Twenty-One Days Back: Five Recommendations, a Pilot, and a Control Plan for Faster Collections
Student Name
Master of Business Administration Program, Aspen University
BUS 799: Graduate Capstone
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Twenty-One Days Back: Five Recommendations, a Pilot, and a Control Plan for Faster Collections
The current-state analysis showed that Keystone Electric, a composite electrical subcontractor, loses about 19 of its 71 receivable days to its own billing practices, with several more recoverable through faster closeout and complete submissions. This section presents five recommendations, estimates the days each should recover, reports early results from a two-project pilot, sets out the implementation schedule, and describes how the gains will be sustained.
Recommendations
Table 1 lists the recommendations with the stage each addresses, the expected reduction in days, and the person responsible.
| Recommendation | Stage addressed | Expected days recovered | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Billing cutoff: quantities due two business days after period end, application submitted by day five, with billing staff pre-filling from the schedule of values | Billing lag, 12 days | 8 | Controller |
| 2. Customer-specific document checklist, with lien waivers requested at the start of each period rather than at submission | Rejections, 3.5 days; review, 18 days | 4.5 | Billing lead |
| 3. No change work without a signed change order or written directive, and a weekly review of the open change log | Unsigned change orders, 3.5 days | 2.5 | Operations manager |
| 4. Closeout package started when a project reaches 75 percent complete | Retainage, 12 days | 4 | Project managers |
| 5. Collections calls when payment is five days past due, and enrollment of customers in electronic payment | Payment after approval, 22 days | 2 | Accounts receivable clerk |
| Total | 21 |
Why These Estimates
The estimates are grounded in the findings. A day-five submission would reduce average billing lag from 12 days to about 4, recovering 8. Complete applications, the largest customer's accounts payable specialist explained, are approved in the first review batch rather than waiting about two weeks for the next, so reducing rejections should shorten review time as well as removing rejection delays, for about 4.5 days combined. The change order rule addresses the third most common cause of late invoices. Starting closeout early should release retainage sooner, though the estimate of 4 days is conservative because general contractors control final release. Collections follow-up offers the smallest gain, since payment after approval depends largely on general contractors' own receipts. Two-thirds of the target comes from the first two recommendations, which are entirely within Keystone's control.
Pilot Results
Recommendations 1 and 2 were piloted on two projects for two billing cycles. On those projects, the billing lag fell from an average of 11 days in the prior six months to 4 days, and all four applications submitted were approved without rejection, compared with roughly one in four rejected historically for these projects. Project managers reported that confirming pre-filled quantities took about 30 minutes, compared with two to three hours of assembling applications before. The pilot is small and short, so it shows feasibility rather than proving the full effect, but it met its prediction and produced the early win the change plan needed.
Implementation Schedule
Months one and two: complete the pilot, finalize the checklist for each of the five largest customers, and train project managers and billing staff. Months three and four: apply the billing cutoff and checklist to all active projects, beginning with the largest general contractor, which accounts for 38 percent of revenue and the most rejections. Month four: introduce the change order rule, with a short training session for field foremen. Months five through twelve: begin closeout packages on each project as it reaches 75 percent completion, and phase in the collections routine and electronic payment enrollment. The owners will review progress monthly.
Control Plan
Linderman et al. (2003) emphasized that Six Sigma's results depend on specific goals pursued through structured methods; the control phase keeps those goals visible after the project ends. Keystone will adopt a one-page monthly dashboard showing days sales outstanding and each of its six components, the share of applications submitted by day five, the rejection rate, the value of unsigned change orders, and retainage older than 90 days. Each measure will have an owner and a target. If days sales outstanding rises above 55 for two consecutive months, the controller will convene the change group to find the cause. To anchor the changes in routine, as Kotter (1995) urged, the billing cutoff will be written into project manager job expectations and discussed in performance reviews.
What the Plan Does Not Address
The recommendations deliberately leave aside the largest single component, the 22 days between approval and payment, beyond a modest collections routine. That time depends on general contractors' payment terms and on whether owners have paid them, and construction payment research identifies the financial strength of other parties as central to payment problems (Ramachandra & Rotimi, 2015). Keystone can influence it only over the longer term, through choices the owners make before signing work: checking a general contractor's payment history and financial condition during bidding, negotiating payment terms and retainage rates, and in some cases declining work from customers who pay slowly. The capstone recommends that the owners add a short payment-history review to the bid decision, but treats contract strategy as outside the project's scope, as set in the proposal. Naming this gap matters because the owners should not expect the plan to fix a problem it was not designed to fix.
Risks
The main risks are project managers reverting to late billing during busy periods, general contractors resisting the change order rule on fast-moving jobs, and the largest customer changing its documentation requirements. The dashboard will reveal the first risk quickly. For the second, the rule allows a written directive by email when a signed change order is impractical. For the third, the billing lead will review each customer's requirements quarterly.
Conclusion
Five recommendations, each tied to a measured stage and a named owner, together target the 21 days Keystone needs to reach 50. The first two, a billing cutoff and a document checklist, account for most of the expected gain and have already worked on two pilot projects. A monthly dashboard with clear triggers will keep the gains in place. The next section estimates the financial return of the plan.
References
Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.
Linderman, K., Schroeder, R. G., Zaheer, S., & Choo, A. S. (2003). Six Sigma: A goal-theoretic perspective. Journal of Operations Management, 21(2), 193-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-6963(02)00087-6
Ramachandra, T., & Rotimi, J. O. B. (2015). Causes of payment problems in the New Zealand construction industry. Construction Economics and Building, 15(1), 43-55. https://doi.org/10.5130/ajceb.v15i1.4214
How this BUS 799 Module 6 example is structured
Aspen's catalog describes BUS 799 as an individualized, work-related capstone that benefits the organization. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example ties each recommendation to a finding, justifies estimates, reports a pilot, schedules implementation and defines controls and risks.
BUS 799 Module 6 questions, answered
What does BUS 799 Module 6 usually ask for?
Work in this part of a graduate business capstone typically asks for recommendations and an implementation plan based on your findings. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
How do I make capstone recommendations credible?
Tie each recommendation to a specific finding, estimate its effect with reasoning, name an owner and a start date, and test the most important ones on a small scale if possible.
What is a control plan?
The final phase of a DMAIC project, which defines the measures, owners, targets and triggers that keep an improvement in place after the project team moves on.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
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