Reduce Unique ICDs by Redesgning the Product or the Process

The objective of this activity is to reduce the number of ICDs by reducing the occurrence of an ICD in producing a unit of Output, or by reducing the number of separate ICDs used in the Output. A unique ICD is one of the key activities in the work center's contribution to the final product (O). It is separate and distinct from any other activity in the work center. For example, the fastening of a part onto a subassembly and a quality control check of the subassembly would be unique ICDs.

B. Redesign the process of producing the ICD or Output

Change the process used to produce the ICD or Output to eliminate activities.

5. Reduce errors in process

Improve the diagnosis of the situation: Segment customers with specific buying patterns to focus marketing efforts:
Use current company data

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	5511	2006	CarMax is the nation's biggest used-car supermarket. Everyday CarMax's system looks at every car it is offering for sale – how many test drives it's been taken on, how many credit applications it has attracted, how prominent a space on the lot it has occupied. If the car isn't likely to sell within two weeks, CarMax lowers the price. The value of a late-model used car declines 10% to 20% a year, and CarMax's after-tax margin is only 2%. Cars remain in inventory for, on average, about a month.
2	6141	2004	McKinsey has found four broad approaches that suggest ways for credit card issuers to use risk management to improve their profitability by as much as 5%-15%. The fourth way is smarter collections. Traditional brute-force approaches (such as more frequent calls) for getting customers to pay up yield limited results. Leading issuers tailor a full range of collections strategies by segment, rigorously manage collections agencies, and employ innovative techniques such as mining text from collectors' notes.
3	6141	2004	McKinsey has found four broad approaches that suggest ways for credit card issuers to use risk management to improve their profitability by as much as 5%-15%. Third is customer level management. The credit behavior of consumers is dynamic and can change by 20 to 40 points over a period of nine months. However, only a third of issuers said they could react quickly to such changes by extracting customer-level information across accounts. The issuers that could were better able to manage their total exposure and losses, to cross-sell products, and to reduce costs. Issuers following such practices enjoyed higher revenues and losses that were 15% lower than those of other issuers.
4	6331	1994	Smaller niche auto insurance companies growing faster than big insurers. Auto insurance. is their only business so they pay more attention to rates, set up more rating classes, have better databases on accidents and driving records, lower overhead costs.
5	6514	2005	Redbrick single-family home investor says people who rent houses tend to have children and so usually are more settled than apartment dwellers. That means the house renters are likely to remain tenants longer, reducing the costs of finding new tenants, the company says.

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