The challenge
A Fortune 50 FMCG organization had a regulatory specification approval backlog that was growing. The assumption was a resource capacity problem. The reality, once measured, was a process design problem.
The approach
- Primary source data analysis across the full regulatory specification approval workflow.
- Root cause identified: undefined handoffs between functions, review steps that added queue time without adding decision quality and submission errors entering an already-saturated pipeline.
- New process architecture designed. Tiered review by product risk. Functional ownership defined at every handoff.
The result
- 70-90% of processing time identified as non-value-added through primary source data analysis.
- 621 specs redesigned under a new process architecture.
- Backlog eliminated through process redesign. Not added capacity.
