bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Agility: The ultimate requirement for world‐class manufacturing performance
Authors: Nagel Roger N. , Bhargava Piyush 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIt is becoming increasingly clear that the future success of U.S. industry depends on world‐class quality in its products and services. The achievement of this goal requires steps that go beyond the mere improvement of manufacturing. The leading organizations of the next century mill be those that integrate quality‐improvement efforts with agile manufacturing, which requires the utmost in customer responsiveness and a willingness to create virtual corporations that agree to pool their resources toward the achievement of common objectives. If United States industry takes up the agility challenge, the prize will be renewed U.S. quality and competitiveness.
Gain management makes productivity soar at GST steel
Authors: Berman Steven J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractGST Steel in Kansas City, Missouri, achieved striking improvements in productivity through a self‐funded gain‐sharing program featuring direct line‐of‐sight, measurable data, and low administrative support. Gain‐sharing payouts averaging 12.4 percent of gross pay in 1993 were surpassed by first quarter 1994 results. Within the first three months of 1994, two components of the company broke 13 production records. In another GST component, management hit its stretch payout of 24 percent while the union reached its stretch payout of 20 percent. On a more intangible level, the program has produced gains in workforce creativity, cost consciousness, commitment, and empowerment. At the same time, the role of management has been revamped to emphasise monitoring, tracking, coaching, and ongoing communication of results.GSTs success is rooted in a disciplined six‐step process of planning, environmental assessment, plan design, plan testing, plan communication, and plan monitoring. Organizations can achieve similar results if they provide all employees with equal opportunities for success, give equal weight to financial and operational measures, link business strategy with results, and tie the compensation plan to performance measures. This article outlines the function and scope of gain management and chronicles the transformation of GST as it gave birth to its own gain‐management program.
Customer focus charts a prize‐winning course for quality at naval undersea warfare center division
Authors: Williams Sherman , Randall Wade , Wessel Mike , Abrahams Debbie 
Published: July 2007

AbstractHow does a government agency go from potentially losing its most important customers to winning the Federal Quality Institute's Quality Improvement Prototype Award? In the case of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division in Keyport, Washington, a series of proactive steps instilled a total quality culture at the facility, geared to enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Core process deployment— the key to results through alignment and accountability
Authors: Steele Jack 
Published: July 2007

AbstractMany companies are improving their business planning process to include the proper inputs, focus on fewer priorities for improvement, and improve communication of the plan to all levels of the organization. Unfortunately, when it comes time to reap the benefits, these plans often fall short in producing desired business results. The reasons for failure are varied, but can include poor management reviews, lack of analysis, lack of accountability, poor cross‐functional coordination, and poor translation of the strategic objectives to all levels of the organization.Core process deployment, however, can help an organization achieve outstanding business results. Through this procedure, outcome metrics, which measure the various stakeholders' needs, and process or upstream metrics, which act as control points or predictors of outcome metrics, are determined for each core process. In addition, process owners and contributors are identified, and functional and cross‐functional objectives and targets are set for each process consistent with the strategic objectives of the organization. As this article shows, the aligned metrics, objectives, and targets are ultimately cascaded from the top of the organization to the bottom, helping the organization to realize its goals for improvement.
Nations bank reengineers to achieve leadership in international services
Authors: Sczech Marilyn , Attenello Dennis 
Published: July 2007

