1. Control Techniques
Control, Concept:
Process to ensure that actual activities conform to planned activities. It allows to keep the organization or system on track.
The word control has been used in several different senses:
• Control as a coercive and restrictive function, to inhibit or prevent undesirable behaviors, such as arriving late to work or classes, making scandals, and so on.
• Control as verification of something, to see if it is correct, such as verifying evidence or notes.
• Control as a comparison with some reference standard, such as thinking of a commodity on another scale, comparing students' notes, and so on.
• Control as an administrative function, that is, as the fourth stage of the administrative process.
• It constitutes the fourth and last stage of the administrative process. This tends to ensure that things are done according to expectations or as planned, organized and directed, pointing out faults and errors in order to repair them and avoid their repetition.
Establishment of Standards: A standard can be defined as a unit of measure that serves as a model, guide or standard based on which control is carried out.
Standards are established criteria against which results can be measured, they represent the expression of the planning goals of the company or department in terms such that the actual achievement of assigned duties can be measured against them.
Standards can be physical and represent product quantities, service units, man-hours, speed, reject volume, etc., or they can be stated in monetary terms such as costs, income or investments; or other measurement terms.
Measurement of results: If the control is set properly and if there are means available to determine exactly what subordinates are doing, comparing actual performance with expectations is easy. But there are activities in which it is difficult to establish control standards, making measurement difficult.
Correction: If as a result of the measurement deviations are detected, immediately correct those deviations and establish new plans and procedures so that they are not presented again.
Feedback: Once the deviations have been corrected, reprogram the control process with the information obtained causing the deviation.
2. Control Factors
There are four factors that must be considered when applying the control process.
• Quantity
• Weather
• Cost
• Quality
The first three are quantitative in nature and the last is eminently qualitative. The quantity factor applies to activities in which volume is important. Through the time factor, the scheduled dates are controlled. The cost is used as an indicator of administrative efficiency, since through it the expenditures of certain activities are determined. Quality refers to the specifications that a certain product or certain functions of the company must meet.
Controls Used Most Often In Control Factors
| Quantity | Weather | cost | Quality |
| Budgets | Time studies | Budgets | Performance evaluation |
| Estimates | Deadline dates | Cost per square meter | Psychological tests |
| Finished products | Programs | Standard costs | Visual inspections |
| Sold units | Time - machine | Forecasts | Coefficients |
| Rejected Units | Work measurement | Accounting | Staff performance |
| Personnel inventories | Procedures | Productivity | Reports |
| Work measurement | Standards | Return on investment | Procedures |
| Forecasts | Standards | ||
| Inventory control | Merit rating |
Control Importance
It establishes measures to correct the activities, in such a way that the plans are successfully achieved. It applies to everything: to things, to people and to acts. Quickly determine and analyze the causes that may lead to deviations so that they do not recur in the future. It locates the sectors responsible for the administration, from the moment corrective measures are established. It provides information about the status of the execution of the plans, serving as a foundation when restarting the planning process. Reduce costs and save time by avoiding errors. Its application directly affects the rationalization of the administration and consequently, in the achievement of the productivity of all the company's resources.
Types of Controls
• Preliminary control: This control takes place before starting operations and includes the creation of policies, procedures and rules designed to ensure that planned activities will be properly executed. Consistency in the use of policies and procedures is promoted by control efforts.
• Concurrent control: This control takes place during the action phase of executing the plans and includes the direction, monitoring and synchronization of activities, as they occur.
• Feedback control: This type of control focuses on the use of information from previous results to correct possible future deviations from the acceptable standard.
Control Areas
The control acts in all areas and at all levels of a company. Virtually all the activities of a company are under some form of control or monitoring.
Preferably it should cover basic functions and key result areas such as:
• Production control. The control function in this area seeks to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and uniformity and improve product quality, applying techniques such as time and motion studies, inspections, linear programming, statistical and graphical analysis.
• QA. It refers to the surveillance that must be done to verify a specific quality both in raw materials and in finished products; establishes acceptable limits of variation in terms of color, finish, composition, volume, dimension, resistance, etc.
• Inventory control. It is in charge of optimally regulating the stocks in the warehouses of both spare parts and tools, raw materials, products in process and finished; protecting the company from unnecessary costs due to accumulation or lack of stock in the warehouse.
