Productivity improvement program of a University
Summary
A general overview of one of the improvement methodologies most used at the University of Holguín is provided, the Permanent Productivity Improvement Program (PPMP). This program is based on a process approach establishing output indicators expressed in terms of efficiency, efficacy, and effectiveness and that evaluate the achievement of objectives at different levels; Furthermore, process indicators are established in order to determine the causes that determine the behavior of the output indicators. These indicators are based on the assumption of the existence of three essential dimensions for achieving the objectives of any process: Having what to do, Knowing how to do and Wanting to do.Everything exposed in this work is based on an extensive bibliographic review and the experience of a group with more than 20 consulting jobs where the main tool has been the application of this program.
Keywords: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT METHODOLOGY, PRODUCTIVITY, QUALITY.
Abstract:
To offer a general panoramic of one of the methodology of improvement more used in the University of Holguín, The Permanent program of Improvement of the Productivity (PPMP). This program leaves of a focus for process establishing indicators of exits expressed in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and effectiveness and that they evaluate the achievement from the objectives to the different levels; indicators of the processes also settle down with the objective of determining the causes that determine the behavior of the exit indicators. These indicators part of the supposition of the existence three essential dimensions for the achievement of the objectives of any process to Have with which to make, to Know how to make and to Want to make.All that exposed in this work is sustained about a wide bibliographical revision and the experience of a community with more than 20 consultancy works where the main tool has been the application of this program.
Key words: CONTINUUM IMPROVEMENT METHODOLOGY. PRODUCTIVITY, QUALITY.
Introduction
The Cuban Economy and of course its business system demands actions that allow it to be in tune with the demands of the highly competitive and turbulent environment, in order to be able to insert itself in it in an advantageous way.
In all the stages, previous and present, actions have been taken to try to improve the activity of the organizations and achieve the results expected of them in order to fulfill their mission.
Starting in the second half of the 1980s, with the success of business improvement at MINFAR and the rise of collaborative consultancies, a new stage in business improvement opens in our country.
At the University of Holguín in 1989 a work was started aimed at improving business in the Company LX Anniversary of the October Revolution ”, based on the approach of collaborative comprehensive consulting.
These first steps demonstrated that it was necessary to undertake continuous improvement programs in organizations and that it was necessary to have an adequate “Know How” to be able to conduct them successfully.
Already in the 90's, the previous conclusions were reaffirmed and the development of the collaborative integral consultancy in the Hospital "Vladimir Ilich Lenin" confirms the need to improve the METHOD, the methodological approach to conduct these continuous improvement programs.
In this order of things, in the world more and more criteria are being imposed, philosophies of continuous improvement that are having impact and acceptance, among them the theory of restrictions (TOC) of Dr. Goldratt and his collaborators is one of the most featured.
In the 90s, an interesting opportunity opens up by being able to access the approach of the Permanent Productivity Improvement Program (PPMP) of Dr. Arturo Pacheco Espejel (1991), an approach of continuous improvement that tries to adapt to the reality of the small and medium Mexican company.
Between 92 and 94, a process of application of the PPMP began in Cuba and Mexico with new conceptions generated by the experiences of researchers from the National Polytechnic Institute IPN of Mexico and the University of Holguín in previous studies that were put into practice between the years 1992 - 1994, which was also improved from year to year.
The final results of the project opened a new stage of work, continuing the applications and deriving a series of more in-depth investigations about specific aspects from 1994 to date.
It is truly interesting to highlight the results achieved both in the specific applications of the PPMP in organizations in the provinces of Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, Tunas and even Matanzas, which were enriched with previous experiences, in which everything was partially or totally applied considered useful of these results.
The results of the reference stage are linked to the measurement of business performance (The Goal) and the research about the inhibiting factors to achieve this performance (the restrictions).
The works linked to determining job satisfaction (Wanting skills), (Knowledge) and a group of results linked to (Having), all of these enriched the diagnostic tools and make action planning viable.
Without favorable combinations of these conditions: KNOW (Do, be and act), WANT to Do and HAVE to do it, it is very difficult to achieve the goal of any organization: to satisfy its customers and obtain benefits matched as a result of it Now and in the Future.
The present work, of course, does not pretend to cover all the specificities of the aforementioned results, for this it would be necessary to dedicate a contribution to each of them.
For the reason stated above, its objective is to present in an integral way the theoretical and methodological conception of this Continuous Improvement Program and to synthesize some essential considerations derived from its applications in the organizations where it was applied.