AbstractProductivity and service quality often suffer during periods of rapid organizational growth, but this has not been the case at NationsBank. While pursuing an aggressive acquisition strategy, the company has been able to control expenses and improve customer satisfaction through the systematic application of reengineering principles in five of its centers for international operations. What's more, by using a strongly participative and bottom‐up approach to reengineering, NationsBank has achieved consistent productivity and quality gains companywide, while remaining sensitive to the needs of employees and customers at every location.
Winning ways: Establishing an effective workplace recognition system
Authors: Glasscock Sue , Gram Kimberly 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe benefits from frequent, sincere appreciation can be seen on the bottom line of every measurable corporate attribute, including productivity, sales, product and service quality, and customer satisfaction. Yet, by concentrating only on outstanding performers, most companies recognize less than 5 percent of their workforce, often with rewards that do not reinforce their award‐winning behavior. This article discusses the difference between rewards and recognition and details the elements of workplace recognition programs that lead to repeat winning performance.
Reengineering: Starting with a dirty sheet of paper
Authors: Lemons Susan , Crom Steven E. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractExperience shows that processes can be creatively reengineered by the very people involved day‐to‐day in those processes. The key is creating an environment in which those participating in business process reengineering (BPR) feel encouraged to take appropriate risks and to experiment with new ways of behaving as well as organizing work. As the two case studies presented in this article show, you don't have to blow up a process, and the people along with it, and start with a clean sheet of paper to design and implement radical performance improvements.
Government savings through partnering: A federal lands highway initiative
Authors: Bushnell David S. , Cross William S. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractFederal Lands Highway (FLH), a unit of the federal Highway Administration, provides highway engineering services to federal land managing agencies to build America's scenic highways. Since 1988, FLH has been systematically implementing total quality management (TQM). A key component of that effort has been its partnering initiative. This has been used to reduce the traditional adversarial relationship between FLH and its contractors by allowing them to jointly discuss and reach mutual agreement on the overall goals of projects before disputes arise. Since costs are reduced and disputes avoided through such arrangements, partnering is a technique that all public‐sector contract administrators should take under serious consideration.
Performance management: The foundation for a high‐performance organization
Authors: Bulger Stanley L. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIt seems that every organizational consultant, if not every person just down the hall, has the solution for creating a high‐performance organization. Paragon Trade Brands charted a course to achieve such an organizational goal by using various nontraditional core processes that were developed internally. This article focuses on how this program was created and its evolution through implementation and ongoing maintenance. The simplicity of what is presented should not be interpreted as being easy to accomplish. But most organizations that are committed to creating a high‐performance culture can do so by identifying their core processes and dedicating implementation resources in a timely, open manner.
Arizona State university's lesson in creating public‐sector change agents
Authors: von Dran Gisela M. , Prybutok Victor R. , Kappelman Leon A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractPublic organizations are in need of change. Citizens and their elected representatives are demanding higher accountability and better services at lower costs. In studying the participants of a leadership academy at a large state university, the authors show that transformational leadership attitudes can be transferred to create change agents in complex multifaceted public‐sector environments.
Real‐world reengineering: Supporting organizational change at premier bank
Authors: Parker T. Wood 
Published: July 2007

AbstractBanking was once considered among the most stable industries. But then came the 1980s, the savings and loan debacle, and the years of corporate downsizing and restructuring. Today, change is the name of the game in banking as it is in virtually every industry. Mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings continue to be headline news, particularly with the ascendancy of “megabanks” in many pans of the country.To position themselves for long‐term marketplace success, some banks, particularly smaller but highly profitable regional financial institutions, are getting smart. They're reinventing themselves in an effort to become more efficient, reduce work process redundancies, make strategic use of new technologies, and better meet‐and anticipate—the changing needs of their customers. But managing organization change is a complex process. It requires the careful alignment and “harmonizing” of internal organizational elements to be successful.This article details how Premier Bank of Louisiana (recently acquired by Banc One of Ohio) developed a successful formula for reengineering based on the strong, hands‐on championing of change by its CEO and an overall approach that focused on creating “cascading sponsorship” for change efforts inside the organization.
Teamwork enhances customer satisfaction and manufacturing capability at Kent‐Moore
Authors: Zuech Paul , Finley Nancy 
Published: July 2007

AbstractCompanies with an eye toward the future know that they must study the past, examining previous successes and failures to prevent problems and improve performance. Determined to enhance its reputation for customer satisfaction, Kent‐Moore carefully reviewed its processes and found specific areas for improvement. As this article explains, the company's customers were not the only ones to benefit from its forward‐thinking efforts to enhance the efficacy of its operations.
Do Americans have their minds set against TQM?
Authors: Hubiak William A. , O'Donnell Susan Jones 
Published: July 2007

AbstractEvidence indicates that two‐thirds of quality programs implemented in the United States either fail to produce real improvements or are stalled, in spite of increased efforts. Most explanations for poor performance focus on operational deficiencies in the implementation of TQM practices and fail to address the underlying systemic psychological constraints that limit the dynamic impact of TQM in this country. This article examines five mental models, characteristic of the American mind‐set, that seriously constrain the implementation of TQM.
Technology to ease team‐based quality assessments
Authors: Kaplan Craig 
Published: July 2007

AbstractCompanies such as IBM have found that periodic, team‐based quality assessments can reduce service costs and defects while increasing customer satisfaction and revenue per employee. Whereas in the past such assessments were conducted by high‐priced consultants, today team‐based assessment software offers a highly cost‐effective alternative. By averaging scores and merging comments from many assessors, team‐based software increases the validity of a self‐assessment while increasing involvement and understanding. Combined with appropriate leadership and other widely available technologies, team‐based assessment software has helped organizations ranging from the U.S. Air Force to AT&T address seven major challenges to quality assessment efforts.
Team traps: What they are, how to avoid them
Authors: Rayner Steven R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractVirtually every major corporation has a team experiment under way. The same holds true among government, nonprofit, and academic institutions. Although much has been written about successes achieved through teamwork, to truly appreciate the factors that enhance high performance among team members, organizations must examine the reasons why teams fail. This article discusses the traps that can await unsuspecting teams and offers suggestions on how to sidestep them to ensure organizational success.
How to get the most from team training
Authors: Bohlander George W. , McCarthy Kathy 
Published: July 2007

