بهینه‌کاری روشها در تعالی سازمانها

Benchmarking for Business Excellence

دکتر مهران سپهری

دانشیار دانشکده مدیریت و اقتصاد، دانشگاه صنعتی شریف

چکیده مقاله:

بهینه‌کاوی (ترازیابی و یا همسنجی) جستجو برای یافتن بهترین تجربیات صنعت و استفاده از آنها برای رسیدن به سطوح عالی عملکرد است. بهینه‌کاوی توجه از خارج به فعالیت‌ها، وظایف تخصصی، و عملیات داخلی به منظور اصلاح و بهبود مستمر است. بهینه‌کاوی ابزار لازم را فراهم می‌آورد تا مدیریت تصمیمات مهم مربوط به تخصیص منابع را بر اساس تمرکز استراتژیک بر سازمان اتخاذ کند.

پایداری و پویایی سازمانها تنها از بهینه‌کاوی و یادگیری حاصل می‌شود. در شرایط کنونی رقابت در دهکده جهانی تنها سازمانهای پویا پایدار خواهند ماند. این سازمانها بایستی از درون‌گرایی و اتلاف منابع گذشته و با بهینه‌کاوی مستمر به تعالی سازمانی راه یابند. نتیجه‌گرایی و بهینه‌کاوی نبایستی تنها شامل ارقام و نتایج مالی باشد بلکه بایستی به بهینه‌کاوی و نتیجه‌گرایی در ریشه‌ها و روشها تاکید شود.

بهینه‌کاوی را نباید با جاسوسی صنعتی اشتباه نمود. در موارد بهینه‌کاوی، شرکت‌های مشابه و حتی رقبا می‌توانند در بهبود روشهای تولیدی مشترک و بهینه‌سازی فرآیندها همکاری نموده، مراکز ترازیابی به منظور کاوش و گسترش بهترین‌ها تشکیل شده و فعالیت نمایند. در این راستا سازمان‌ها به یادگیری روشها بهتر و تعیین اهداف و عملکرد با توجه به استانداردهای صنعتی تشویق می‌شوند.

این مقاله شامل تعاریف و مدلهای زیربنایی بهینه‌کاوی، سازمان و عملکرد مراکز بهینه‌کاوی، تعیین صحیح معیارهای کمی و مشخص، و نقش بهینه‌کاوی در پویایی و پایداری سازمانها و در نهایت تعالی سازمانی است. مورد موفق سازمان کایزر در بهینه‌کاوی عملیات مرکز اداری سازمان تشریح شده است که الگوی خوبی برای سازمانهای بزرگ و بخصوص دولتی در ایران خواهد بود.

 

Introduction:

Chinese Proverb:  "If we dont change directions| we might end up where were headed." 

During the last two decades| a total quality management (TQM) surge swept through manufacturing and service industries in the United States and then the rest of the world. Companies learned the power of TQM principles to improve the way they served their customers and ultimately their competitive results. Continuous improvement of processes and products was a basic quality-management approach pursued by many companies. Using industrial housekeeping (5S)| value analysis and engineering| and TQM techniques provided initial but local improvements.

For many organizations| however| continuous improvement has not led to the benefits expected| particularly as the focus turns into Business Excellence. Companies spend valuable time and resources improving insignificant things without gaining a measurably better competitive standing| or they throw efforts into changes that arent necessarily improvements at all. They need a solution that merges strategic choices about what activity to be good at with careful examination of what it means to be truly excellent in that activity. Benchmarking is that solution.

Benchmarking is the search for those best practices that will lead to the superior performance of a company. Establishing operating targets based on the best possible industry practices is a critical component in the success of every business. Traditional target-ting methods| for example| have failed US managers and blind-sided them to foreign competition. The Japanese term dantotsu| which means striving to be the "best of the best"| incorporates the essence of the process they use to establish competitive advantage. US didnt have that word| because it mistakenly assumed it was the best.

Companies that aspire to world-class status today cannot achieve it without benchmarking. Benchmarking is an effective approach for guiding the improvement process by determining the most important things to improve and the best approaches for doing so. In its most basic definition| it is a methodology for determining the best practices in other organizations that will lead to superior performance in your company. Benchmarking is a process for measuring your companys method| process| procedure| product| and service performance against distinguished companies in the same category.

The process of consistently researching for new ideas for methods| practices| and processes across the industry| and of either adopting the practices or adapting the good features| and implementing them to obtain the best of the best is benchmarking. It is industrial research or information gathering that allows a manager to compare his or her functions performance to the performance of the same functions in the leading companies. Benchmarking is a positive and proactive activity for a firm to correctly establish its goals| objectives| and targets on the search for leading to superiority.

