Stories from the Tea Garden

For this week, we wanted to start sharing some case study stories from our own process-inspired lives. Hopefully, these types of experiences are enjoyable from a relatability sense, but also provide some insights that can be applied to your actual day job.

To set the context, this example focuses on:

• A non-traditional industry and environment (ie the wilderness!)
• Short-term timelines / tactical fixes
• Non-technical improvements

We hope you like this week’s story!

The Intro

One of my favorite examples of improving processes was when I first visited my in-laws, who lived in a remote part of Northeast India. Growing up in New York, I was immediately overwhelmed by the rawness and remoteness of life there. My first walk out onto their balcony presented me with tea gardens as far as the eye could see. There was even a cow that greeted me by immediately giving birth to a calf (I am still not sure if this is just a normal way cows say hello). Needless to say, I was not expecting any of my normal process analyzing to happen in such a wild area.

But how foolish it was to think that! Processes are everywhere, and it did not take long for me to find an interesting one amidst all the dogs and goats mucking about.

My father in-law managed a massive garden where tea was grown, plucked and processed into forms we would recognize inside a tea bag. Its an amazing industry rooted in deep tradition while reaching all parts of the globe. Here there are no process models, as the core method for producing tea is as well known by the locals as the elephants that frequent here.

The Problem

I was naturally interested in learning about how tea was produced. What I found most impressive was the immense thought that was put into every step of the process. The entire garden workforce seamlessly adapted based on weather, external demand or any other variable you could throw at them. My father in-law masterfully managed this chaos, regularly producing record output at the highest quality.

As I listened to him further though, certain aspects of this well-oiled machine looked like familiar pain points I tend to discover in my corporate khakis. While the core function of tea production has been optimized over centuries, certain peripheral admin functions were more recent additions to this industry. It was certainly a revelation as I had assumed that there was simply nothing more to improve on for such an ancient process.

And so, my father in-law described a particular issue with payroll that he was in the midst of brainstorming a solution. Payroll statements were required by the worker’s union to show evidence of earned wages. A good example of one of those admin functions that introduced new world requirements into this ancient setting.

At a high level, he needed to physically produce these payroll statements for each of the many thousands of workers on the garden. Distribution wasn’t the issue (I jumped to that conclusion as well). It was the paper that was required to print out all of these statements. In such a remote area of the world, its difficult and costly to get simple supplies like printer paper. He needed a way to use less paper and streamline this aspect of his business.

The Analysis

So the payroll process became a mini project to improve, based on the goal of limiting paper consumption. How do we support the payroll process in a remote but massive business with the least amount of paper possible?

As with any good business analyst, I asked many questions and patiently listened to my father in-law’s responses. Here are some of the questions I asked and what I learned:

Question 1:

What are the steps your team takes to produce and deliver these statements?

Answer: Every week, I get data from my sub-managers across the garden on worker hours. This is entered into our computer and each statement is automatically generated. At the end of the week, we print out two copies. Each sheet of paper can fit 3 statements to print. One set of copies is hand-delivered to the workers by my sub-managers. The other set of copies is stored in my office for record purposes.

Question 2:

Is there any form of payroll statements that can be given to your workers besides physical paper?

Answer: Physical copies are required by the union as most workers do not have any digital means for receipt.

Question 3:

Does the frequency of payment need to be weekly?

Answer: Yes. This is decided on by the union and most workers need cash each week to feed their families, etc.

Question 4:

Is reducing the amount of paper the ultimate goal? Can we pursue a cheaper supplier instead?

Answer: Due to where we are located, there is only one option for supply. Although the goal is to save money and reduce supply chain risk, the only lever we have is how we use paper in this process.

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By the way I’ve structured my conversation with my father in-law for clarity purposes. I promise my family conversations aren’t this dry and boring!

I will give you a chance to come up with your own solution before I jump to ultimately what we chose. As a reminder, the goal was to find a solution right away and any technology adoption would most likely take years to execute.

One more hint. My father in-law had his own solution in mind, to try to arrange the payroll statements in a way that he could fit more on the same page. Could this work? Read on to find out.

The Solution

As Thomas mentions here, the solution has been properly left for last. At this point, I had a well-framed problem statement in my head and a good idea of the goals my father in-law was pursuing. So what did we decide on?

Ultimately, he had a good idea about adjusting the payroll statements on a single sheet of paper. Due to the amount of information, we couldn’t shrink the size very much, but we were able to rearrange the layout to fit up to 4 statements.

However, I found one even more impactful solution hidden in the process. Even though the workers required a physical copy, did my father in-law’s office need to store a physical one as well? The answer turned out to be no, as they had sufficient digital means to store these on a computer and rarely did anything with these copies anyway.

So for those keeping track, that’s an automatic 50% reduction in paper right away, along with a 33% reduction in the remaining copies by increasing the statement layout to 4 per page. The client, I mean my father in-law, was pretty thrilled with that outcome.

Lessons learned

I wanted to start with this example because I feel saturated with technology sometimes. It’s always a knee jerk reaction to suggest a new digital medium, as we are swimming in a world of shiny solutions with unclear business benefit. But because of the remoteness of this use case, technology was actually the hardest option to pursue. I enjoyed doing some back to basics analysis before any solution was discussed.

It also reminded me that ANY process can be optimized. If an ancient industry can be improved upon, surely a more modern process has significant opportunities, despite how masterful the current version may seem.

I hope you enjoyed my story and found some takeaways for yourself. As always, Thomas and I would love to hear your own experiences, or even work through one you are currently brainstorming!

Happy improving (with a cup of tea)!