The Advanced ROI Module

The Advanced ROI Module gives you more control over measuring the impact of your improvement work.

What is included?

• ROI projections
• Credit Splitting by user
• Multiple currencies
• Track additional Impact Types
• Additional metrics for quantitative Impact Types
• Impact Splitting by Location
• Track Investments
• Custom Impact Columns

ROI Projections

You can give visibility into the potential versus actual ROI so that your organization can ultimately get better at forecasting results with the Advanced ROI Module.

You can set impact and investment targets for improvement, record changing forecasts throughout implementation, and compare predictions with actual results.

How does it work?

Your Customer Success Manager can turn on the Target ROI and Forecast ROI options for any Template as long as that template has the Resolution section enabled.
With these additional options, your team can create up to three different Resolutions:

• Actual Resolution - This data shows the actual impact of the Item.
• Forecast Resolution - This data shows the outcome that your team is on track to reach with their work on this Item.
• Target Resolution - This data shows the outcome that your team hopes to reach with their work on this Item.

All the information that could be added to the Actual Resolution can be added to either the Forecast and/or Target Resolution so that all three Resolutions are completely comprehensive.

The information added to any of these Resolutions will be displayed in the item’s Resolution section.

Lock Forecast and Target Resolutions

Both Forecast and Target Resolutions can be configured such that they lock after an Item transitions into a specified status. This can help ensure that after an Item reaches a certain status, the impact values recorded within the Forecast and Target Resolutions are uneditable.

Use this to help your KaiNexus users capture the most accurate and reliable data when measuring these Resolutions at certain periods within an Item’s lifecycle.

Filtering by Resolution

When filtering a list of Items by impact, investment, or currency, a Type field will be added beneath the filter rule. Use this field to specify whether you want the filter to return Items with the specified value in the Actual, Forecast, and/or Target Resolution.

When filtering by impact or investment, enter values in the Min and Max fields to return Items with impact values within a specific number range.

Finally, enter a date value in the Realized Starting and Realized Ending fields to return a list of Items with impacts or investments with a realized date within that range. For additional information on the Realized Date feature, check out this support page.

Add Impact and Investment columns to lists of items

When working with a list of items or a Card in the List or Tree Views, you can add the following Impact and Investment columns:

• Financial Impact - Actual: This column includes the total financial impact included in each item’s Actual Resolution.
• Financial Impact - Forecast: This column includes the total financial impact included in each item’s Forecast Resolution.
• Financial Impact - Target: This column includes the total financial impact included in each item’s Target Resolution.
• Financial Investment - Actual: This column includes the total financial investment included in each item’s Actual Resolution.
• Financial Investment - Forecast: This column includes the total financial investment included in each item’s Forecast Resolution.
• Financial Investment - Target: This column includes the total financial investment included in each item’s Target Resolution.

Impact Credit Splitting & Allocation

With Impact Credit Splitting & Allocation, the Advanced ROI Add-On makes it easier to recognize the impact of individual users on improvement work and track whether people are meeting their individual contribution impact targets by assigning quantitative impact with more granularity.

Impact Credit Splitting can be turned on - as either an optional or required element - for any template that has a Resolution enabled.

When you resolve an item that has Credit Splitting enabled, you’ll be able to split the credit for the recorded impact between various users.

So if one person should get 75% of the credit and someone else deserves 25% of the credit, that breakdown can be permanently stored in KaiNexus and taken into account on key Reports.

Credit Splitting Impact and Reports

Credit Splitting comes into play in two reporting areas - the Impact tab in a user's Activity (accessible from the user's profile) and the Impact by Person Report. 

On these Reports, when Only Credit is checked, only the financial impact with which the user was specifically credited will be shown. That means:

• If a person worked on a financially impactful Item with split credit but was not assigned any credit, the impact of that Item will not appear on this version of the Report.
• If a person worked on a financially impactful Item and credit was not split at all, the impact of that Item will not appear on this version of the Report.

Multiple Currencies

If your organization is spread across multiple countries, you likely have employees using multiple currencies. If you want them to be able to report financial impacts using their own currencies, you can add those currencies to KaiNexus.

What information is needed to add a new currency to KaiNexus?

You'll need to supply your Customer Success Manager with:

• The name of the currency (e.g. U.S. Dollar).
• The currency’s code (e.g. USD) that will appear whenever people are asked to choose which currency they want to use.
• The currency’s symbol (e.g. $) and whether it should precede or follow numerical values (e.g. $100 or 50.00 SFr). This code will appear wherever there’s financial data.
• The Locations that will use this currency as their default.

Where will these new currencies appear in KaiNexus?

Anywhere involving financial data! If your organization has multiple currencies, a currency picker will be added to:

• Quantitative (financial) Impact Types
  
  People will be asked in which currency their impact should be recorded. Their Location’s default currency will be selected for them, but they’re free to change that currency if necessary.
  
  
• Filters
  
  A “Currency” filter will be added when filtering a list of items. Only items with a financial impact reported in the selected currencies will be returned.
  
