January 19, 2005
Vallejo Times Herald: Chamber Honors Local Business: Event Recognizes Outstanding Efforts

Jovance has focused its lean management and Kaizen implementation on the salon division of its business. When Jovance opened its doors in March 2003, many of its hair stylists had dedicated clientele that wanted to join them at Jovance. As a result, these clients wanted to keep their regularly scheduled appointments. The company had to create a solution to accommodate its stylist’s long-standing clients and accommodate scheduling requests for its new clients. All of this had to be accomplished while allowing the stylists to work no more than 40 hours a week and allow for their new clients to book an appointment expeditiously and receive their service in a timely manner.

Stellar Enterprise and key team members within Jovance analyzed every step it took to perform various functions to determine which activities are most critical to ensuring the customer receives what they value. This thorough analysis led to the creation of several value streams that focus solely on one function. This set up allows for team members to focus on their specialty and reduces the time clients spend receiving their service. There are value streams for shampooing, coloring, cutting, hair extensions and press and curls to name a few. Within each of these value streams a standard was developed on how each task should be performed. The stylists one-by-one have begun mastering these standards and have now greatly improved the speed and quality of service to its clients.

With the creation of several value streams and developing standard operating processes, clients are able to receive their services quickly. Additionally, as the stylists spend less time on a client they have more time for a new client, which allows more availability in their schedule. By placing stylists in value streams where their strengths are, they are able to improve the quality of service to clients.

The creation of standard processes ensures that each stylist is doing the same thing within their value stream. If a client preferred receiving a service from only a certain stylist, they are now more comfortable with going to anyone within Jovance because all stylists are using the same process when providing a service.