Six sigma undergraduate project using the DMAIC methodology. Completed after performing a Process audit (PEMM).

1. DMAIC Analysis on Purdue Travel Procedure
CONCUR User Integration Improvement
By
Weng Kwong Chan
Jason Widgery
Kevin Chang
IT 446
Fall 2013

2. IT 446 CONCUR User Integration Improvement
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Table of Contents
Pages
1. Introduction 3
2. Project Charter 4
3. Define 5
4. Value Stream Map 6
5. Process Map 7
6. Measure 8
7. Voice of Customer (VOC) 8
8. Analysis 12
9. Improvements 16
10. Conclusion 17
11. Acknowledgement 17
12. References 17

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Introduction
After talking to Dr. Ragu and Debbie, our IT446 Six Sigma DMAIC Project, we decide to look
into Purdue University’s travel procedures for faculty. We originally thought of embarking on the
entire scope of the university travel reimbursement system. However, we soon realize that the
scope was too wide for our project. Hence, we narrowed down our focus to Expense Report in
Concur System for Technology Leadership & Innovation Department in the College of Technology.
Like all departments in a large world-class university, travel is an essential element of the
faculty, distinguished guests, and our graduate students. Consequently, a systematic and reliable
system must be set in place to ensure that the university process trip reimbursement efficiently and
accurately, while making sure all trips are in compliance with the regulatory and legal reporting
policies.
Since January 2013, the Central Travel Office has replaced the paperwork process with
Concur Travel and Expense across Purdue University, including regional campuses. Concur is the
leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. In conjunction with
ALTOUR travel agency and the introduction of JP Morgan Chase Visa travel card, Concur intended to
provide automated booking, authorization, and reimbursement processes, thus eliminating Form
17 and Form 25, which were previously required in the paperwork.
Despite the lean effort from Central travel Office to redesign the travel procedures before
adopting Concur Travel and Expense application, we still receive informal complaints from
travelers and administrative staff after talking to them. Some of complaints involve around with
the complexity of the new system, account assignment and the continuous need of retraining. Hence,
our six sigma project commences by investigate the expense filing process which gives CONCUR
users the most issues and is critical for the reimbursement process.

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Project Charter
Business Case
The Central Travel Office has recently deploy CONCUR, a business travel and expense management
software to replace the time-consuming paperwork process. However, because of some of the non-
intuitive features of the CONCUR system and the fact not all Purdue faculty use CONCUR on a daily
basis and received sufficient training, we stepped in to investigate the expense filing process which
gives CONCUR users the most issues and effects on the reimbursement process most.
Opportunity Statement
The CONCUR system, oversee by Purdue Central Travel Office is relatively complex and not user-
friendly. Since the deployment of CONCUR, some of travelers receive non to a basic 2-hour training
while their delegates receive a more in-depth 6-hour training. Insufficient training and infrequent
usage of CONCUR system has often generate system exceptions that carry over to the
reimbursement process and hence affect the reimbursement duration.
Goal Statement
(1) Reduce cycle time (Creation of expense report to reimbursement)
(2) Simplify the process by identifying bottleneck and unnecessary steps
X: Workflow Cycle time
Y: Efficiency, users' satisfaction, users' training level
Project Scope
We are working on the CONCUR system's expense report filing process for TLI and CoT faculty.
Starting point: Return from trip
Ending point: Receive reimbursement payment
Project Plan
For this project, we will be focusing on the Define, Measure, Analyze, and Improve phase of the
DMAIC methodology
DEFINE: -Establishing contact with Business Office (2 weeks)
-Capture VOC, and convert them into CCR (2 weeks)
-Understand the current CONCUR system and process mapping (2 weeks)
MEASURE: - Develop comprehensive measuring rubric for various components (3 weeks)
ANALYZE: - Use SPC tools to present collected data (2 weeks)

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- Interpret statistical data (root cause analysis, process analysis, etc.) (3 week)
IMPROVE: - Post suggestions based from statistically significant data (1 week)
Team Selection
Dr. Ragu Athinarayanan - Project Sponsor
Debbie Tutak - TLI Administrative Staff
Steven Cain - Consultant
B.Gayle Stetler - Process Owner (Central Travel Office)
Emily Haygood - CoT Business Office Account Clerk
Weng Kwong Chan - Project member
Jason Widgery - Project member
Kevin Chang - Project member
Define
Our primary objective was to reduce the cycle time it takes from submitting Expense Report
to reimbursement. Our first step was to contact the Business Office, which we kept in contact for
over two weeks. From the business office, we established a connection in Central Travel Office with
Gayle Stetler, who is an Account Payable Mangers and also part of the Concur deployment team.
Gayle walked us through their current state and future state Value Stream Maps (Figure 1 and 2)
and also some of the new features and improvements over the previous paperwork system. Gayle
also helped us familiarize ourselves with Concur by giving us a demo session and walking through
most of the steps and troublesome features in the Expense Report. We have also collaborate with
Gayle to create a detailed process map (Figure 3) to understand each steps that happens between
submission of expense report and reimbursement.

