer specific student questions and take care of easy matters.

The university president was still not satisfied with the team’s results. He insisted that each department review their processes for the student and streamline them. Each department did their own As Is to To Be process mapping and many student tasks were redesigned to be done online or remotely. The student traffic in the administration building was reduced by over 50 %.