Food Banks: Reducing Stigma & Doing More with Less

Coming up: How a team of volunteers at a community food bank significantly reduced the stigma felt by by removing a tell-tale sign from the items they distributed.

Also, read how they streamlined their stock handling process, saving volunteer effort and reducing the need for extended working hours.

Background to this Case Study

Reducing the Stigma Perceived by Food Bank Clients

The warehouse manager at a branch of a nationwide network of food banks learned that their clients were unhappy about one aspect of their service, that volunteer staff routinely write the expiration date on the top of tinned goods. Shipping an out-of-date product is considered a major failure, so dating the top of tins was seen as the best way to prevent this.

Their clients, however, had a very different perception. A common reaction to using a food bank service is one of embarrassment. Likely based on having to admit the need for support in providing food for themselves and their families. This is despite millions of people in the UK being in a similar position. The usual practice of writing dates on tins leaves their client with a visible mark that identifies their reliance on a food bank.

Lean Six Sigma: Community-Driven Process Improvement

One of the prime directives of Lean Six Sigma is to “Listen to the voice of your customer”. This challenges you to see your business, product or service from the customer's viewpoint rather than your own.

The following case study shows how a team of volunteers took the initiative and used the tools and strategies of Lean Six Sigma to improve the service they provide. It demonstrates the power that shop floor improvement teams can have to make real gains for the business and their own fulfilment.

This was the first Lean Six Sigma project that the team had attempted. Although part of a nationwide network of food banks, they had no prior experience with continuous improvement. Their warehouse manager had completed a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt training course. This account is the story of their learning experience and achievements.

Define: Stating the Problem

The context of this study is a warehouse of roughly 300 square meters, staffed by 36 volunteers working part-time in three teams on three operating days per week. Their distributions provide for some 500 people per month.

In Define, the first objective was to prepare a project charter and to review it with the operations manager and the leadership team. The charter for this project is reproduced below.

A core team of five key staff was selected across the three volunteer teams, and to ensure participation and ownership of the changes, all team members were consulted and involved.

Define Tollgate Review

Perhaps the most important of all phase reviews, it tests for relevance and alignment with the organisation's goals and objectives. The review focused on avoiding the distribution of out of date tins, which was clearly a major concern with both the leadership team and the volunteers. The support and assurance from the core team that it would be achievable provided sufficient confidence, and approval to proceed was given.

Measure: Establishing a Baseline

The goals for Measure are establishing a baseline for the process performance and an understanding of the current process flow.

A few sample measurements revealed the following baseline data:

Average time to sort and date each box of tins

12 mins

Average time to store each box of tins ready for picking

8 mins

Proportion of tins with handwritten dates

100%

The total time associated with sorting and storing a single box of tins was 20 minutes, and a target was set to reduce this by more than a third, or 13 minutes.

The proportion of tins with handwritten dates was 100%, with a target to reduce this to zero.

A current state process map was sketched out initially on a whiteboard, then later transcribed as a power point slide. It gave an understanding of the steps in the process and the scope of the project. Perhaps more importantly, it provided some training and familiarity for the team in using this valuable tool for process improvement.

It was clear from this process map that incremental steps or a series of small changes would not achieve the project's objectives. Only a radical redesign of the process flow would satisfy the requirement to eliminate handwritten dates and avoid the distribution of out of date tins.

The handling time data were seen to have considerable variation, likely from different levels of experience and familiarity across the teams, but that analysis is more relevant to the Analyse and Improve phases.

Measure Tollgate Review

The Measure tollgate review confirmed the project goals with a clear understanding of the current state of the process, and its baseline performance. The team also presented their plan for the Analyse phase and reviewed risks. They restated their confidence in success and their ability to prevent the distribution of out-of-date tins.

Analyse: Understanding the Problem

The objective for Analyse is to find the root cause of the problem and to ensure that you understand it correctly from the data, and that you therefore have a good foundation to develop the solution. The reason that this structured approach is so powerful is that it encourages proper analysis of the facts before developing the solution.

