Course syllabus

MECHENG 761 Pathways to Organisational Best Practice

INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

“Best Practice” is a practical approach to improving the competitiveness of an organisation. It provides the manager with a set of tools and techniques to identify where improvements are necessary and how to take action to achieve them. Best practice is closely related to quality management and to the business excellence frameworks that have been developed in various countries; but it has significant differences from them. Quality management focuses on meeting customer needs and on creating products and services that satisfy and delight the customer, including product strategy and design. The business excellence frameworks focus on business results and include strategic concerns. Best practice aims to improve what is already being done, but has a broader scope in that it covers activities and processes that affect all stakeholders, including employees and suppliers. Best practice requires:

• the commitment and support of senior executives

• a knowledge of performance standards of competitors

• an unfailing focus on customers (both external and internal)

• the application of effective strategy, policy and planning

• the synergy of an organisation's people

• the effective collection and analysis of data

• a commitment to continuous improvement across the organisation.

In this course we will draw extensively on the ideas and techniques of quality management, business excellence and quality assurance; but it must be remembered that best practice is different from these approaches. Appendix 1 to this introduction provides information on some of the models and systems upon which best practice draws. Throughout the Study Guide, there are quotations from these models and we explain how they can be used to help implement best practice.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of this course you should be able to:

• explain the concept of best practice and how it relates to organisational competitiveness

• evaluate organisational performance against best practice benchmarks and use these benchmarks to establish organisational improvements

• measure stakeholder satisfaction and apply best practice techniques to improve stakeholder satisfaction

• describe, measure, analyse and improve the key processes in an organisation, using both qualitative and statistical tools

• explain how organisational culture, team structures and the effective management of human resources contribute to the achievement of organisational best practice

• describe how organisational learning and the management of knowledge support best practice

• explain how the lean enterprise concept relates to best practice and evaluate particular organisational processes according to lean principles

• implement and evaluate systems that lead to best practice

• apply best practice frameworks and concepts to promote the competitive position of your own organisation.

COURSE OVERVIEW

Topic 1 of this course defines best practice as increasing the value created by an organisation. We discuss the forms that value can take and introduce the stakeholder model of organisations. Best practice involves comparing current performance with the best available, a process which is often done through benchmarking.

Topic 2 examines the stakeholders of organisations, who are either internal or external customers or suppliers. We look at ways of satisfying our customers and measuring their level of satisfaction. We then discuss how relationships with suppliers can be improved to increase the value created.

In Topic 3 we introduce the process view of organisations and contrast it with the hierarchical or departmental view. The fundamental aim of best practice is to improve processes, so in this topic we define a process and explain how it can be described and evaluated. We also identify the tools available for best practice—most of them borrowed from the quality movement, such as Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams and brainstorming.

Topic 4 is on measuring processes. It is not possible to compare a process with best practice unless its performance is known, so there is a need to measure the performance of a process to see what improvement is required, and measure its behaviour to see where improvements can be made.

Topic 5 deals with the use of the measures obtained and how the acquired information can be used to make decisions. We discuss the way that data can be displayed and analysed to discover what it means. We also introduce the basics of statistics, including the normal distribution.

Topic 6 looks at capable processes and analyse one of the main causes of poor performance —variation in process performance. We focus on control charts, their creation, meaning and use. We also discuss Six Sigma, a development of control chart theory.

Topic 7 is on the human side of best practice — what the implementation of best practice techniques involves for leaders and for their employees. We look at the kind of training that needs to be provided, the organisational structures that support the implementation of best practice, the cultural issues that need to be tackled and the development of teams.

Topic 8 is on the learning organisation and knowledge management, and how these are an essential part of any best practice program. We examine how to create a workplace learning environment, and how employees can be supported to develop effective learning and knowledge management strategies.

Topic 9 discusses a particular form of best practice implementation — the lean enterprise. As the creation of value is the main aim of best practice, any waste in the organisation will reduce the value and hamper best practice. Lean organisations are those organisations that have minimised the non-value creating aspects of the business, in such areas as staffing, materials, working capital, and even operational functions. We also look at outsourcing and how it can contribute to the achievement of best practice.

Topic 10 provides you with an overview of best practice implementation, and we look at some of the practical issues involved in implementing best practice, such as assessment of the current status, auditing, and using case studies to inform the implementation of best practice initiatives in your organisation.

ASSESSMENT

There will be 5 assignments though out the semester worth 4% each and an open book online Final Test worth 80%. The assignments and final test questions will be from the activities in the study guide and will be of the nature of applying theoretical frameworks learned in the course to a company you are familiar with (e.g. your employer)