• Purchase control. This function verifies the fulfillment of activities such as:
a) Appropriate selection of suppliers, b) Evaluation of the quantity and quality specified by the requesting department, c) Control of orders from the moment of their requisition until the arrival of the material, d) Determination of the order point and reorder, e) Checking prices.
• Marketing control. It is carried out through the study of reports and statistics where it is analyzed whether the marketing goals have been met or not; comprises areas such as sales, product development, distribution, advertising and promotion.
• Sales control. Forecasts and sales budgets are essential for the establishment of this control. The function of this system is to measure the performance of the sales force in relation to forecasted sales and take appropriate corrective action.
• Finance control. It provides information about the financial situation of the company and the performance in monetary terms of the resources, departments and activities that comprise it.
• Control of human resources. Its function is the evaluation of the effectiveness in the implementation and execution of each and every one of the personnel programs and the fulfillment of the objectives of this department, applying the evaluation to recruitment and selection, training and development, motivation, salaries and salaries., safety and hygiene and benefits.
3. Control Techniques
Technique: Set of procedures typical of an art, science or trade. Skill with which these procedures are used. Skill method, tactics
Taking into account the definition of the word technique, control techniques can be defined as all procedures or methods used by an organization to control or supervise an automated process or human activity.
There are different planning-control techniques that an executive uses. For example, administrative rules, which are an important type of planning, are also used for control purposes. Similarly, budgets are plans, and their use, appropriately called budgeting, is essentially a control function, just as personnel appraisal studies are conducted according to the control process.
Here are some of the most commonly used control techniques:
Budget:
A widely used mechanism for administrative control is the budget. Therefore it has sometimes been assumed that budgeting is the mechanism for carrying out control.
Budgeting is the formulation of plans for a certain future period in numerical terms. As such, budgets are anticipated income statements, in financial terms - as in income and capital - or in non-financial aspects - as in the case of direct labor hours, materials, physical volume of sales or production units. -. Budgets are said to be the monetization of plans.
Budgets force planning and allow authority to be delegated without loss of control. That is, the reduction of plans to definitive numbers requires the use of a kind of method that allows the manager to see clearly what capital will be needed, for whom, where, and what cost, income, or units of physical input or output will include their plans. Having found this, you can more freely delegate the authority to carry out the plan within the limits of the budget.
Comparative Balance Sheet:
They are especially useful in controlling the general operation of the company. In it you can observe the changes that are made and analyze the general developments.
A summary of the balance sheet items that span a relatively long period shows important trends and allows the manager to gain a broad appreciation of the overall performance and what may warrant some modifications.
Profit and Loss Statement:
They briefly show the amount of income, deductions, and net income. Comparative profit and loss statements enable the manager to locate difficulties and remedy them.
Tentative Profit and Loss Statements can be created, using them as goals to pursue. Performance is measured against those goals, which are equivalent to standards for control purposes.
This type of instrument is most commonly applied to an entire company or, in the case of a corporation, to its subsidiaries. Whatever the unit, the manager must have sufficient authority to manage it, because otherwise, it will not fully disclose the activities over which it can exercise control, and therefore it will not be a good means of control.
Financial Audit:
The financial audit is the periodic inspection of the accounting records, to verify that they have been adequately prepared and are correct, and it also helps the general control of the company.
It is done to check the accuracy of the records, and at the same time reviews and evaluates the projects, activities and procedures of the company.
It allows you to make comparisons between what you expected to achieve (standard) and what you are actually achieving. It highlights any deviations and offers suggestions for corrective actions.
This type of audit of accounting records and reports from the same area must be carried out by an external firm of public accountants.
Knowing that the records are accurate, true and in accordance with approved accounting practices forms a reliable basis for the purposes of good overall control.
Administrative audit:
It is the periodic confrontation of the planning, organization, execution and administrative control of a company. Review the past, present and future of the company. In addition, it checks the different areas of the company in order to verify if they are achieving the maximum result of their efforts.
An administrative audit can only be performed on an organization that has been running for a long time. This helps establish a pattern for their behavior.
The benefits of this type of audit are: a) Review of new policies and practices, both regarding their convenience and compliance, b) Identification of weak areas within the organization that require greater support, c) Better communication, This allows employees to be informed of the status of the company, d) Measures the degree of effectiveness of current administrative controls, e) The administrative audit deals with the general point of view, it does not evaluate personal performance.
