(Practicum) USING Scatter Plots

[Moderator]

By Kaz Takeda (2007) (via IIE West Region Newsletter)

Background: An internal client came to use with a request to help
them understand over time (OT) within their group. They were at a
higher level of OT than planned but were challenged to understand how
to manage it and did not want to mandate “no OT without management
approval”. OT data was challenging to retrieve by employee and more
challenging to drill into a per instance basis. Reports that were
available only drove down to a weekly level by employee and was
challenging at best to understand.

Approach: Review OT data over the fiscal year and break it into
manageable buckets which the operating front line managers could
understand and act on. Summarize the data at an executive level to
highlight key areas of focus. Bucket the OT in a manner which allowed
management to act on or understand.

Methodology: Pull all OT data by employee and by week into a
database. Group the data by working craft type, front line manager
and senior manager teams. Consolidate each employee into two
elements: number of OT weeks and average number of weekly OT hours
based on the fiscal year. Lay data in scatter plots to identify four
key groupings.

* Low Frequency, Low Hours: This is typically the ‘just happens’
bucket. The majority of the occurrences that are part of business due
to typical operational issues.
* Low Frequency, High Hours: Typically due to special project
work driving additional days of OT to get the task completed on
schedule or an urgent corrective issue calling for ‘all hands on
deck’. At times found to be due to coverage of other employees.
* High Frequency, High Hours: You will find that your operating
managers can probably identify this group to an employee name at a
glance. These are the ‘go to’ employees whom front line managers will
select for coverage (e.g. vacation, sick, project work, etc.) because
they typically (a) know they can do the task well, (b) are model
employees and (c) are willing to take on OT.
* High Frequency, Low Hours: This is the group to focus on.
These employees pull in an hour or two a day in OT, nearly every day
of every week. They also seem to fall under the radar if reporting is
challenged to identify them.

Discovery: By displaying the data on a scatter plot, the four key
groupings were easily identified and our IE was able to clearly
communicate the issue and allow our operating managers to see options
for solutions. Other ‘typical’ reporting tools over whelmed the
operating managers with to much data or gave them the same names over
and over again which didn’t allow them too see the big picture. In
this format, management and front line managers could quickly
understand the impact of the four groupings and develop a tactile plan
to address and prioritize the teams without giving out a blanket
statement to stop all OT without prior approval.

Recommendations and Next Steps:

* Review staffing levels for the High Frequency, High Hours
group. Employees who are working the equivalent of one or two days
each week may be an indication of under staffing.
* Review individuals at the High Frequency, Low Hours group.
Understand who these employees are and what is driving the daily hour
or two OT.

Summary:

Presenting complex data in a manner which can be understood by
executive management and yet usable to a front line manager is a
challenge which many IE’s come across daily. We found that dusting
off a scatter plot did an excellent job for our IE to allow
constructive conversation around this particular issue, especially
when the IE can re-create the charts from a single “entire employee
base” level to the individual front line manager team level. As with
all tools and data, there are multiple ways to display and communicate
the message and for every conclusion, there can be multiple reasons
and exceptions. But in this case, the data speaks for itself in a way
that everyone understood and allowed management action to take place
without a mandate which would likely disrupt the work force and result
in issues which OT was completely required and justified.