Improvements In A Large Public Electric Utility In South America

The company decided to develop and implement an improvement program. The main thrust was to propose strategies and alternatives for the implementation of a quality program.

Later on, the company declared the "Year of Quality", which kicked off the beginning of an improvement program focusing on providing better service and paying more attention to the customers. That same year, after several internal attempts on the part of the company to carry out such a program, executive management requested our assistance to evaluate the current situation and implement a Corporate Management System .

Policy Management

The purpose of Policy Management was to determine the company's priority areas in order to align resources towards customer satisfaction. The corporate vision, that is, the future the organization aspires to reach, had to be established first in order to develop the fundamental objectives. Besides describing the desired position, the vision helped define what had to be done to reach it.

Developing the vision demanded a sincere evaluation of the company's strengths and weaknesses, and a deep investigation of the needs of the customers and all the actors that impact the company's product or service This was a very revealing experience since the analysis of customer needs uncovered some requirements that became known for the first time.

To accomplish this it was necessary to involve all of management. The managers, from all departments, established four teams. One group was responsible for identifying the customers' requirements another, the corporate problems and business requirements, a third group designed strategies to implement the program throughout the organization and the last one analyzed information needs that allowed them to get control of the demands from clients and actors and the degree to which they were satisfied.

The conclusions arrived at by these teams were the basis for the Executive Committee to formulate the vision and, afterwards, to develop the Corporate Management System. This system was deployed and promoted at all levels of the organization in 1993 and is the management system being used today. Through the Corporate Management System the vision, long and short term plans were transformed into concrete actions; the role and responsibility of each member of the organization was clearly defined; a systematic and participatory process oriented towards corporate improvement was created.

Improvement Teams

The company's Corporate Management Process is supported by the knowledge and involvement of its human resources and team work. Fifteen internal instructors were trained and certified on the advanced Methodology for Continued Improvement, "Tools, Techniques and Methodology". The training strategy was to start training at the time the Priority Areas for the company were being established. Having these two activities in parallel enabled the company to have the key personnel trained on the tools and techniques for improvement, by the time corporate policy was ready to be functionally deployed.

This is why the company, through its own instructors, trained the rest of the organization and was ready to act when the Executive Committee deployed five of the ten Priority Areas identified through the Corporate Management System.

The Improvement Teams' efforts were supported by various clearly defined support structures, which were implemented based on our guidance. The purpose of these structures, endorsed by Executive Management, was to improve the company operations and satisfy the customers' expectations and valid requirements.

At the beginning of 1994 the company had twenty improvement teams that were assigned to work on specific problems, derived from the Priority Areas and deployed through the short term plans. These teams continue to work on improvement activities today.

Daily Management

With the goal of increasing the level of participation of employees in routine jobs, the company decided to implement "Daily Management" in 1994. This strategy resulted in the training and development of a pilot area, the Information Systems Group, in all the methods and techniques of Daily Management.

The training consisted of:

the methodology to select the most important process

the techniques to identify the needs of the customer: internal and external the method to establish responsibilities

and the development of indicators, targets and a follow-up system

The pilot also served as a means to transfer the technology of Daily Management to the company.

The company continues to train their employees on this methodology to accelerate the efforts that lead to the improvement of products and services by controlling and improving the critical business processes. At the same time, the program is being expanded to other areas of the organization. As more people become involved in monitoring and controlling their own activities, management is beginning to see improvement results in all areas of operation.

Managing Parner, Management Resources Inc.

---

You?re Hired, Now Go Home: Managing Workers at a Distance

Telecommuting or virtual work opens up a wider net of... Read More

Making Your Workers Your Partners

There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of... Read More

7 Steps To Hire The Best

You can use this step-by-step method to hire applicants who... Read More

The Dark Side of Help Desk SLAs

You just signed a Help Desk Service Level Agreement (SLA)... Read More

How To Delegate for Fun and Profit

Ah, the wretched pain of delegation. It comes easy to... Read More

Productivity Through Positive Reinforcement

Most people just want to be appreciated. If you're a... Read More

Indecent Proposal in the Workplace ? An Overview of Workplace Harassment & Employer Liability

An allegation of harassment in the workplace is a growing... Read More

Uncovering the Secrets to Effective Performance Management

In many ways there are no secrets to implementing effective... Read More

Is It Worth To Outsource? How One Can Outsource Wisely

Recent trends in software development market show that it is... Read More

What is Knowledge Management Anyway?

When you think of all the things companies have, you... Read More

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have SMART Goals

The first step in planning an agenda is to identify... Read More

Leaning Toward Change

Seduced by the publicity surrounding the impact of Lean on... Read More

Creativity and Innovation Management: Generating Better Ideas

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

A Man and His Razor

It is vain to do with more what can be... Read More

Is Busyness Affecting Your Business?

I'm too busy; I'd love to but I'm very busy;... Read More

Meetings: Don?t Just Show Up, Stand Out and Shine

Meetings, whether they're regularly scheduled routines in your company or... Read More

ISO 9001 and Total Quality Management

Total Quality ManagementTotal Quality Management, or TQM, has become one... Read More

Introducing the 15 Frameworks of Successful Self-Employed Professionals

A framework is a way of thinking, a point-of-view, a... Read More

Is A Bad Attitude Permanent

Today there is great weight put on a person's attitude.... Read More

Questions To Ask Employees You Want To Retain

Times of cost cutting and downsizing has dramatically impacted the... Read More

First Things First -- Process BEFORE Technology

Here's a brief story I encountered while leaving Newark International... Read More

Its All In The Systems

Have you ever noticed french fries taste the same at... Read More

Juggling Demands in an Organization

JUGGLING DEMANDS: All leaders constantly juggle a multifarious array of... Read More

The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - The 5th C: Control Issues

A series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that... Read More

Managing Client Relationships

Managing Client Relationships: Even the best run organizations occasionally run... Read More

Delegate or Die!

You Can't Do It All - Learning To DelegateThere is... Read More

Solving the Problem Solving Problem

The meeting started like a hundred others before. There were... Read More

Its Not Always What You Say

A major source of communication breakdowns is incongruence between the... Read More

The Power of ?Ask?

For Call Center managers, it is not a pipe dream... Read More

Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda

Everyone knows that an agenda is the key to an... Read More

How to Keep a Good Employee: Look, Listen, Learn

Recently a client told me a wonderful story about how... Read More

Todays Employees and Their New Needs: What You Need to Know

Today's employees are not only interested in security or in... Read More

Business Innovation ? Improvisation

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More