The results of the administrative audit are reflected in an audit report that is written from a point of view and in a style that presents objective results and recommendations, making them as impersonal as possible. The auditor's job is to practice the audit; the implementation of their recommendations is the responsibility of the manager who has sufficient authority over the area or activity in question. In other words, if an official can make the desired change, an audit report should go to her.
The audit itself certifies: a) What the organization has done for itself and what it has done for its clients or recipients of the products or services it provides, for this it must evaluate certain factors such as: attributes of financial stability, efficiency production, sales effectiveness, staff development, profit growth, public relations and civic responsibility, etc.
Reports - Reports:
They are all those that facilitate the control process, such as production reports, shipping reports, financial reports, etc. The study of the data they provide and its comparison with other similar reports, help the manager to make decisions and a better knowledge of the state of the company.
4. Statistical analysis
It is very important for a good control the statistical analyzes of the innumerable aspects of the operation of a business or company, as well as the clear presentation of these, whether historical or forecast.
Statistical data is best understood by most managers when it is presented graphically, where trends and relationships are better represented.
Data should be presented in such a way that comparisons can be made with certain standards. Example: What does an increase of 3 to 10% mean, or a reduction in sales or costs? What was expected? What was the standard? How serious is the deviation? Who is responsible?
Since no manager can do anything about the past, it is essential that statistical reports show trends so that observers can extrapolate and estimate course, or trend. This means that most of the data, when presented in graphs, should be available in time averages to eliminate variations due to accounting periods, seasonal factors, accounting adjustments, and other variations associated with particular times.
Balance Point Plot:
The breakeven chart is an interesting control method, it illustrates the relationship between sales and expenses in a way that indicates what volume of income exactly covers expenses. A lower volume of sales with respect to the breakeven point would cause losses and a higher volume brings greater profit. The breakeven point can also be expressed in units of items sold, percentage of the plant used or in similar terms.
Break-even analysis with variable budget is often confused. Although both tools largely use the same kind of basic input data, the variable budget is intended to control costs, while the breakeven plot is intended to forecast profits, which means that it must include data from income. In addition, since they are used for budget control, the variable budget can reflect organizational units, while the graph is generally used to know the profitability of a certain course of action, compared to other alternatives.
This analysis is especially useful in planning and control because it emphasizes the impact of fixed costs on sales profits or additional costs.
The gantt chart:
Although the concept is simple, this graph, showing the time relationships between the events of a production schedule, has been regarded as the revolutionary innovation of management. What Gantt identified was that overall program goals should be viewed as a series of interrelated spin-off plans (events) that people can understand and follow. The most important developments in this type of control reflect this simple principle and also basic principles of control such as choosing strategic or critical elements of a plan to verify them carefully.
Pert (Program Review and Evaluation Technique):
The PERT technique is widely used in many operations and particularly in construction projects. This technique trains administrators to know that they will have problems in areas such as costs or on-time deliveries, unless they take action now.
The Pert forces managers to plan because it is impossible to do an analysis of time and events without planning and without observing how the elements fit together. In addition, it imposes planning in every line of authority, because each subordinate administrator must plan the event for which he is responsible.
Focuses attention on critical elements that may require correction and makes a feed-forward kind of control possible, a delay would affect subsequent events and possibly the entire project, unless the manager can somehow make up time by reducing the of some other activity in the future.
The network system with its subsystems makes it possible to direct reports and pressures to take action to the right place and at the right level of organization, at the right time.
PERT is not a panacea. It does not carry out planning, although it imposes it. It does not make control automatic, although it does establish an environment in which sound control principles can be appreciated and used.
5. Bibliography
Terry, George R., Administrative Principles. Compañía Editorial Continental, SA Mexico, 1977.
Business Practice Library. McGraw-Hill. Volume I. Modern Administration. Mexico. nineteen ninety six
Organizational Theory and Administrative Theory applied to higher education. Supporting documentary material. University of Carabobo, area of Postgraduate studies PEDES. Prof. Cecilia Guerra. Valencia, 2000.
www.itlp.edu.mx/publica/tutoriales/procesoadmvo/tema6_1.htm
Larousse Dictionary.
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