Improving the Bank Account Opening Process Using Lean Six Sigma Methodology at Palestine Islamic Bank رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology focuses on the elimination of waste and variation to help organizations control the operations, increase the profit and reduce the cost. Its applications among Palestinian companies would contribute in improving processes, satisfying customers’ desired needs and achieving better productivity with considerable financial results. The purpose of this thesis is to improve the bank account opening process at the largest Islamic banking network in Palestine, using lean Six Sigma (LSS) Methodology. The time limit for an account opening process at Palestine Islamic Bank (PIB) has been significantly higher than that applied in other Palestinian Banks. The target is to save the time of opening a new bank account at least 20% which will result in fruitful outcomes like more satisfied customers, higher productivity, and attracting more customers to open deposit accounts. Accordingly, the management of PIB approved the review and analysis of the respective process of bank account opening to economize time, efforts and costs of service. This conduct was confirmed by the management of the Bank. In addition to working with key stakeholders at PIB, some of the LSS tools were used to gather data on the key measures for the account opening process. These measures include: the time from applying to open a new bank account to the actual time spent in opening of the account, and the customer’s waiting time at the Bank before his/her bank account is created. Data collected on these measures were plotted on control charts which were monitored whenever improvements are made. Following comprehensive understanding of the current performance of the account opening process, the root causes for a long time required to open a new bank account have been identified, such as many documents and information required from the customers, needless management’s V approvals, and complicated processes among the bank units as well as there are no customized software programs for accounts opening. On the other hand, there are neither accurate nor direct tools for evaluating customer satisfaction with the procedures of account opening process and even the employees do lack skills for utilizing improvement tools and methodologies such as LSS. In the improvement phase, the results showed that the implemented solution at Al-Bireh branch has reduced the average time of opening a new bank account from 38 minutes to 14.7 minutes i.e. by 61.4%. This included reducing the customer’s waiting time at the Bank through eliminating some steps which will be done in the back office after the customer leaves the Bank. The test included simulation of using a new banking system. In the control phase which is the last phase of the DMAIC methodology, new standards for the bank account opening process and control charts to monitor the key performance indicators in the future have been created. It is crucial to state that LSS methodology creates a completed framework including specific improvement tools for achieving sustainable results in reducing the time rate in bank account opening process at PIB. In order to do so, it is recommended that the Bank should continue with the improvement actions, particularly when focusing on internal and external communication, practical trainings, periodic feedbacks and control activities.