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Value Stream Map
Figure 1. Value Stream Map for Paperwork Process
Figure 2. Value Stream Map for Concur Travel System

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Process Map
Figure 3. Process Map for Concur Expense Report
Performance Indicators: P1 – Date of expense report submission
P2 – Amount of expense report
P3 – Reason for Business Office Rejection
P4 – Reason for Ad-hoc approver rejection
P5 – Reason for Disbursement Audit Rejection
P6 – Audit Steps
P7 – Date sent for payment

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Measure
In the previous paperwork system, the baseline performance of the Reimbursement
Preparation Process (comparable to Expense Report in CONCUR System) was measured by
interviewing processors and managers in Business Office and Central Travel Office. The process
time was estimated to be 78 hours while the lead time ranged from 11 to 28 days.
To initiate the measurement process for the current Concur system, our team gathered
multi-dimensional data from the end-users and the Concur system. For end-users, we distributed a
Qualtrics surveys in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The results of the survey are
used as Voice of Customer (VOC) to further analyze and translate into Key Customer Issues and
eventually into Critical Customer Requirements (CCR). In the survey, we asked specifically about
the amount of training (in hours), user experience, and also 2 open-ended questions for travelers or
delegates to express their concerns.
On the other hand, since Concur is an automated application, Emily Haygood and Gayle
Stetler helped us to obtain quantitative data such as cycle time (in days), the reimbursed dollar
amount, and approval duration (in days) and etc. using the CONUS reporting service. With these
data, we utilized statistical process control (SPC) tools to analyze and evaluate the results which
will be discussed the analysis part of this report.
Voice of Customer (VOC)
External costumers are defined as the end-users (traveler or delegate). We collect the voice
of customers by distributing a survey, and also take our own experience with Concur and online
resources into account. One of the biggest concerns for all Concur users is their ability to use the
system effectively. Due to the fairly recent implementation of the new process, frequency and
proficiency of the system is on a steep learning curve. A common voice across methodologies was
training, retraining and access to information. As seen in Table 1 all information acquired after
training was from the Business office while online resources are available. It was noticed through
observation, that the information is not only difficult to find, but the information is also not clearly
interpreted. While overall user experience was good (67%), according to the survey, access to
useful training documents was a “must” in order to use the application efficiently.

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Table 1: Initial training and Information access survey results
When asked how long it took them to file an expense report within the Concur system a
88% majority of respondents takes four hours or less. However, end-users still state the process
does take longer than the older paper process (Table 2)
# Answer %
1 Much shorter 11%
2 Shorter 11%
3 About the same 22%
4 Longer 44%
5 Much longer 0%
6
Don’t know, I haven’t use the CONCUR
or the paper process before
11%
Total 100%
Table 2: Concur Expense Reports compared to paper process
We also performed a simple Kano analysis on the specific details of the end-user experience
and satisfaction of an improved process. Figure 4 suggests an increase in end-user satisfaction if
information availability and clarity and user interface were improved.

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Figure 4: Kano Analysis on Voice of Customer
The VOC was further translated into a Critical Customer Requirements (CCR) in a CCR
matrix (Figure 5). First and foremost, clear and concise training documents are a key requirement
to end-users satisfaction. In addition, improved training would also minimize other attributed
activities (discussed later) when creating expense reports through Concur. With increased training
level, end-users would also be more familiar with Concur’s user interface and environment and
hence reducing time needed to create an expense report. Although it is possible to communicate
with Concur to improving the interface and automating some features, the changes are limited to
the system architecture. Another concern that was raised is that end-users were bombarded with
exceptions and daily email reminders that frustrate them.

