Toyota Connected Reduces Bench Time Below 1% With Kantata
Industry
Company
Headquarters
The Challenge
Having worked with inefficient spreadsheets for resource tracking and skills matching, Toyota Connected North America (TCNA) sought a unified “source of truth” to streamline organization-wide data and improve decision-making. TCNA turned to Kantata to help its leadership and engineering teams make better decisions, faster.
Toyota Connected North America, based in Plano, Texas, leads the development of Toyota’s cloud-based digital Connected Mobility Intelligence Platform. Toyota Connected leverages ethical AI to develop innovative mobility solutions, aiming to redefine standards in the automotive industry.
The Solution
Kantata brought a new level of clarity to TCNA’s workforce’s skills and availability, igniting the ability to match the right skills with the right projects at the right time. “Kantata enables us to have those conversations we didn’t have, or we couldn’t have, before,” said Dave Knapstein, Strategic Workforce Planning Manager at TCNA. “It’s the tell-all system that we reference to tell us how we’re performing in the organization across our projects as well as where our resources are on those projects.”
In addition, Kantata boosted workforce management through consistent timesheet use. “We’re getting the best out of our resources, not overworking them, and we’re maximizing our availability,” Knapstein said.
Benefits
- Enhanced data accuracy accelerates sound business decisions
- Increased transparency in skills and availability boosts efficiency
- Improved historical data capture refines project and business forecasting
- Precise data fosters agile business strategies
increase in timesheet adoption
reduction in resources on bench
“We’re able to fill a resource internally just based on the information we were able to gather from Kantata without having to go out externally and have those conversations with leadership about hiring and the impacts to budget.”
Strategic Workforce Planning Manager, Toyota Connected North America
The Results
Surging Timesheet Adoption
Confusion and inconsistencies in allocating time due to complexities with the old system resulted in low timesheet adoption, with only around 75% of people capturing their time. However, with Kantata, timesheet adoption surged. “Now we’re between 95% and 98% adoption.”
Near-Extinction of Bench Time
Initially, TCNA had a cloudy picture of bench time. Kantata brought transparency with accurate insights on resource availability and skills, revealing that about 15% of resources were typically on the bench. Kantata has radically improved that. “After utilizing Kantata and ensuring the data was accurate, we’re now down to less than 1% on the bench.”
Enhanced Forecasting
Adopting Kantata has empowered TCNA to precisely forecast project durations. “We can better forecast how long something will take us because of the data we are able to enter in the system,” said Knapstein. This forecasting accuracy led to better planning, resource allocation, and, ultimately, more efficient project execution. Knapstein concluded, “Kantata has become a source of truth for our organization and the hub of our systems. We’re constantly in the system, daily, having conversations about our organization, our staffing, and our projects.”
“Everybody from top down has been great, from the implementation team to our customer service rep. We’ve had special trainings for things like report building. Trainers have been great. We haven’t had a single bad experience.”
Strategic Workforce Planning Manager, Toyota Connected North America