Benchmarking sounds eminently logical and is quite appealing| but many barriers exist to doing it well. The most particular psychological baggage to discard is the fear of being seen as "copying". Greater results come from working together rather than individual achievements| and breakthrough comes from understanding what has gone before| then surpassing it. Sir Issac Newton once said| "if I have seen further| it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants".

Success Factors:

 Companies seek to tap into the great potential that benchmarking offers as a tool while avoiding costly pitfalls.  Consequently| companies seek to identify optimal methods for structuring| launching and maintaining a high-performing benchmarking function. Through research with a number of companies successful in benchmarking| analysts identified critical success factors for successful benchmarking efforts.  Top recommendations from this study are to:

? Develop a plan for the launch and ongoing promotion of the benchmarking function to generate widespread support. To gain support for benchmarking efforts| savvy companies create a launch and ongoing communication plan.  This report looks at the elements of such a plan as well as critical success factors for building support for the benchmarking function.

? Differentiate benchmarking service levels based on opportunity’s alignment with company goals and in order to effectively allocate resources. Successful benchmarking functions align resources with the strategic goals of the company.  Projects and improvement activities that fit with company needs receive high priority in terms of money| time| focus and expertise.  This report includes details on the processes that top companies use to prioritize internal and external requests for benchmarking resources.  

?  Embed implementation planning and management into the benchmarking methodology to drive performance improvements.  Companies need to implement top findings for a benchmarking effort to be considered a success| but implementation represents one of the trickiest aspects of benchmarking. The report details critical success factors for embedding implementation planning for benchmarking efforts.

·Creating a Benchmarking Infrastructure: What is the optimal structure for benchmarking? What benchmarking models will yield the best results?

·Building Buy-In for Benchmarking: What tactics are successful for launching or introducing the benchmarking function to win organizational support?  What are the best methods for continually promoting the benchmarking function?

·Prioritizing Benchmarking Requests: What tactics are used to match the level of service provided by the core function to the importance of an internal benchmarking request? What evaluation factors are effective for determining if external requests have significant value and are worth pursuing?

·Managing Benchmarking for Optimal Business Results: What processes are effective at transforming research findings into process improvements that drive superior financial and operational performance?

·Leveraging Technology to Enable Benchmarking: What technology and approaches are advantageous for archiving best practice knowledge within an organization? What self-serve benchmarking resources should be available to employees?

Benchmarking Centers:

In many Western countries| particularly in US| centers of excellence or benchmark associations have been established to help companies with more rigorous benchmarks for a particular segment of industry and a particular of measurements. Their functions include| but not limited to:

Forming associations to share benchmarking information including;

·Conducting member meetings

·Identifying critical topics of interest

·Forming study groups

·Collecting Performance data

·Identifying leading companies

·Leading site visits to best practice companies

·Compiling results into summary and detailed management reports

Creating Benchmarking databases to support benchmarking efforts by;

·Organizing taxonomies of business processes used for analytic purposes

·Creating study maps and guides to structure benchmarking efforts

·Developing industry standard databases of performance measures

·Gathering company responses to specific measures into databases

process interest

Leading individual companies in benchmarking efforts by;

·Defining high payoff areas for research topics

·Conducting short (survey) and long (site visit) benchmarking efforts

·Facilitating project teams in benchmarking efforts

·Attracting top companies to join efforts

·Measuring performance

·Performing Gap analysis

·Leading site visits to best practice companies

·Compiling results and making recommendations for action

·Providing implementation services

Conducting sessions and writing books and papers on benchmarking topics;

·Conducting in-house training sessions

·Training through open forum sessions

·Presentations at professional and trade associations

·Conducting proprietary research| writing reports| books and article

Examples of Benchmarking Centers: 

The Benchmarking Network| Inc. is an international resource for business process research and metrics. It leads studies with over 3|000 process leaders in over 25 countries. It provides benchmarking training and research to individual companies| professional and trade associations| and industry and process based groups. Since 1992| its over 300 studies have spanned virtually all processes and industries to identify measures and collect data to identify best practices.

Mission:

To identify "Best in Class" business processes| which| when implemented| will lead member companies to exceptional performance.

Objectives:

·To conduct benchmarking studies of important contact center customer satisfaction measurement processes.

·To create a cooperative environment where full understanding of the performance and enablers of "best in class" contact center customer satisfaction measurement process are obtained and shared at reasonable cost.

·To use the efficiency of the association to obtain process performance data and related best practices regarding contact center customer satisfaction measurement.

