Exercise 6.11 Consider the booking-to-cash process at a photography company (Fotof) described in Exercise 4.31. Which types of waste can you identify in this process?

I am looking for all move waste, hold waste and overdue waste in the given question.

Exercise 4.31

Fotof provides photography services in the fields of family photography, personal event

photography (e.g. weddings and party photography) and commercial photography (e.g.,

corporate events). One of the core processes of Fotof is its booking-to-cash process, which

goes all the way from the moment a customer makes a booking for a photo shooting session,

through the order placement, to the moment the customer pays and obtains the ordered

pictures. In the last year, Fotof received 10K orders from commercial customers, and 80K

orders from private customers.

The booking-to-cash process starts when a customer makes a booking for a shooting session

at a photo studio. A booking can be done via phone or via email addressed directly to a

specific photo studio. The request is handled by a customer service representative at the

photo studio. Each studio employs two customer service representatives: a senior one, who

is also manager of the studio, and a junior one. The customer service representative enters

the details of the booking into the photo studio information system.

The booking is assigned to one of the photographers of the studio. After a photo shooting

session, the photographer uploads the pictures to a file server. Eventually, a technician

cleans up the pictures by deleting duplicates and failed shots. Later the technician edits

the remaining shots and arranges them into a photo gallery using a dedicated photo studio

software tool. Once the gallery is completed, the customer is notified by email. The

notification includes a URL of the gallery.

Customers can view the gallery, select the pictures they wish to order in print (and how

many copies) and those they wish to get in digital copy (full resolution). Customers can also

annotate a selected picture in order to ask for additional editing (special requests). When

placing their order, customers can specify whether they will pickup the printed copies at

the studio or have them delivered by post. In the latter case, a shipment fee is added to the

order. Once the customer has submitted the order, a technician performs additional editing

(if required by the customer). In the case of special requests, the technician may need to

communicate with the customer by email or phone to clarify the request and to determine

how to fulfill it, and whether the special request will entail an additional fee and how much.

If printouts are required, the technician prints them out, puts them in an envelope, and drops

them at the studios counter.

Pictures from a shooting session are kept in the corresponding gallery for up to 30 days (a

reminder is sent to the customer 5 days before the expiry date). If a customer has not placed

an order past this period, an invoice is sent for the minimum billing amount (see below).

Invoices are payable within 7 days of their issue. A customer service representative sends a

reminder when an invoice is overdue.

Once the pictures are ready, a customer service representative determines the amount

to be invoiced (including additional fees for special requests). The customer service

representative then produces an invoice and sends it to the customer. Once the invoice

has been paid, the customer service representative packs and sends the printouts for postal156 4 Advanced Process Modeling

delivery (if the customer ordered printouts) and sends a URL to the customer where

the customer can find the full-resolution digital pictures they ordered. The matching of

incoming payments to invoices is done automatically by an accountancy system (the same

system that is used to issue invoices).

Booking or order cancelations can occur in three ways: (i) prior to the shooting session

(booking cancelation); (ii) in case of no-show (the customer did not show up to the shooting

session and did not reschedule it); or (iii) after the shooting, if the customer does not order

any pictures within 30 days. Cancelations prior to the photo shooting session do not incur

a fee. Cancelations due to no-shows do not attract a fee if they are in-studio; they attract a

fee of e 50 if they are on location. In case of a no-show, the customer may reschedule

the booking to a later day but the no-show fee for on-location shootings is charged to the

customer in any case. If a customer does not order any picture after a shooting session,

the customer is invoiced a photo shooting fee of e 100 for in-studio sessions (e 150 for

on-location ones).