  
• Impact Summaries
  
  Only financial data reported in that currency will be displayed under the “Savings” and “Revenue” headings on the Summary. Additionally, only soft savings reported in that currency will be displayed when you hover over the hours displayed under the “Time Saved” heading.
  
  The horizontal bars will still show the total number of Improvements resulting in each Impact Type, regardless of currency.
  
  
• The Reports Snapshot
  
  The “Financial Impact” section will only display the financial impact of Improvements reported in the chosen currency. Additionally, the soft savings under the “Time Saved” section will only include those Improvements as well. All other fields will include the impact of all Improvements, regardless of the chosen currency.

Additional Impact Types

Lead Time, Cycle Time, and Takt Time

You can add three additional Time Savings Impact Types with this Module:

• Lead Times, tracking time savings related to the total time between receiving an order and delivery. For more information on managing your organization's Lead Times, check out this support article.
• Cycle Time, tracking time savings related to the average time spent between starting work on one unit and starting on the next. For more information on managing your organization's Cycle Times, check out this support article.
• Takt Time, tracking time savings related to the time spent to finish one unit. For more information on managing your organization's Takt Times, check out this support article.

Products, Resources, Waste, and Environmental Impact

You can add four additional Impact Types with this Module:

• Products, reported as part of your organization's financial impact. For more information on managing your organization's Products, check out this support article.
• Resources, reported as part of your organization's financial impact. For more information on managing your organization's Resources, check out this support article.
• Waste, reported as part of your organization's soft savings. For more information on managing your organization's Wastes, check out this support article.
• Environmental Impact, reported as part of your organization's soft savings. For more information on managing your organization's Environmental Impacts, check out this support article.

Advanced Metrics for Quantitative Impacts

When resolving an Item that resulted in a change, you can choose between the various Impact Types created by your organization.

Quantitative Impact Types can be configured to give the person resolving an Improvement more control when recording money saved and generated.

The standard software allows users to choose between one-time, recurring, and unknown metrics. This module provides two additional options: range and custom.

Range

The amount entered will be applied toward your organization’s metrics once a month over the entered date range. This is best for items which resulted in a constant amount that is expected to be saved or generated over a set time frame, rather than indefinitely.

Custom

The amount entered under each month will be applied once. This is best for items which resulted in inconstant financial savings or revenue generation. You’re not required to enter a value for every month in a year.

Impact Splitting and Allocation

With help from your Customer Success Manager, you can add Impact Splitting to any of your Impact Types - such as Cost Saving or Safety - so that you can be more specific as to which Locations were impacted in what way by a certain Improvement.

Configure Impact Splitting

Each Impact Type can be customized independently of the others, and those changes will be reflected on each item using that Impact Type.

An Impact Type can be customized to:

• Hide Impact Splitting completely.
• Make Impact Splitting required whenever that Impact Type is recorded.
• Make Impact Splitting optional whenever that Impact Type is recorded.

Split the impact when resolving an Improvement

When resolving an Improvement:

• Check the box next to the Impact Type you want to add and click Add Amount.

• In the resulting window, record the impact as you normally would.

• If this Impact Type has Impact Splitting enabled, an Impact Location field will be present. Enter the Location to which you want to allocate this impact.
  
  Depending on how your organization has configured this Impact Type, you may only be able to choose between the Item's Responsible Location and any Locations nested under it.

Filter by Impact Location

When filtering a list by Location, you’ll be able to choose between Responsible, Originating, and Impact. All items with at least one Impact Type allocated to that Location will be returned.

The effect of Impact Splitting on Reports

When Impact Splitting is being used in your organization, the Impact by Location Report will let you choose to view data by Originating, Responsible, or Impact Locations.

Selecting Impact will return only data associated with Items that had some impact allocated to each Location.

Track Investments

If you want to be able to track your organization's improvement work's Return on Investment, you may want to enable users to record the finance, time, or resources that were invested in the course of their work.

Each Investment Type can be customized independently of the others, and those changes will be reflected on each Item using that Investment Type.

Your Customer Success Manager will be able to configure a name and description, let you choose what metrics can be tracked (and how), enable and/or require Location Splitting, and add Attributes to each Investment Type.

Custom Impact Columns

Custom Impact Columns are configurable Item List columns that display specific types of Impact based on your criteria.

Adding a Custom Impact Column on an Item List helps you: 

• Isolate Forecast and Target Impacts
• Display specific Impact Types
• Display specific Impact Values, such as Time Savings People, Resources, Products, Wastes, and Environmental Impacts.
• Display Impacts that were realized in a custom date range

Example of an Item List Card with a Custom Impact Column. The column has a customizable title and displays a specific Impact Type logged as a Forecast. It also has a Total at the bottom of the column that summates Impact data for each Item in the List. 

Recommended Reading

We recommend checking out these support pages next:

• Target and Forecast Resolution
• Realized Dates
• Custom Impact Columns
• Working with Multiple Currencies
• Set Currency Exchange Rates