Keeping Classroom Technologies Functioning: Application of lean principles improves computer-repair operations

Organizations that repair or remanufacture goods face unique challenges not common to the original production of a product. While any kind of demand is somewhat unpredictable, repair operations face demand volatility for when products need fixed and often the type of product that needs fixed. And each product that arrives for repair could have a lengthy list of potential problems, which, in turn, requires a large and diverse inventory of replacement parts. 

The tendency is to address these problems by throwing resources and inventory at them to ensure adequate turnaround times, at the expense of efficiency and profitability. Trafera, a company that supports K-12 education with their technology needs, was grappling with demand issues and turnaround times at its St. Paul repair facility. 

Trafera services start with the acquisition of technologies (e.g., personal computers, flat panels) that are configured, tagged, and etched, and, for some clients, delivered and installed. Trafera also handles repairs for thousands of school districts. Repair services include diagnosis and repair, provision of replacement parts for schools that do their own repair, warranty fulfilment, and pickup and delivery where possible for schools and districts within the region of facilities using Trafera vehicles and personnel. As a certified electronics recycler, the company also will disassemble and recycle devices that cannot be repaired.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, it dramatically affected education systems and those supporting education, including Trafera, as the number of devices going to students dramatically increased due to home-schooling and the need for virtual classrooms. Trafera saw a massive acceleration in its business volume of new products headed to schools and then the follow-on effect of more devices being damaged and needing repair. Trafera has experienced a nearly 300% increase in repair volume since pre-pandemic numbers.

As the huge tide of devices kept coming, repair and return lead times from Trafera’s repair center in St. Paul, Minn., gradually increased from approximately two weeks to four weeks, then five, six, seven, and eight weeks. As lead times rose, net promoter scores measuring customer satisfaction fell. Contributing to the market challenges was growth of Trafera, the result of a 2021 merger between Trinity3 Technology and FireFly Computers: Trinity3 deployment/production operations were combined at a FireFly facility in Arden Hills, Minn., and FireFly repair operations were combined with Trinity repair in the St. Paul facility, doubling the number of computers in need of repair. The two entities also had different processes, some of which contributed to backlogs. Now as Trafera, FireFly and Trinity processes needed aligned and improved.

It was clear to Trafera leadership that by the time school restarted in fall 2022, repairs needed to be back to a two-week lead time (arriving at Trafera dock to shipment back to school) to satisfy customers. Former CEO Scott Gill had some experience with lean and had toured facilities in Japan with LEI leaders, and he and Nikki Levin, Senior VP of Operations, believed a focused lean transformation could get to the two weeks lead-time target (which would require throughput to increase by at least 50%). Despite the stress and anxiety the rising lead time was having on staff, the leaders saw a cultural commitment to get better. “We really started to research that, dig into that, understand how that could help us make some of the improvements that we wanted to make to our current processes while maintaining this employee focus,” says Levin.

“When we started the journey, we really looked at what’s our core?” says Dan Hoogheem, VP Quality and Continuous Improvement. “How do we build our base? This is a big focus for us: people, systems, culture, and the management system. We were focusing on how we can get people to help us get to that two-week time.”

Trafera brought in lean consultant DLW-Partners to act as coaches and assist Trafera’s continuous improvement group in transforming repair operations. DLW would spend two consecutive days at the plant every couple months, working with managers, providing homework for their next visit, and communicating with improvement teams as needed. DLW was developing the capability of Trafera staff rather than a dependency on DLW.

Transforming the Repair Center on Day One

Trafera designated a team of managers to lead the transformation of the St. Paul facility, and DLW staff provided quick, intense instruction on their first few days there to get teams acquainted with lean principles (pull, flow, waste reduction, etc.); a process to improve (how to engage others); and the lean technical tools that would help them to address the problems they began to find (e.g., 5S, visual controls, spaghetti mapping, value-stream mapping, standardized work). 

Prior to that time, the managers had little familiarity with lean principles and tools and wondered how the two-week turnaround goal could be achieved. “My perspective going in was, ‘OK, these [DLW] guys are experts, they’re going to help us solve this problem,” says Mitch Watson, St. Paul Facility Manager. “But rather than help us solve problems, they taught us how to solve our own problems and to continue thinking in ways that are productive and will solve other problems down the line.”

