A Lean Digital Approach to After-Delivery Services: A Case Study from the Multi-supplier Retail Industry

Abstract

AbstractA Lean approach is frequently applied in the internal processual settings of many companies but is less common in the after-delivery service context, which is dominated by office and knowledge work. The multi-supplier retail (MSR) industry may benefit from a Lean digital approach to utilize effectively business-critical data from the after-delivery service (ADS) process. Through a case study of an ADS system in the MSR industry, this paper investigates how a Lean digital approach can be operationalized and support the improvement of customer service and product quality. During a two-year period, approximately 20,000 after-delivery cases incorporating (among others) different suppliers and product defects or non-conformities have been registered by consumers and processed through the ADS system. ADS processes in the given industry have arguably received less attention in the literature than the systems and processes leading up to the point of sale. To address this gap, this paper provides insights into how MSR companies may benefit and learn from a product defect or non-conformity that generates an ADS case by adopting a Lean digital approach. While the findings demonstrate synergies between Lean and digitalization to support the minimization of performance variation, visualization, and data-driven problem solving and decision making, digital solutions can also generate new forms of waste and complexity if their development is not aligned with the employees’ digital maturity and needs and made compatible or integrable with other internal and external systems.KeywordsLeanDigitalizationAfter-delivery servicesProduct quality