·To support the use of benchmarking to facilitate process improvement and the achievement of total quality.

International Contact Center Benchmarking Consortium (ICCBC)

ICCBC™ Performance Data

Performance statistics help companies determine where they stand vs. similarly situated organizations. The ICCBC™ will gather data in the form of group studies on behalf of participants.

ICCBC™ Process Data

Process findings help companies determine leading edge practices in managing contact center performance.

ICCBC™ Mission

International Contact Center Benchmarking Consortium (ICCBC™) is an association of contact center professionals to compare operating performance and identify the best business practices.

Membership

Basic membership in the association is available to employees of corporations that manage contact centers. Basic membership is currently available at no charge to qualified individuals. Participation in association activities will be charged separately.

Using Benchmarking Metrics:

For companies| embracing change means seeking out and adopting best practices. Benchmarkingthe research and analysis of quantitative| empirical datais a way to isolate weaknesses and strengths and to make connections between best practices and performances. Once these connections have been made| determining which practices are appropriate for an organization to adopt becomes a world class competitive imperative. Benchmarking is used in identifying best practices| and helps organizations uncover performance gaps and best practices through benchmarking.

A fundamental question in benchmarking is: What should we measure? The key to developing effective benchmarking is to begin by choosing measures that are aligned with the company’s strategic objectives. Collecting data is time consuming and costly| so it is important that organizations have a clear sense of how the data will be used before starting the collection process. The next step in the benchmarking process is collecting and comparing data to determine how the organization stacks up to others researched. This is what most organizations traditionally think of as benchmarking.

Metrics allow an organization to understand its operational performance relative to external benchmarks (such as the industry average and top performers) and to assess its own internal progress over time. To ensure comparability| metrics should be normalized (i.e.| put on a common unit basis) to reduce issues of operational scale.  Although metrics are useful| it is important to also look at the facts behind the numbers. Simply knowing that cost per full-time employee (FTE) is higher than the industry average| for instance| will not help an organization improve its performance.

Instead| this data should be analyzed to discover what factors (e.g.| management practices| systems| and organizational structure) within an organization are responsible for performance gaps and then identifying key practices for improvement. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics deemed essential to understanding operational health. Measuring performance allows an organization to objectively determine what is working and what is not. In addition| by identifying successes| managers can reward and learn from best practices.

Most measurement occurs at the process level| where the transformation from input (resources applied) to output (goods and services) takes place. The four main categories of metrics to assess performance at the process level are:

1.        cost effectiveness (e.g.| $6.22 per invoice)|

2.        staff productivity (e.g.| 93 invoices processed per FTE)|

3.        process efficiency (e.g.| 11.2 percent error rate)| and

4.        cycle time (e.g.| processing time of 3.8 days).

KPIs provide insights into business performance in one snapshot. They provide a high-level understanding of how a business is performing. They are considered “measures of wellness|” in that by simply looking at them organizations can assess the health of the operation. Beyond the numbers| organizations want to know what qualitative factors impact performance. Using statistical techniques such as correlation and cross tabulation can help reveal those factors that most prominently influence good performance. That is the ultimate payoff to benchmarking.

جایزه ملی:

جوایز ملی که امروزه در بیش از هفتاد کشور، اعم از صنعتی پیشرفته یا در حال رشد، تحت عناوین جوایز ملی بهره‌وری، کیفیت، تعالی سازمانی و غیره به واحدهای برتر اعطا می‌شود را می‌توان یکی از ابزارهای بسیار موثر برای رشد و تعالی سازمانها برشمرد. این نوع جوای که ابزاری برای سنجش میزان استقرار سیستم‌ها هستند، تمامی سازمانها اعم از خدماتی، عمومی، تولیدی، آموزشی و غیره را بر اساس معیارهای تعیین شده ارزیابی کرده، موفقیت نسبی آنها را در حصول به اهداف و برنامه‌هایی که از قبل طراحی شده، مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهند. از این جوایزای دوره‌‌ای سه فایده عمده را می‌توان انتظار داشت:

·           سازمانها و بنگاهها با استفاده از این ابزار می‌توانند از طریق خودارزیابی که به صورت دوره به اجرا می‌گذارند. به نقاط قوت و زمینه‌های قابل بهبود خود دست یابند.

·           با اجرای طرح اعطای جایزه در سطح فراگیر، امکان مقایسه میان سازمانها و بنگاههای مشابه و هم‌تراز فراهم می‌شود مدلهای مورد استفاده در جوایز، شاخص‌های کیفی و محتوایی سازمانها را در قالب یک سیستم امتیازدهی به شاخص‌های کمی تبدیل می‌کنند و به راحتی انجام مقایسه بین سازمانها را امکان‌پذیر می‌سازند.