Literally on day one the managers immediately went to the gemba to learn, to see and ask questions about what’s working/not working, and to experiment with solutions (where possible) or plan revisions. “They were teaching us concepts that related to the problems we were encountering and having us try things and iterate off of that and get feedback from our teams,” says Rob Rogers, Senior Director of Regional Operations. “It was very action-oriented. Even the very first day they came out, we ended up splitting up into groups. We did some work in the conference room learning things, and then we went out and tried things just to see what we could do to improve things.”

The managers assessed workspaces and mapped the flow of work and processes (spaghetti diagrams showed substantial waste of motion and movement as devices moved through the building, from in-bound delivery to shipment). They also engaged frontline staff, sought feedback on what was bothering them, and got them to trial revised workflows and workspaces. Some of the managers’ work at the gemba led to identifying problems that required formal kaizen activities to address, but other issues were resolved almost immediately. For example, complaints by warehouse staff that some shelves were too dark resulted in a trip to a home repair store to buy lights.

“It really set a lot of us off when we realized you don’t have to settle for something the way it is, and that it’s our job specifically to fix that and find these things and be aware of them,” says Bill Dalbotten, Repair Manager. 

We weren’t solving problems for them; we were teaching them how to solve their own problems and build systems that can sustain improvements.

Gradually as the managers established new processes and stabilized work throughout the facility, outcomes improved. As important, they established the means to continually and collaboratively understand systemwide flow and build in processes to sustain and improve. Prior to the transformation, the managers were “kind of doing their own thing and not working as a whole, as a group,” says Hoogheem. 

Improvements at Trafera

As managers took to the gemba and brought new eyes to their old problems, a number of significant improvement projects emerged that had a substantial effect on the facility’s ability to meet its target by September 2022:

• Minimize touches and improve repair flow: Each device that came into the facility was touched repeatedly by staff—receipt, shelving, movement to technicians, shipping—all of which consumed substantial time and led to batches of product accumulating. Rogers says they had previously recognized the amount of batching, but it intuitively seemed the correct approach. “We did not know about one-piece flow and the advantages that can come from looking at it a different way.”
  
  The team sought to reduce batching and establish a process to minimize the number of times a device was touched throughout the facility, especially the number of technicians involved with a single device. Technicians wanted to “own” a device, and the managers listened to their requests and reduced technician touches.
  
  “Once we decided to do it, we were ready to go, and it felt very organic,” says Dalbotten. It was one of the first moments when the managers were truly listening to their teams and making sure they were engaged. “They were all behind it. Once we wanted to execute on it and we made the decision, it was fast.”
  
  The repair flow also was burdened with multiple quality checkpoints. But the system of checking did not catch all defects, and consumed time as batched devices waited to be checked. The solution was quality at the source, with technicians checking their own work against a standardized checklist to ensure all device functionality is working—not just the specific repair that took place. This increased accountability by technicians to get the diagnosis and repair right the first time.
  
  The improvements to repair flow reduced device movement and storage by 70%, reduced retouch and re-diagnosis of devices by 35%, and increased diagnosis accuracy to 99.75% (against a goal of 99.65-100%). Their work also freed up one technician per device repaired.

• Repair bench setup and standardization: The facility had been using common worktables for technicians to diagnose and repair devices. They weren’t designed specifically for the work nor were they ergonomic, resulting in unnecessary movements, interruptions during the work, and occasional discomfort.
  
  “We got a bunch of prototypes; had people come sit at them, use them, and give their feedback; and eventually we landed on what is currently the bench standard across all facilities,” says Watson. “The bench allows for parts to hang on the back and gets them out of the workspace of the technician… Not only is their desk ergonomic, but they also have everything they need parts-wise to fix anything that comes across their bench.” 
  
  All technician benches in the facility are now standardized—technicians can customize to some degree (left- or right-handed)—with specific locations for tools and parts that are easily accessible by parts delivery and technicians. Standardized parts volumes at the benches serve as a pull system for parts replenishments. The redesigned benches reduced technician movement by 50%.