Material and method
The PPMP starts from a theoretical model of conceiving the achievement of the mission of the organization, the interrelation or objectives (sub-missions) of each of the parts or organizational units and the indicators that must be satisfied in the process as measurement criteria and evaluation of its management. The program is oriented to the process / end approach and how problems are identified, having to interact with the human factor and impregnating the management staff with a philosophy of improvement (continuous improvement) in their actions.
The PPMP has been used by different specialists and applied in various organizations (production or service) with a conception of a process composed of six steps or stages: Definition of objectives, Involvement, Diagnosis, Solution strategy, Implementation and Control and adjustment.
It is important to highlight therefore, that the PPMP is not only used to improve, but also to diagnose the causes of any deviation of the subsystems or organizational system in general.
Development.
Basic considerations for the application of the permanent program of continuous improvement
There are various approaches and much reference material on what is considered and interpreted when studying an organization and measuring its performance.
The most current approaches try to simplify and seek the essence of this very complex object where it is necessary to provoke changes that lead to the achievement of the mission.
Without further pretense of controversy, the organization (O) can be considered and presented schematically in the following way.
If we identify the most significant outputs that determine the performance of an organization as those that contain the essence of its mission and the basic objectives emanating from them, then we can synthesize them into:
Satisfy the market now and in the future; satisfy your customers.
Make a profit, earn, or get money now and in the future.
The transforming process (T) must be able to achieve this.
The transforming process (T) will therefore contain the set of processes that are carried out within an organization to add value and that finally result in added value that allows customer satisfaction and therefore obtaining the benefits expected by the organization.
In the set of processes that are integrated into an organization and that become internal customers of each other, the key processes can be clearly identified, which are those that are directly related to the satisfaction of the organization's customer and that are grouped into the called Operational Units (OU) and those that in one way or another support these basic or strategic processes, which are grouped into functional and support units (UF, UA).
With this analysis then the organization will have a complex network of interrelationships between the different UO / UF / UA that make up the chain of internal customers that will allow the achievement of the objectives derived from its mission.
Each of these units (UO, UF, UA) in turn can be schematized and analyzed from the perspective that they have been described.
Another aspect of special significance in the PPMP and in the generality of the programs or processes of continuous improvement at present lies in the measurement of the goal, the performance of the organizations and therefore of their operational units (UO), functional (UF) and / or support (UA).
The narrow conceptions of defining productivity (Productivity - quality, competitiveness) that have traditionally been used are also giving way to new approaches that support these new conceptions.
The need to conceive the results with a comprehensive approach makes it necessary to expand the narrow concept of “ Doing more with less ” towards “ Doing it better with less ”; With what is necessary, doing better means in this sense achieving greater added value, better serving our clients, obtaining higher profits in proportion to an adequate use of available resources, with zero waste, defects, dissatisfactions.
" Productivity " can be considered, then, as the emerging quality of all the processes that make them improve in every way (Pacheco and Álvarez 1994), as a combination of the traditional focus on productivity, quality, competitiveness, profitability… etc., and it is what in the literature has been called " Productivity " in the broad sense, Comprehensive Competitiveness… etc., which are now or can be considered edges or Variables.
This broad conception forces us to change the (equally narrow) concept of measuring the emergence of this quality and not consider isolated indicators, but rather a system of indicators that combine Efficacy, Efficiency, and Effectiveness in each and every one of the OUs, UF, UA and of course entirely in the organization.
In line with the above, at all levels (O, UO, UF, UA) the concepts that start from:
With this criterion, the performance indicators are defined, the “ clocks ” that will have to be read to know if the proposed is achieved. The mission and the objectives derived from it in the short, medium and long term.
The identification and definition of the problems (effect) at all levels, based on these criteria, is more precise and will be derived from comparing the Current State (Ea) against the Desired State (Ed) or measurement criterion that has previously been defined. This can of course be more than one according to the benchmarks that are in this infinite process of continuous improvement.
Following this logical order of analysis, the causes or factors that inhibit the achievement of this result are associated with knowing / wanting linked to workers and managers and having to do it, linked to the means, work objects and of course with the financing necessary for all of this, which are the causes of such an effect and it is where we really have to act to transform the effect.
In this sense, an important concept called the Essential Dimension is defined, which helps to reach the essence of each inhibiting factor and, on that basis, specifically influence its improvement.
The essential dimensions will be measured, reaching conclusions about their criticality, which will allow in a needs / possibilities analysis to derive the Solution Strategy (Action Plan) to produce the required changes.
