Describe a time when you identified an improvement opportunity and implemented it.

Remember to provide metrics to help the interviewer understand the impact of the improvement you made. Also, it is best to describe a time when you demonstrated end-to-end ownership of the process improvement. Be sure to describe the previous state problem, the work you did to analyze the opportunity, and your role in implementing the related changes.

"I noticed that our engineers were frequently visiting sites more than once to resolve various infrastructure issues. One of the principles of Lean is to reduce waste, and I felt there was an opportunity to reduce the motion waste of our support fleet.

I spent a few days reviewing the total number of repeat visits and the notes associated with the support requests. The most common reason for a repeat visit was related to parts availability. The engineers would sometimes arrive to learn that they needed something other than what they had originally planned for, or they would arrive and learn that something they ordered for the job had not yet arrived.

We tackled the problem from two angles. First, we took on a project to make shipping status information available within our ticketing system. We then adjusted our process to only send an engineer when the necessary parts had arrived, or when we were reasonably certain they would arrive in advance of our engineer. We also included alerts to managers about significant shipping delays.

Second, I pulled together a team of senior engineers to brainstorm a list of the most common materials that caused delays on jobs. We were able to work with our suppliers and retool our fleet vehicles such that the necessary parts would be available on-site more often. The two changes I led resulted in a 27% reduction in return on-site visits within the first six months and a cost savings of over 32k."