In this issue, I will share my experience acquired from the conglomerate and its operating companies. For the purpose of this article, I will articulate the Managing by Fact which is one of the Eleven Values and Concepts in Malcolm Baldrige Criteria. As before, I will use case studies to show how some of the companies implement them.
To recap, below are the Eleven Core Values and Concepts of Baldrige Criteria:-
1. Visionary Leadership
2. Customer-Driven Excellence
3. Organizational and Personal Learning
4. Valuing Employees and Partners
5. Agility
6. Focus on the Future
7. Managing for Innovation
8. Management by Fact
9. Public Responsibility and Citizenship
10. Focus on Results and Creating Value
11. Systems Perspective
I will deal with the one of the Value in bold letters in this article as below:-
Articulated Managing by Fact
Organizations rely on measurement and analysis data to view their performance for decision making. Appropriate measure and analysis should derived from business strategies. It should provide an insight about data and information about business processes, operation processes, customer and market data, competitor or other form of comparative data, Financial performance, benchmark data etc.
For the purpose of improvement or trouble shooting, data should be broken down into various level meaningful for decision making. Such data should include market segmentation, market share by region, loss of accounts, new market entry, product profiles, Cost of production, reject rate, time to market etc. Appropriate tools for analysis should be used to provide different set of scenarios for comparison.
Performance indicator for comparison should be taken from best practices, better competitors, Customer preference, Voice of customer etc. And these should be evaluated and used for target setting for improvement initiatives.
Case Study on Management by Fact
The companies I worked with have comprehensive sets performance indicators such as Investment and Financial indicators, key market indicators. To some, key operation indicators are included. Many still lack appropriate indicators for overall business process, operation issues, Human Resource, and other support processes.
Since indicators or data are not available for many areas, decision making are based on past experience and judgment. Due to lack of accuracy, some decisions are not favorable hence resulted in changes to the decisions. If data are available, time spend to collect them became a burden due to lack of infrastructure to support it etc. lack of the use in computerized data capturing system. In many cases, manual data collection into log sheet is widely practices in many companies. As data collation is done manually, its accuracy is way done the drain.
Opportunity for Improvement
There is saying: “You cannot measure, you cannot manage”. I fully subscribed to this statement. Organization should serious look into selecting a comprehensive set of indicators and data that is needed to use for decision making or day to day operation. Data collection should be made easy and accurate that calls for a different way of data collection. As much as possible, it should be human dependant to reduce error.
Once data is made available, data analysis should be performed to ensure data accuracy, relevance. Analysis of these data should be performed to provide difference scenarios. Where possible, data should be tested for its accuracy and value-add. Analyzed data should be reviewed at various level of the management hierarchy. Use if Information Technology for data sharing and updating should be explored. Meanwhile, employee should be trained in data base software such as Ms. Excel to ease the compilation and analysis of data
In summary, having understood the Management by Fact in Values and Concepts of Malcolm Baldrige, it should be taken as a strategic issue rather than operational. Leaders might benchmark their CEO of Baldrige Winners on their TQM successes in this value. My next article will articulate the next Core Values and Concepts in Public Responsibility and Citizenship
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Disclaimer
All rights reserved. This article is written by the author based on his practical application experience. All definitions and interpretation of terminology are his point of view and has it has no intention to conflict with experts in similar topic. The author holds no responsibility for the use of this article in any way. Full Baldrige Criteria are available athttp://www.nist.gov/quality
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Resource Box: About the Author, LM Foong
The author provides consulting services specializing in TQM Implementations in manufacturing and service sector. He provides facilitation workshops and hands-on application in Cost Reduction and Productivity Improvement projects. He publishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and presentation slides. Please click To View Free TQM articles or Please Visit my Web Site for other TQM related matters
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