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Scott McQueen

Vendor escort operating model · Amazon · Workflow redesign

Making an unmeasured workflow measurable, then redesigning it.

Amazon Corporate Security · Pacific Northwest

1. Outcome

Security escorts for vendors in Amazon's Pacific Northwest buildings went from phone calls nobody could measure to a structured workflow, saving US$3.6M a year in guard costs.

2. The problem

The Pacific Northwest holds Amazon's largest concentration of corporate buildings and heavy demand for vendor escorts. Partner teams requested guards separately. A phone call to the escort office logged that an escort had started, and nothing else: no finish time, duration, destination or secure areas. Extra guards were brought in on four- or eight-hour minimum shifts for escorts that might take twenty minutes.

3. My responsibility

I mapped the workflow, designed the new process and data fields, introduced the automation and the live demand view, and worked with Facilities and the partner teams until they ran their requests through it.

4. Before and after

Before

  1. Teams phone for guards separately
  2. Only the start of an escort is logged
  3. Extra guards on 4 or 8 hour minimums

After

  1. Requests through one Slack workflow, bot and form
  2. Start, end, location and secure areas recorded
  3. Demand combined, guards reused, staffing resized

5. What was built

  • A structured Slack process with bot and form automation and standard fields: requester, vendor, location, secure-area needs, planned and actual start and finish.
  • A live view of combined demand and real escort durations.
  • With that data, Security could coordinate requests, spread demand through the day, combine compatible escorts, reuse guards after short jobs and adjust fixed and ad-hoc staffing.
  • Facilities and partner teams were shown how harmless-looking scheduling choices created cost. They backed the new process and planned demand with us.

6. Controls and governance

  • Every escort documented from request to finish: a real audit trail.
  • Secure-area access recorded against each request.
  • Staffing set from measured demand, not guesses.

7. Evidence

US$3.6M

a year in Pacific Northwest guard-force savings

Source: Amazon Corporate Security, 2018 to 2026

8. Technical implementation

Slack, Bot and form automation, Live demand view

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