Streamlining Research Operations at EY Sweeney

 

BACKGROUND

The Household Travel Survey (HTS) is TfNSW’s only source of travel data for people within the Greater Sydney Region.

The Household Travel Survey has been running continuously for the past 22 years. It is a detailed inquiry into personal demographics and travel behaviour, with a view to gain insight into broader travel patterns and how these might be influenced by key factors like income. The data collected is used to plan future transport infrastructure for the region.

In March 2019, EY Sweeney won the HTS project from an incumbent firm. On a high level, we send 14 fieldworkers to 14 Travel Zones every week to door-knock on households, with the objective of recruiting the residents into a two-part travel survey. HTS runs every day of the year.

 

MY ROLE

I helped build operational processes from the ground up to secure the future of the project.

I joined HTS as one of its first team members, and helped the team navigate through a chaotic period in which the renewal of the contract hinged upon performance. I was responsible for day-to-day running of the project, but I focused my role on streamlining internal operations.

My approach was to divide our operations into key domains of impact and systematically improve each one. To accomplish this, I identified pain points along each operational process and designed solutions to smooth out each process for both office and field staff.

 

DWELLING CHECKS

I owned Dwelling Checks, a critical process where fieldworkers visit a list of addresses to confirm that they are indeed valid residences.

There was only one problem: the Dwelling Checks process I inherited was highly dependent on manual labour and prone to human error. One team member would complete it, but another would have to check it for accuracy. Mistakes meant that fieldworkers would be sent to the wrong households!

How can we issue 14 sets of addresses to 14 fieldworkers in a manner that is both accurate and time-efficient?

 

THE SOLUTION

I designed a user interface in Excel to streamline this process, from both an office and a field perspective.

Over a period of weeks, I conducted a contextual enquiry of the process from end-to-end. Based on my first-hand experiences, I visually mapped out each step in this process and clearly identified points of improvement. To design a solution, I took into consideration:

  • The office user - In what ways can I make the process easier for myself and my team?

  • The fieldworker - How can I make the process easier on the fieldworkers and improve their experience out in field?

  • Technical feasibility - What technologies are available to me?

Ultimately, I designed and coded a user interface on Excel which integrated the process of assigning fieldworkers to Travel Zones with the process of issuing the addresses to each fieldworker.

 

THE IMPACT

  • Increased team capacity

Automating this critical process freed up precious time and mental energy in an already demanding role. The total time spent was cut down from 45 minutes to 10 minutes — this gave us increased capacity to problem-solve when challenges hit unexpectedly.

  • Costly errors eliminated

By eliminating as many manual steps as possible, I eliminated 90% of the possibility of human error, saving future time and resources as well.

  • A better user experience

I transformed a frustrating process into an enjoyable experience for team members. Instead of performing dozens of little manual tasks, the user can focus on the core task: assigning the right fieldworkers to the right travel zones.