Paul Hyland

A comparison of Australian firms and their use of continuous improvement tools

Continuous improvement (CI) is a process used by manufacturing firms to improve quality, reduce lead times, reduce price, and improve delivery reliability. A survey of firms in Australia was conducted to determine the main motives for implementing CI and the focus of CI activities. This article will examine the responses of firms using CI. However, not all firms surveyed were at the same stage of development in their use of CI. While some firms were using CI across all aspects of their business and regarded CI as second nature most firms were in the early stages of development of CI using it primarily in the manufacturing function at the operator level. This article reports on the experiences of mature firms, so providing useful guidance for developing firms seeking to learn from the experience of mature CI.

Performance measurement and strategic change

Performance measurement systems not only provide the data necessary for managers to control business activity, they also influence the behavior and decisions of managers. This being the case, a restrictive set of financial performance measures may adversely impact on an organization’s long‐term viability, so organizations should develop a broad range of performance measures. Berliner and Brimson state that “performance measurement is a key factor in ensuring the successful implementation of a company’s strategy”. Thus when organizations implement new strategies they should ensure that the appropriate set of performance measures are in place. In this paper we look at two case studies conducted in a medium‐sized manufacturing firm and a large manufacturing firm, and evaluate the managers’ perceptions of the strategy/performance measurement relationship, and the responsiveness of performance measures to changes in strategy.

Continuous improvement strategies across selected Australian manufacturing sectors

Notes that Australian businesses are continually being expected to respond to changes in the economy brought about by alterations to government policies. Suggests that those industries which survive and flourish will need to have in place a process for responding to change. Points out that continuous improvement (CI) was identified in a recent Australia/New Zealand manufacturing survey as the most important manufacturing enhancement process currently available. In 1997, an Australia‐wide study of CI in manufacturing was initiated by a benchmarking survey examining the CI activities of medium to large manufacturing firms. Reports on selected findings of the survey and presents an analysis by industry sector of the firms’ main motives for CI, content in the CI process, support for CI and problem‐solving tools used to support CI. Initial findings indicate that there are no significant differences between manufacturing organizations in different Australian states. However, significant differences were found on comparing different industry sectors.

Strategy and continuous improvement in small-to-medium Australian manufacturers

While Australian firms have generally recognised the value of continuous improvement (CI) in improving performance, many have yet to develop systems to ensure that the efforts of the CI program are focussed on issues of strategic importance to the company. In fact, as recognised in operations management generally, CI activities can have a significant impact on the development of strategy as well as its implementation. The research reported here uses a CI mapping methodology to chart the relationship between CI and strategy in small‐ to medium‐sized manufacturers. Analysis of the link between the firms’ strategies and CI programs indicates that most firms involved in the study made little attempt to link the two and some appear to be unaware of any need to do so. However, such findings seem to be dependent on company size, the maturity of the CI program and the competitive position of the firm. The paper also includes an examination of the role of operations and shopfloor CI in company strategy, particularly as related to SMEs.

Palliative care teams and organisational capability

This paper is the first in a series that will examine the management of innovation by cross‐functional, multi‐disciplinary patient care teams in a palliative care environment. This highly innovative environment is singularly focused on relieving the suffering of patients and their socially related carers during an end of life experience. The singular focus enables and encourages palliative care practitioners to break through and diminish or accommodate professionally‐based paradigm conflicts and organisational politics. This facilitates collaborative team‐based efforts, including the patient and the patient’s social support group, to address the multi‐causal uncertainties that characterise end of life in palliative care. The continuous innovation model used in the European Union funded CIMA project is used as a starting point for this research. While many businesses have struggled to implement self‐regulating teams and have invested considerable resources in attempting to gain some advantage from teamwork...

Occupational clusters as determinants of organisational learning in the product innovation process

The importance of innovation to the survival of organisations in a turbulent environment has led to greater emphasis on improving the innovation process. Where learning is captured and applied to existing and current innovation processes, the opportunity exists for improvement in innovation processes. Research has been undertaken with the objective of developing, testing and disseminating a methodology to facilitate product innovation. Presents an analysis of clusters of learning behaviours and identifies variations between different occupational clusters. Examines aspects of occupational culture and problems associated with examining organisations learning from a single perspective.

Changing culture through empowerment

Much has been made of the need to empower employees at all levels of an organisation. There must be a genuine willingness on the part of management and workers to work together to ensure that empowerment will be accepted and succeed. Among those organisations which are prepared to bear the cost of training and multiskilling their employees, training is often ineffective and firms do not realise benefits from their investment. How can training be delivered to maximise the probability that the workers will learn and be able to implement new skills? Reports on a success story in a multi‐site manufacturing organisation which was able to train operations workers on the job, and by using active learning techniques demonstrate to the organisation the benefits of training. The reasons behind these changes, the effectiveness of the training programme, and the views of workers on the factory floor are examined. Interviews indicate that the success of the training programme, combined with other tactics, has seen real cultural change taking pace in the organisation, and workers believe they have been empowered.

Learning strategies and CI: lessons from several small to medium Australian manufacturers

Australian manufacturers need to develop strategies that will enable them to compete in the Asia‐Pacific region. Australia is regarded as a high wage economy so can rarely compete solely on price. Once they are able to deliver a quality product at an acceptable price to remain competitive they must get the most out of their existing resources, particularly their workforce. CI is a widely recognised low cost strategic process for improving a manufacturing operation. This paper examines five small to medium manufacturers and uses a mapping tool that measures the extent of learning within the firms. If firms using CI are to fully benefit from the learning process then they must have a strategy in place that ensures knowledge is captured and the workforce is willing to transfer knowledge throughout the organisation.

Continuous product innovation - learning behaviours and knowledge management

The research reported in this paper considers Product Innovation from a broader perspective than that of the isolated NPD (New Product Development) project commonly discussed in the literature. In this perspective, Product Innovation is a continuous and cross-functional process involving the sharing and transfer of knowledge within the many steps of the innovation process, and the integration of a growing number of different competencies inside and outside the organisational boundaries. This paper examines two in-depth case studies that were carried out to establish if and how learning occurred within companies developing new products. Based on a model developed as part of a joint Euro-Australian research project, the way in which the selected companies share and transfer knowledge and learning experiences during their product innovation processes have been examined and analysed. This model uses a number of interrelated variables including performance, behaviours and levers to stimulate improvement, contingencies, and learning/innovation capabilities to describe the learning and knowledge transfer in product innovation processes within the case studies. This paper discusses some of the skills the research has identified that managers need to enable their companies to gain a competitive advantage through improved product innovation. The ongoing research has developed, tested and disseminated a computer-based methodology to assess organisational knowledge capture and transfer in the new product development process. The research is part of the Euro-Australian co-operation project known as CIMA (Continuous Improvement and Product Innovation Management).

Learning to compete: post‐graduate training in an aerospace company

Over a period of nearly five years a large number of technology oriented employees in an Australian aerospace company were exposed to a wide variety of post‐graduate coursework modules intended to add a business management perspective to the technology background of those employees. Not all of the students had prior experience with university education, but some of these people completed Masters degrees. Their experience is also discussed. Over the duration of the program the company was in a constant state of significant change. The number of employees initially increased, adding a further training load, but later on the number of employees decreased and the program was wound back. This paper looks at how the program was integrated with work, the perceived upsides and downsides several years down the track, and the influence of organisational culture on the learning styles of the participants.