• Product families: Like many high-volume/high-mix companies, every product/device was treated as if unique and devices in need of repair were distributed to technicians on a first-in/first-out basis. Technicians would work on a wide variety of devices and problems in any given day. The improvement team analyzed the work coming to St. Paul and divided the top 80% of work into product families of similar devices with similar replacement parts. In doing so, they recognized that the work was more consistent and repeatable than originally believed. The remaining 20%—unique and often challenging one-offs—are handled by senior-most technicians. 
  
  Technicians will typically work on three dozen devices in a product family each day, and they passively signal the warehouse when they’re in need of devices in that family. A team of technicians will work on a family for a week, which allows them to “get really familiar with the issues that they’re going to see with those and how to actually take apart the device, the general construction of it,” says Watson. “That speeds things up for them, and they like it because they know what they’re going to anticipate. They sort of get locked into a zone.” The distribution of work by product families has increased technician productivity by 45%.

• Warehouse storage and organization: Many parts were distributed and stored in the warehouse in multiple locations based on the type of device that typically needed the part. This, of course, meant that replenishment of parts would occur for multiple locations (the team’s spaghetti maps revealed a tangled mess of duplicated steps). With such wide distribution of parts, some locations often ran out of stock, forcing a picker to find parts in another location, creating inefficiencies across the warehouse and often resulting in technicians waiting for parts to be delivered. 
  
  The managers created a “hot zone” in the warehouse, close to technicians, for the approximately 70% of parts used most frequently and revised the flow for picking and repair replenishment. These changes increased daily output in picking by nearly 40%, reduced the time to replenish parts and parts inventories, and eliminated nearly all waiting by technicians for parts.
  
• Improved OEM-part process: About 10% of devices that are repaired are under OEM warranty and require an external process that includes contacting the OEM to request the necessary part(s) for repair. Technicians signal from their benches the need for an OEM part, the order is placed, the device is reshelved, parts arrive to the facility, and are transported and paired with the shelved device. 
  
  “We were receiving a part, putting it in a bin, and then continuing to receive parts on top of it,” says Brandon Byers, Warehouse Supervisor. “So your first part you receive that day could be the last part to get paired that day or even the next day.” In addition, the team that received OEM parts was on the opposite end of the facility from the bins holding the devices that needed the part. Byers says they moved the OEM parts team to where the hold bins are and then coupled receiving and pairing into “one smooth process. They receive the part, put it in a bag with a label, and then slot it into the hold bin that’s literally two feet from their bench now.”
  
  The travel distance from the OEM area to hold racks decreased by 89%, and the new process removed unnecessary delays in getting OEM parts and devices back to technicians. 

• Visual management: A variety of visual management tools have been applied to organize the warehouse and improve the time to locate materials and parts. Some visuals keep staff aware of facility goals. For example, a rotating two-week color-coded system is used for work orders attached to all devices needing repaired. Wherever a device is in the facility—on warehouse shelves, in racks near technicians—the color will clearly show if it has been onsite for more than two weeks. The work orders throughout receiving and shipping are now usually just one color that is within the two-week lead time goal. 
  
  In the area with technicians, an overhead electronic whiteboard tracks team volumes (diagnosis and repairs) by day and the top 10 technicians for the day. At one time the managers removed the ranking, but technicians objected because they liked the competition and recognition for their daily accomplishments.

• Green improvements: There has been a continued emphasis at all Trafera facilities on environmental sustainability. For example, the use of greenpack packaging (an alternative to traditional plastic that is fully recyclable) has reduced transportation space by 50% and reduced waste at customer sites, as has the use of air packs, which also are recyclable.
  
  Trafera facilities also have tripled the reuse of packaging used for outgoing repaired devices, which reduces consumption of new boxes. Lastly, Trafera is a certified recycler for devices and is expanding its network of e-waste partners.

Improving the System and Leadership Capabilities

As multiple problems, big and small, were addressed by the management team with frontline input and changes applied, the environment within the facility went from firefighting and stress to one that sought out end-to-end flow and balancing of work. In doing that, managers recognized that sometimes bottlenecks move to other parts of the facility or that not all individual changes positively impact overall performance.