The analysis of the ENVIRONMENT factors in terms of Threats and, of course, opportunities for the strengths available to act against the WEAKNESSES that have been detected would complete the diagnostic panorama (Problems / Causes), which by itself is explained and it is traditional in these studies.
Brief considerations on the stages of the PPMP
There are some other important considerations that were taken into account and that influence the definition of the stages and activities, some comments are necessary on these.
Today there is an international consensus that successful continuous improvement processes have no alternative but to engage all managers and workers in them since they are the main agents of change, our positive and negative experiences also confirm this.
Continuous improvement has no prospects if it is not based on commitment and is translated into an own capacity for change, this leads to the incorporation of INVOLVEMENT as a stage that begins in the first stage, STAGE ZERO and covers all stages and improvement cycles.
The role of senior management is significant, in those organizations where leadership of change is achieved by senior management, as a rule much more results are obtained, this is so important and decisive that it is worth doing nothing, not continuing, if the boss doesn't take charge of this vital matter.
The aforementioned, which almost everyone also shares, is not exactly a regularity in the experiences we have carried out and it is the main reason, in our opinion, that inhibits having greater results.
Another issue to highlight is the need to develop a viable strategy (action plan), to achieve this, actions must have clearly defined what, who, at least basic ideas or principles of how, when, where, who responds for each one of them and a very important question is how much, both in terms of benefits in all senses, and in terms of the budget necessary to achieve them, under specific conditions.
Nor is it a great or novel discovery that if you do not have the necessary human, material and financial resources (Want / Know / Have) you cannot achieve what you want.
Unfortunately, well-conceived action plans in print are not applied or have serious limitations in their application for the reasons stated above, each one even has their own experiences, negative and / or positive experiences in this regard. If an action does not have insurance, financing, insurance will not be executed.
Finally, it is necessary to highlight the role of the EVALUATION AND ADJUSTMENT stage, as a decisive stage to know if the desired states are reached and if the adverse causal factors were really attenuated or eliminated as necessary and if not, carry out the regulation, the necessary adjustments to achieve this.
It may be evident that if progress and results are not really evaluated, corrective actions cannot be taken along the way, but also and unfortunately this is one of the aspects where more problems are confronted, therefore this " evident truth " with High frequency is forgotten, and even more so, sometimes the whole program and then it only remains to be formally buried, since in fact it has already died.
How many new projects put into practice by not being followed up, evaluated have been forgotten? How many, thousands, millions, in our country there is vast and negative experience in this regard; WE CANNOT FORGET IT, it is achieved that continuous improvement, developed with the KNOW HOW that is dedicated, be it PPMP, TOC… becomes a true management philosophy in organizations and is inscribed in its operation and is not just another program (AD HOC) then there will be a much better chance of achieving the objectives emanating from the mission NOW and in the future.
It is important to at least synthesize the premises or characteristics and stages of the permanent productivity improvement program (PPMP) since its activities can be further explored from the reference bibliography.
Results of PPMP applications
As a result of the PPMP applications in more than 20 organizations in the eastern territory and Varadero, there is today a perfected methodological tool that allows us to successfully undertake continuous improvement programs in the organizational universe.
The dissemination and training of a large number of cadres, technicians and other workers was achieved and in general the criteria and acceptance are favorable.
Specific applications continue to develop and this "KNOW HOW" also continues to be continuously refined.
Conclusions
The current stage of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st from the V Congress of the PCC imposes on organizations the need for business improvement in this task, the methodological tools and experiences of the PPMP applications are truly valid. Many of the researchers at the University of Holguín have used them partially or totally, adapting them to the Essential Guidelines issued by the country's top management and to the context of each specific organization. These experiences can be useful to all those who in one way or another are involved in continuous improvement processes, especially at this time in business improvement.
Finally, it is convenient to highlight the influence that the main philosophies of Management of continuous improvement prevailing in the world today have had on this whole conception, especially the theory of restrictions (TOC) and of course Total Quality, Reengineering, the Benchmarking and others that are not opposed to them, rather complement each other and, of course, also the Cuban experiences of Business Improvement mentioned above.
All this arsenal of " soft technology " will allow work teams to identify the real problems of organizations, their causes and act accordingly to achieve the goal so desired, demanded and necessary to achieve a true takeoff in the development of the country that is what the senior leadership of the Party and the Government has called at this stage. This work modestly aims to contribute in this regard.
Bibliography
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