Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Anna Pessah: Lean Thinking at Summit Fun...

Weiss, Elliott N.,...

Case

Anna Pessah: Lean Thinking at Summit Funding (A)

Weiss, Elliott N.; Goldberg, Rebecca

OM-1569 | Published May 12, 2017 | 16 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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This case was a runner-up in the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) 2017 case competition. Anna Pessah, process engineer at Summit Funding (Summit), a mortgage-loan-processing company, is reflecting back on her year at the company. Pessah had been hired to improve operations at the firm—to make the core operations cheaper, faster, and of a higher quality. She had addressed two key operations: loan closings and verifications of employment (VOE). Her next tasks involved improvements at the 28 branches and reaction to a corporate-wide improvement program entitled “Project Ninja.” Pessah had implemented a system called “pods,” similar to manufacturing cells, in order to address loan closings. Data is given for the student to analyze the implications of this approach and suggest alternatives. Data is also given for analyzing the VOE process and deriving an approach to the branch productivity problem. Finally, the Project Ninja memo is given, and students are asked to evaluate this initiative.