“Sometimes a change that’s necessary to improve the throughput of the whole system makes efficiency go down in local areas,” says Will White, Facility Manager for Trafera’s Charlotte facility. For example, diagnosed devices that are on hold and waiting for parts now go back to the technician that originally diagnosed it to complete the repair, which was not the case previously. That adds time for the warehouse person, who must identify and route the device to the original technician rather than an available technician. “But the overarching result is the repairs go through faster because the techs are familiar with the unit already, and they’re not trying to parse through another tech’s notes.”

The systemwide solutions implemented are freeing space and resources throughout the St. Paul site to take on other kinds of repair work. Moving some work to a new Charlotte, N.C., repair facility also has freed capacity. The Trafera corporate strategy is for increased direct shipment to schools within the regions of Trafera plants using their own trucks, vans, and personnel, which helps to build relationships with schools and improves support for staff managing education technologies at the schools. At Oklahoma and West Virginia facilities, more than 50% of all repairs are shipped locally; the goal for Charlotte is 100% local delivery. 

The end-to-end process improvements at St. Paul also have improved employee attitudes and satisfaction. For example, employee turnover was 5% in March 2022 and had decreased to 1.2% in September 2024.

“It’s really a people-first culture,” says White. “It’s all about going to your team and asking, ‘What problems do you have?’ You want your team to be comfortable with you, and that gets down to the relationship.” He wants team members to leverage their strengths and enjoy work, including having some fun occasionally. On Friday afternoons frontline teams will take a break and play a range of games, from paper airplane tosses to miniature golf in the facility.

Along with process improvements, Trafera is developing leadership capabilities: Watson and White, who now lead facilities, had previously been the Repair Manager and Warehouse Supervisor respectively, at St. Paul. Byers and Dalbotten were promoted to fill those roles in St. Paul.

Continuous Improvement Mindset

It quickly became clear to managers that frontline associates were excited about improving their workspaces and eliminating issues that had bothered them, but they also wanted to understand why changes were being made and be involved in those decisions.

“Early on when we had some of these lean ideas we wanted to try, we kind of had this perspective where we just told our team members, “Hey, we’re doing this, and we’re trying it,” says Dalbotten. “We thrust something upon them, gave them too many guidelines of how it needed to be done, and maybe tried to push it further than it should have gone. I think that teaches you a really fast lesson that you can want change and can implement any process change. But no matter how good they are, if you haven’t done the base work of building trust with your team and being on their level, engaging with them, and pulling them into it, none of this change will stick. You need the buy-in from everybody.”

Managers now engage staff more frequently by walking the gemba. “We’re looking for things that are bugging people that we can improve, and it might be following up on something that we already changed and we just want to see how it’s going and check in and make sure it’s actually working as expected,” says Rogers. “Other times, it’s something new that crops up that maybe we otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of.” 

“We are constantly communicating with each other,” says Levin. “We have daily huddles, we have cross-facility meetings and conversations, and we just started quarterly [meetings] where we present to leadership the improvements we’re making.” She also meets with the directors of the facilities and they together talk with frontline teams about their processes to understand what’s working and where challenges remain. “Our team leads are constantly out on the floor. It’s happening all the time just naturally.”

Facility managers continue to learn from and support each other as they share ideas and the unique issues they encounter in their areas, and, as a group, they’re encouraging frontline associates to resolve problems on their own and ask for support. “As you problem-solve over time and actually see tangible solutions that you’ve been able to produce, you gain confidence as a team,” says Dalbotten. “Then we started bringing frontline people into the gemba walks, sharing that culture and mentality with them, and it starts to spread.” 

David Westphal, President of DLW-Partners and an LEI faculty member, says the management team at St. Paul has “some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but they just needed some guidance. They never thought about it [in a lean] way, they never looked at it that way. Once they got going, it was spontaneous combustion. They took off and by the time we got back for the next check, they were three iterations down the road.”

As batching and problems of piles have been removed from the facility, visualization of problems has gotten faster and easier. “We’ve gotten in the habit of knowing quantifiably when an area is in a good state, simply using a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to say, “Hey, we could maybe be doing better here,” or “This is where we expect it to be or better,” says Watson. “We’re using simple ways to know if we are in good shape here or if we need to add resources or do we need to change something? Now we establish a baseline for what is acceptable, and then we know when something is spinning out of control and are able to react quickly.”