Managing incidents and service requests
a TOC Buffer Management case
Brunello Menicucci - CMC™ Management Consultant
Abstract​. ​Managing incidents and service requests can be a tough job
without a good system of prioritization. As Dr. Eli Goldratt used to say,
business management is not only doing the right thing but also avoiding
what it shouldn't be done.
Introduction
In a strong regulated business as the pharmaceutical market,
computerized systems have to be evaluated from time to time to
confirm compliance to cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practices)
requirements.
As a consequence, ​incident management​ is very important to ensure
that a company takes appropriate actions when “​unplanned issues that
may impact patient safety, products quality and data integrity are
addressed before any harm occurs​”.
Companies should not limit to system failures and data errors: reporting
and assessing every error becomes important in identifying the root
cause of critical incidents and hence the basis for corrective and
preventive actions (CAPA).
Problem Definition
Needless to say, running Services Operations is subject to disruption.
According to ITIL we have an ​incident​ if an unplanned interruption or a
reduction in quality impacts a service. On the other hand we have a
service request​ when minor (low risk) changes. And lastly, a ​problem​ is
the unknown cause of one (or more) incident(s) while for a ​known error
the underlying cause has been found and (possibly) a ​workaround ​(or a
permanent solution) has been identified.
Problem Management​ aims to prevent future issues by addressing
incidents’ root causes (or known errors) whereas ​Incident Management
aims to solve the issue(s) affecting the service ​as soon as possible
minimizing impacts on business, and getting back to “normal service
operation”. This means that a service must be operated within agreed
level (SLA or ​Service Level Agreement​).
As you may imagine, every ​incident management software too​l has its
own algorithm to prioritize each and every ticket, according to the
severity of the disruption. Besides, people in charge of the resolution
will be allocated a reasonable period of time, and a due date to resolve
the issue. This period of time may obviously vary according to the
criticality of the system.
Now let’s pretend we have several incidents, some of which with a high
priority: how will we know which one to choose first? They are all
urgent and may be with a similar due date. Worst than this, after a
couple of day we’ll probably have completed different activities on some
tickets, while others are ongoing. In this scenario is quite easy to feel
overpowered or at least ineffective, and in my experience it becomes
hard to respect agreed SLA levels.
A possible solution
According to TOCICO (Theory of Constraints International Certification
Organization) Dictionary, ​Buffer Management​ ​is ​a control mechanism
based on the amount of time (till the due date) or stock remaining used in
the execution phase of TOC applications (operations, project and
distribution)​.
Buffers are known as a mean to reduce variability. However, in TOC
solutions buffers are a bold management tool, useful to provide
information about flow’s status, suggesting when and where to take
action in case of disruption or deterioration. Moreover, taking notes of
disruption causes, will give management the chance to analyze the most
possible issues, allowing them to implement continuous improvements.
To provide useful informations, buffers are normally divided into three
equal areas (or zones) that can measure the grade of variation, where
the lower will be identified as “​expected​”, the middle one “​normal​” and
the higher “​abnormal​”.
According to Deming, in any process we can find two kind of variation
which he refers to as “common” or “special” cause of variation.
Measurements falling in the “expected” and “normal” buffer’s sections
are tied to common variation, inherent to the process (as a ​perfect
process cannot exists), the “abnormal” ones are usually the result of a
special variation (Deming W. E., ​Out of the Crisis​, Cambridge - MA ,
1986).
This is very useful to managers, as they should take care of variations
falling in the “abnormal” zone, while little variations, falling into the
first or the second sections won’t be a concern. Therefore a buffer can
also be seen as a semaphore suggesting where and when to operate
effectively: the first zone will be equivalent to a green light, the
“normal” zone will be the amber light whereas the “abnormal” area will
be the red light.
So, how does a manager know when and where to take action? That’s
quite simple: he/she only has to measure the buffer consumption rate
related to the process being monitored. Buffer consumption rate is
measured as the ratio between the time already passed and the total
available time: for instance, 2 days on a total of 5 will result in 40% of
buffer consumption. This indicates that it falls in the amber (or
warning) zone and thus it would be useful to plan for a mitigation in
case the next measurement would fall into the red zone.
Back to our topic, to properly manage tickets the TOC way, we can look
at the time assigned to solve a ticket as a time buffer: this will result in a
prioritization of open incidents and service requests’ tickets, according
to their Buffer Consumption.
As a consequence, tickets will keep their priority label according to
classification (incident or service request) and severity, as provided by
incident management software tool, however their urgency to deal with
will change according to their Buffer Consumption Rate.
So, by regularly monitoring the Buffer Consumption Rate of open
tickets, managers will know when and where to act to expedite the
resolution process or to escalate. This will result in increasing
considerably the chance to meet agreed SLAs.
Conclusions
TOC Buffer Management is a powerful tool well known in either the TOC
Project Management (CCPM), Production environment or Replenishment
solution. However as seen in the ​incident management​ scenario, it can
be successfully used in other situations as well.
Want to give it a try? Need more information? Feel free to contact us:
we’ll be happy to help out.
References
Deming, W. Edwards; ​Out of the Crisis​, Cambridge - MA, 1986.
Cox III, James and Schleier, John G. Jr.; ​Theory of Constraints Handbook​,
Mc Grow Hill, 2010