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Figure 5: Critical Customer Requirements (CCR)

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Analysis
The first thing we did to analyze the data, is to perform a Pareto analysis on the Exceptions
that occur in the Expense Report. Exceptions are warning or error codes that Central Travel Office
created to address some of potential issues while filing an Expense report. Although only level-99
Exceptions (Unused advanced cash, Invalid approver, Future date report) forbid users to submit
their Expense Report, most Exceptions carry through the submission of the Expense Report.
Figure 6: Pareto Chart of Exceptions for 2013
From the Pareto Chart, we can clearly see that two of the Exceptions: greater than 60 days
old Exception and Duplicate Entry Exception make up more than 80% of the total exception fired.
Greater than 60 days old exceptions indicates that the Expense Report is submitted more than 60
days of the actual travel and might cause some tax implications of the traveler him/herself. The
second Exception is to warn users of potential duplicate entries. While both of these Exceptions
were not critical errors and still allow users to submit their Expense Report, we think it necessary
to minimize the occurrence of these two Exceptions as it might cause confusion among end-users.
Furthermore, we also look at the relationship between the amounts approved (travelling
expenses) with the amount of days it takes to get approval. Initially, we predict that these two
variables would have a positive correlation: as the amount approved increases, the time takes to
approval them also increases, and the scatter plot (Figure 7) suggest that a positive correlation may
Frequency 128 56 1 11516322871124 858 807 634 210 199
Percent 0.6 0.3 0.0 0.070.610.7 5.2 4.0 3.8 3.0 1.0 0.9
Cum % 99.7100.0100.0100.070.681.3 86.5 90.5 94.3 97.2 98.2 99.1
Exceptions
Allocation
Required
Account Assignm
ent
Fare
Class
Hospitality
AND
Allow
ance
M
ileage
Rental Car Class
Car Rental Preferred
Vendor
EXP
>
TR
Contra
Expense
Trip
Request M
issing
Duplicate
Entry
>
60
days
old
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
100
80
60
40
20
0
Frequency
Percent
Pareto Chart of Exceptions for 2013

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exist. That would be reasonable as the amount of expense increases, Business Office and Central
Travel Office would take extra time to evaluate the spending related to that trip.
Figure 7: Scatter plot of Approved Amount vs. Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27,
2013
According to the individual value plot (Figure 8), the average approval days among ECET, MET and
TLI department were rather consistent, all around 5-6 days, while TLI department has a greatest
standard deviation of approval days of 5.9 days, followed by MET’s 4.7 days and ECET’s 4.5 days. In
our data, we also observed that faculty in TLI department travelled 94 times in the given time
period, almost twice as much as MET and ECET department. Some of the trips, possible for couple
months or multiple destinations, could explain some of the outliers in the individual value plot for
TLI department.
Figure 8 and 9: Individual Value Plot of Approval (Days) and Histogram of Approval (Days) Between
Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
403020100
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
403020100
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
ECET
Approval (Days)
ApprovedAmount MET
TLI
Panel variable: Department
Scatterplot of Approved Amount vs Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
Relationship between Approved Amount and Approval(days) from CoT Department
TLIMETECET
40
30
20
10
0
Department
Approval(Days)
5.925536
5.34694
Individual Value Plot of Approval (Days)
363024181260-6
20
15
10
5
0
363024181260-6
20
15
10
5
0
ECET
Approval (Days)
Frequency
MET
TLI
Mean 5.347
StDev 4.489
N 49
ECET
Mean 6
StDev 4.703
N 53
MET
Mean 5.926
StDev 5.888
N 94
TLI
Histogram of Approval (Days)
Normal
Panel variable: Department

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From the control chart of approval (days) (Figure 10), we are fairly confident that approval
process is in control and most of the numbers of days for approval fall within the 6σ range.
However, the process capability analysis further reveals that the process failed to meet the initial
target duration they initially set in the lean meetings. During the multiple lean meetings the Central
Travel Office before adopting Concur, they expect the lead time for the reimbursement process to
improve to 1 to 7 days (our LCL and UCL). In reality, with a Cp value of merely 0.20 indicates that
the 6σ spread is greater than tolerance spread. Although the process might be exhibiting natural
variations, we conclude that the process is incapable of meeting the initial expectation set by the
internal customers. Furthermore, Cpk value of 0.06 also supports that the process is not meeting
expectation, even though the process average fall within the specification limits. Since Cp ≠ Cpk, the
process is not centered, as showed in Figure 11.
Figure 10: Control Chart of Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
918273645546372819101
40
30
20
10
0
-10
Observation
Approval(Days)
_
X=5.93
UCL=20.45
LCL=-8.60
1
1
1
Control Chart of Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
TLI Department

