Case Studies

Moveable Feast is a non-profit organization that provides medically tailored meals and nutrition education to Maryland residents experiencing food insecurity and chronic illness. The organization delivers over 400,000 meals annually across Baltimore City and 14 counties in the state. Moveable Feast operates out of a centralized location in Baltimore City, with heavy reliance on a volunteer base of over 1000 individuals to source and deliver meals, as well as to provide medical nutrition therapy.

Demand for Moveable Feast services had increased substantially as research has shown that medically tailored meals improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. Based on demand locally and growth experienced in other states,  the organization’s board of directors and senior leadership team needed to determine if the existing production facility could support expected client growth. Though moving to a larger facility would provide the organization with additional capacity, both the extraordinary expense and disruption in meal delivery services represented substantial risks to long-term viability.

Through a partnership with Business Design Synthesis, Moveable Feast was able to build a roadmap to optimize their existing production facility. A comprehensive assessment led to strategies for enhanced throughput, the resolution of inventory storage constraints, and a staffing model that could support continued client growth. Business Design Services’ deployment of expert process visualization tools and analytics, inventory management modeling, and capacity stress-testing enabled Moveable Feast to avoid a costly immediate relocation, increased maintenance costs, and service disruptions, while carving a clear pathway to long-term expansio

The Kennedy Krieger Institute has a stand-alone research administration office that provides enterprise-wide operational support services including: 1) Sponsored and non-sponsored proposal review, compliance assurance, and submission; 2) Contract and agreement review, redlining and negotiation; 3) Sub-award processing;  4) Post-award workflow support; and 5) Human subjects research pre-review of protocols prior to IRB submission, regulatory compliance and quality assurance, and training.

Transaction volume and gross revenue had grown substantially across the department. Both the volume and complexity of incoming proposals, contracts, agreements, and sub-awards requiring review and support from the research administration department had also increased. The staffing levels in the department were not commensurate with the uptick in volume and complexity, nor had an objective assessment been conducted to identify an operating structure that could effectively foster both strategic decision making and operational excellence.

Business Design Services performed a custom operations assessment encompassing process visualization and analytics, capacity analysis, evaluation of operational and strategic leadership needs, organizational structure assessments and recommendations, and technology recommendations. This assessment led to vigorous enhancements to the Kennedy Krieger operating structure, fostering immeasurable improvements to services delivery and the utilization of scarce human capital.