Implementing a quality improvement project

Question

Assignment:

Canadian Insurance Processing Centre

March 2017

Provincial Insurance Company has a main processing centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba that is responsible for all Canadian claims. On average they process over three thousand claims per month. Claims are for a range of services including dental, medical, and professional services. Recently it has been brought to the Management's attention that errors are becoming an increasing problem. The Company does not have a Quality Control Department, but the Operations performance does fall under the responsibilityof Nancy Chin, Operations Manager. Although she has no formal training in quality, she has taken a drastic measure of implementing a Quality improvement project.

In a four week period in January 2016, several hundredcompleted customer claims were randomly removed from the system and given a thorough evaluation. Results are recorded in the chart below.

In February, extra training took place for all employees. All associates in the Claims department attended either a six hour session, or two four-hour sessions depending on factors such as their position, length of service, and their area of responsibility. Canadian spent over $100,000 to complete this training, convinced that the reduction in number of errors would save the company money in the long run.

Approximately 20% of the employees in the Claims Department have been working for Provincial for less than one year, so this seemed like a good time to refresh the training that was given. Also, in the past year there has been two new major customers for Canadian which resulted in new forms/ documents and processes, as well as a much higher workload.

In March 2016, Nancy Chin felt it was important to determine whether the training that she implemented resulted in a reduction in the number of errors in customer claims. Once again, the same number ofrandomly selected claim forms were removed from the system prior to mailing to customers. Each form was carefully evaluated to look for errors.

The information below is from the January (original data) and from March (after the training). As a new hire from the Business Program at Seneca College, you have been asked to do an evaluationof the data and to put together a report on the success of the training program at Canadian Insurance Company, and to recommend next steps.

Assignment:

Compile a report that includes the following:

1. Cover page and Table of Contents. Ensure each section has a proper titleand that each graph is properly labeled. Double space all pages. Compile the report in the order of the numbers given below. Ensure that your Table of Contents is compiled using the Microsoft WORD tool.

2. Executive Summary. You should write this part after you have covered all the issues of this assignment, but it should appear at the beginning of your report. In that way it will allow Nancy Chin to have immediate, short and clear understanding of the main findings and conclusions of the report. She will then decide what parts of your detailed report he wishes to read and understand. Give your specific results here, including the percent improvement in errors. ( Two pagraphs)

3. Summarize for Ms. Chin the four costs of quality, giving examples of each from Canadian Insurance. (Maximum four paragraphs)

4. Draw a Fish-Bone (Cause and Effect) chart, which indicates some possible reasons for the defects listed in the case.

5. Using the data from the Fish-Bone Diagram, and your knowledge of Operations Management, give two other suggestions, (in addition to training) that Canadian Insurance Company should use to reduce errors.

6. Perform a Pareto Analysis for the original data. (Pre-training) Comment on the performance in the Claims Department.

7. Using the original data, draw a Run Chart (Line Chart) for each of the top 2 errors indicated on your Pareto Chart. Can any conclusions be drawn from this line chart?

8. Perform a Pareto Analysis on the data obtained after the training took place. Discuss the improvements and next steps.

9. It has been discussed that there is some pressure in this industry to obtain ISO Certification. Briefly explain to Nancy Chin what work is involved in obtaining this certification. Is this something you would recommend, and why, or why not?

10. From the information you have discovered, prepare your conclusions and recommendations, with justifications. ( maximum 3 paragraphs)
The charts and graphs must be computer generated. Each Pareto Analysis must include the Pareto Chart and the Pareto Graph. Ensure that you import your EXCEL document into WORD using so that your formulas are visible.No part of this report should be hand written or written in the first person. Do not use I, we, you, me, my etc. Ensure that the rubric is the final page of your assignment.

This is an individual assignment, no part of this assignment may be shared with any other student. Save your file as Firstname.lastnameAss2 Assignments must be submitted into MySeneca and not by Email.

Please remember to identify your charts/graphs- Main Titles, X-Axis and Y-Axis Titles and Scale, other names of data. Be sure to cite any external references.

January Data (Original Data)

Date	Procedure Mistake	Authorization Error	Documents missing	Information Incomplete	Routing Error
2	0	2	0	3	1
3	0	2	1	4	3
4	1	1	2	4	0
5	2	0	1	0	0
6	0	1	0	5	1
9	0	2	0	2	2
10	3	3	0	6	0
11	2	2	0	0	1
12	0	0	1	2	0
13	0	2	0	4	0
16	2	3	1	2	2
17	0	2	1	6	0
18	1	0	1	5	1
19	1	2	1	4	1
20	5	0	0	3	0
23	0	4	2	2	2
24	2	2	0	4	0
25	1	1	1	6	0
26	0	1	0	3	2
27	1	1	0	2	1

March Data ( After Improvement)

Date	Procedure Mistake	Authorization Error	Documents missing	Information Incomplete	Routing Error
1	1	1	0	1	0
2	1	0	1	2	2
5	0	0	0	0	0
6	1	0	1	1	0
7	2	0	0	2	0
8	0	0	0	1	1
9	1	0	1	0	0
12	1	0	0	2	1
13	0	0	1	2	0
14	0	0	0	0	0
15	2	0	0	0	1
16	0	0	1	1	0
19	2	0	2	2	0
20	0	0	1	2	1
21	2	1	0	1	0
22	1	0	1	2	0
23	0	1	0	1	0
26	2	0	0	2	1
27	0	0	1	1	1
28	0	0	0	0	0