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Figure 11: Process Capability of Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
Improvements
Since Concur Travel and Expense application is a fairly recent implementation to replace
the previous paperwork system, we would certainly expect some form resistance for users who are
used to the paperwork process. However, regardless of their preferences, we think that Central
Travel Office and Business Office should educate the end-users and develop their knowledge about
the system. Despite rolling out Concur systematically with piloting groups and awareness
presentations, end-users, especially travelers receive minimal training. Most travelers only went for
basic 2-hour training, while designators or administrative staff attends in-depth 6-hour training.
While it’s impossible to make professors and deans to sit through 2-hour training, we would highly
recommend that Central travel Office would make a training video accessible to Concur end-users.
This would allow travelers to learn about Concur at their own time or when they feel there’s a need,
rather the having them sign up for a training session.
Furthermore, from our survey, we also observed that almost all users would consult their
local Business Office for advice or direction when facing issues or trouble with Concur. No
respondents in our survey used the online resources, even though the Central travel Office believes
30.022.515.07.50.0-7.5
LSL USL
LSL 0.04
Target *
USL 7
Sample Mean 5.92553
Sample N 94
StDev (Within) 5.90413
StDev (O v erall) 5.88828
Process Data
C p 0.20
C PL 0.33
C PU 0.06
C pk 0.06
Pp 0.20
PPL 0.33
PPU 0.06
Ppk 0.06
C pm *
O v erall C apability
Potential (Within) C apability
PPM < LSL 127659.57
PPM > USL 287234.04
PPM Total 414893.62
O bserv ed Performance
PPM < LSL 159418.56
PPM > USL 427796.89
PPM Total 587215.44
Exp. Within Performance
PPM < LSL 158768.11
PPM > USL 427604.68
PPM Total 586372.79
Exp. O v erall Performance
Within
O v erall
Process Capability of Approval (Days) Between Jan 27, 2013 and Nov 27, 2013
TLI Department

16. IT 446 CONCUR User Integration Improvement
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that their training web site would have most, if not all the information to complete the Expense
Report. Users could be unaware of the resource/training website (Figure 12), or the website was
too clustered and difficult to navigate, and users just refuse to use it. In addition, concise step-by-
step instructions and cheat sheet specifically for each department could also be seen as a quick-
and-dirty way to elevate users’ experience with Concur. As users are more educated about the
operation of Concur, from exceptions to the troublesome account assignment, and the integration of
ALTOUR and Purdue Visa travel card, and uploading your receipt using your mobile device, we
would expect an improvement overtime in the approval time as users fully utilizing the features of
Concur and reduce the occurrences of exception, and hence having users to complete their Expense
Reports in one go.
Figure 12. Home page of Travel and Expense Online Resource
As we mentioned earlier in the report, the changes that can be made to Purdue’s Concur
system is limited to the Concur’s system architecture. However, Central Travel Office should
identify unnecessary exceptions codes, or at least clearly displays the severity of exception codes to
the end-users. While we understand that exception codes are useful in indicating issues or errors to
end-users, excessive exception codes would cause confusions among users. Also, the integration
between Concur and SAP could also be improved, especially for the account assignments as the
number of account assignments would throw some inexperienced users back. Another suggestions
that we can provide, is to ask Central travel Office to think on the line of travel booking sites, such
as Expedia and Priceline. Most of the features in those websites were very intuitive as consumers
don’t require any prior knowledge of their system in order to book a trip. While we didn’t went
through each steps in the whole process (from trip request to reimbursement), and we certainly
understand there are some compliances and regulations to meet, this suggestion could only use as a
guideline in improving the Concur system.

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Conclusion
For those experienced users, the new travel process is considered an overall improvement
over the past paper process. However, even the experienced few find that filing their end-of-travel
expenses tedious and all too meticulous. Furthermore, end-users should be aware of possible
exceptions from the forthcoming audit, and how to identify them, fewer may be made. A better
understanding the Concur system will increase effective use, save valuable time and perhaps even
some monetary resources. Further or increased training and accesses to clear, step-by-step
instructions for end-users would hasten and improve Concur experience and improving SAP
integration with Concur decrease the laborious nature of the system. Effective communication with
third-party development is also crucial to improve Concur’s interface and would eventually result a
more pleasant and intuitive user interaction.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank:
Dr. Ragu Athinarayanan for the project opportunity
Debbie Tutak for providing project ideas
Steven Cain for insightful experience
B.Gayle Stetler for allowing her time and expertise
Emily Haygood for being a life-saver
Dr. Chad Laux for the guidance and the challenge
References
Business@Purdue: Travel Expense (2013). Purdue University. Retrieved from
https://spa.itap.purdue.edu/Business/businessatpurdue/Pages/travelexpense.aspx
Meet Minitab 16 (2010). Minitab.
Summers, D. C. (2011). Lean Six Sigma: Process Improvement Tools and Techniques. Prentice Hall.
Travel (2013). Purdue University. Retrieved from http://www.purdue.edu/business/travel