The first-level analysis was simple. Every tin had a handwritten date on it due to the belief that this was the best way to prevent expired items from being distributed.

The baseline data on the cycle time of sorting and storing a single box of tins indicated considerable variation in the time taken. This indicates changing or different executions of the processes, and probably many different contributory causes to extended cycle times. Analysing this data could be useful in understanding and achieving improvement.

A histogram of the cycle time was particularly revealing, much more instructive than just looking at the raw data or the statistics of the sample (e.g. the average, or the spreadof the data). The 30 or 40 data points collected were quite sufficient to show a skewed distribution, similar to an exponential decay curve. This is not untypical of delivery type processes and probably indicates multiple contributory causes that are additive, leading to the long tail.

There is an outlier block in the 50 to 60 minute range. In this case, it was linked to a group with less familiarity and experience of the process and therefore considered as out of scope for the analysis.

Improve: Developing Solutions

The objective of the Improve phase is to create the best solution, or to select the best option from several possible courses, then to test it and to confirm that it is both suitable and practical. Improve then completes all of the preparations required before the final rollout in the Control phase.

The team started with the latter part of the distribution process, that of picking for delivery. The existing process had tins stored in date order. Each storage crate had a specific month and year, so every tin had to find its correct crate. This inevitably was a time consuming, one item at a time, process.

The new process would rely on the inventory management method of First In/First Out: tins would be stored by crate as they were received and then picked in order of the earliest received. It was a much faster and more space efficient storage method, but it required that no tins with an expiry date less than the expected shelf time were stored.

A limit of 8 weeks was set for the minimum remaining time until expiration. This more than exceeded the maximum time tinned items spent in the warehouse. All items will have left within 8 weeks, and therefore no out-of-date products will be distributed.

Next, the layout of the picking run was developed to follow the First In/First Out principle. The team then added suitable signs to indicate the product and the picking point for each tin contents. They plan to implement further pictorial signs and direction indicators using simple visual management tools.

The next focus for the Improve phase was the sorting and dating process carried out on the dating table. The existing process required tins to be grouped by type and then tins to be individually dated with a marker pen. The need to check the expiry date was unchanged, but instead of writing it on top of the tin it was only necessary to reject items that would expire in 8 weeks or less.

The few rejects were collected and later sorted into categories for use by other outlets or for disposal. This part of the process was out of scope for the project.

The dating table was divided into two regions, one side for tins, and the other side, which followed the previous process. A shadow board or standardised layout was developed for product types, as shown by the coloured cards placed on each of the workstations. This assisted with developing memory and a rapid sorting process using the standard layout.

The layout was chosen by the teams to represent easy access to the most frequent items. Rather like the layout of a keyboard, it may not seem logical, but it was developed with trial and error to reach a team consensus for the best solution.

After a number of pilots, the team reached an agreement on the final changes. They also collected preliminary data showing a marked reduction in cycle time. These trials were carried out with the existing dates on tins still in place to give confidence that the new process would not fail by distributing expired items.

Control: Roll-out and Maintenance

The Control phase starts with any necessary workplace training and changes, then proceeds to a full production rollout. The team at this food bank simply continued with their picking run pilot, gradually rolling it out to every member of staff.

In this phase, it’s important to measure the effect of any changes made; it should be possible to demonstrate the improvements and to quantify the project’s contribution to the business. It should also start the ongoing process of light-touch monitoring to track these improvements.

Conclusion

The volunteer team at this food bank has achieved a significant improvement by removing markings on their products that were causing their clients to feel stigmatised.

Their cycle time reduction was approximately 50%, which represents a reduction of more than 45 labour hours per week, significantly exceeding the original goal.

This streamlined stock-handling process has halted the need for overtime after surges in goods received, and any additional savings can be redeployed to other activities.

Looking from the outside, there has also been a perceptible change in the organisation’s culture. The teams are now more engaged, more supportive and are initiating further improvements and changes to working practices.