·           سازمانها و بنگاهها الزاماً در تمامی ابعاد نمی‌توانند به برتری دست یابند ولی در برخی زمینه‌ها و فرایندها به حدی از رشد می‌رسند که می‌توانند الگو و سرمشق برای سایرین باشند. برگزارکنندگان جایزه می‌توانند این امکان را فراهم سازند تا بهترین تجارب و موفق‌ترین فرایندها، شناسایی شده و در اختیار سایرین قرار گیرد.

باید توجه داشت که جایزه ملی بهره‌وری و تعالی سازمانی، تنها یک ابزار از بین ابزارهای متعددی است که باید از هر کدام مدل تعالی سازمانی چارچوبی روشمند برای ارزیابی عملکرد سازمانها در دو حوزه فرایندها و نتایج حاصل از این فرایندهاست. دستاوردهای حاصل از ارزیابی در این مدل عبارتست از ”نقاط قوت“ سازمان و ”زمینه‌های قابل بهبود“ آن که برای دستیابی به بهبودها فهرستی از برنامه‌های اولویت‌بندی شده را نیز پیشنهاد می‌کند. بر اساس آموخته‌های مدیریت کیفیت جامع (EFQM)، توجه به ارزش‌ها  و مفاهیم بنیادین هشتگانه به شرح زیر لازمه موفقیت و ایجاد بهبود مستمر سازمانها است.

ارزش‌ها و مفاهیم  هشتگانه فوق پایه‌های اصلی برنامه‌ریزی و استقرار سیستم‌ها را تشکیل می‌دهد و برای ارزش‌ها و مفاهیم هشتگانه فوق پایه‌های اصلی برنامه‌ریزی و استقرار سیستم‌ها را تشکیل می‌‌دهد و برای شناخت وضعیت عملکردی سازمان‌ها باید از معیارهایی بهره گرفت که ارتباط تنگاتنگی با مفاهیم فوق‌الذکر داشته باشند. معیارهایی که توسط آنها، میزان تحقق هشت مفهوم بنیادین و میزان موفقیت سازمان در دستیابی به نتایج را بتوان اندازه‌گیری کرد.

جایزه ملی بهره‌وری و تعالی سازمنی، تنها یک ابزار از بین ابزارهای متعددی است که باید ا ز هر کدام به نحو مناسب و در زمان مناسب استفاده کرد. از هر یک از ابزارها باید در حد خودش انتظار داشت و نباید تصور کرد که با بکارگیری آنها می‌توان تمامی مشکلات را رفع کرد. جوایز در یک فضای رقابتی سالم، کارآیی و اثربخشی خود را خواهند داشت و اصولاً این نوع جوایز در جوامعی تکوین یافته‌اند که رقابت‌پذیری از پایه‌های اصلی رشد و توسعه آنها بوده است.

 بی‌گمان تلاش دولت در خصوصی‌سازی و توسعه فضای برقابتی ر کارآیی این جایزه خواهد افزود و کلام آخر اینکه هر چند کشورمان با تاخیر به جمع کشورهایی پیوسته است که جایزه ملی بهره‌وری و تعالی سازمانی را به عنوان یک ابزار تشویقی برای رشد و تعالی سازمانهایشان به کار گرفته‌اند. اما با پیشگامه وزارت صنایع و معادن در اجرای طرح جایزه ملی بهره‌وری و تعالی سازمانی در بخش صنعت و معدن این امید می‌رود که سایر بخش‌های اقتصادی و اجتماعی کشور با بهره‌گیری از تجارب این جایزه بتوانند فرهنگ تعالی سازمانی را در تمامی دستگاهها و بنگاههای کشور تسری بخشند.

References:

Bogan| Christopher E.| Michael J. English (Contributor)| Benchmarking for Best Practices: Winning Through Innovative Adaptation| Palgrave Publishing| New York| New York| 2000.

Camp Robert C.| Benchmarking| The Search for Industry Best Practices that Lead to Superior Performance| American Society for Quality| New York| New York| 1989.

Sprow| Eugene E.| Benchmarking Manufacturing Processes| Your Practical Guide for Becoming Best in Class| Society of Manufacturing Engineers| Dearborn| Michigan| 1994.

Watson| Gregory H.| The Benchmarking Workbook| Adapting Best Practices for Performance Improvement| Productivity Press| Portland| Oregon| 1992.