AbstractTeams are championed to improve many aspects of organizational performance, including customer service, productivity, employee morale, and job satisfaction. But not all teams are successful. Recent studies show that one major cause of team failure is the lack of appropriate training for team members. Team training is most productive when it focuses on important behavioral and process subjects needed for group success. Additionally, training material is used most effectively when it is presented at a logical point during team development. This article discusses ways to develop superior team training programs and the proper sequencing of training content for effective application. It also presents a model training program based on the four recognized stages of team development.
Creating a change reaction: How understanding organizational dynamics can ease reengineering
Authors: Trahant Bill , Burke W. Warner 
Published: July 2007

AbstractStudies show that nearly two‐thirds of all organizational change efforts are failures or fail to live up to expectations. Why is this? And what can companies do to ensure a greater likelihood of success with change initiative? This article outlines a rigorous, client‐tested approach for planning and implementing change efforts, based on a thorough understanding of the variables at play in an organization whenever change efforts are attempted. The authors explain how an informed understanding of such dynamics greatly enhances the likelihood of success with reengineering and business process redesign efforts.
The power of empowered teams
Authors: Carroll Bob 
Published: July 2007

AbstractMany articles on empowered teams tend to focus on how a leader developed those teams and the results that followed. This article, however, details the major improvements that a cross‐functional production team made over a five‐year period to significantly boost the performance of its project. All the improvements described were made by the team itself and were considered by their manager to be far more elegant and effective than the improvements he would have devised.
Self‐assessments spur business improvement at merix corporation
Authors: Willey Raymond 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe leaders of Merix Corporation, a domestic supplier of high‐technology interconnect products, have a history of setting and achieving aggressive goals and effectively managing a continuously evolving company during periods of high growth. A key strategy in maintaining high levels of performance is Merix's use of self‐assessments and award criteria to receive valuable third‐party feedback. This has led the company to win several awards, including a 1996 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. This article describes how Merix integrates a self‐assessment strategy into its business and discusses the application of Shigeo Shingo's concepts to improve the company's manufacturing performance.
Enhancing corporate performance through quality‐driven pollution prevention
Authors: Mannion Richard F. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractCorporations realize that environmental compliance represents a significant percentage of total manufacturing costs. Increasingly, they are also realizing the fact that pollution is a process inefficiency that needs to be addressed proactively‐not a necessary cost of business to be dealt with at the end of the manufacturing cycle. By integrating its pollution prevention programs with a total quality environmental management concept, The Foxboro Company has obtained extraordinary results in its efforts to cut pollution and manufacturing costs and, thus, improve organizational performance.
The global transpark network: Creating an infrastructure support system for agile manufacturing
Authors: Kasarda John D. , Rondinelli Dennis A. , Ward John W. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn the coming century, the vitality and productivity of U.S. manufacturing will depend on the ability of corporations to compete successfully in rapidly changing global markets. Thus, a well‐planned infrastructure comprising the best in storage, transportation, telecommunications, and a host of commercial support services will have to be in place to bolster agile manufacturingThis article examines the types of infrastructure needed to support agile manufacturing by describing the North Carolina Global TransPark (GTP), a prototype project that combines all the systems that firms need to become more competitive in international markets. GTP is expected to be part of an exciting international network of 21st‐century manufacturing and transport complexes that ultimately will change the way U.S. companies compete in global markets.
Continuous improvement in the drive toward best‐in‐world manufacturing at ford electronics
Authors: Byrd Lisa R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractStand still for a moment and you'll be left in the dust by the competition in today's highly competitive, global manufacturing environment. Ford Motor Company's North Penn Electronics Facility has long recognized that the key to winning in its industry is continuous improvement in everything it does. This article details some of the major improvements North Penn achieved in quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction since the early 1990s, trends that have created a spirit of continuous improvement that permeates the organization and will carry it into the latter half of this decade and beyond.
Shared inquiry: Learning how to really succeed in business
Authors: Fricker Ronald D. , Wehrle Robert A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractPreparing today's students to become productive and successful members of tomorrow's workforce is a significant undertaking. Some organizations have tried to articulate the needs of the business community, but these efforts typically fail because they tend to speak 01 educators rather than to them in terms they can understand. This article examines some of the unique skill requirements essential for success in the current business environment and focuses on how these skills can be taught in today's education environment through the use of the shared inquiry technique. It also provides business leaders with advice on how to articulate these requirements to the academic world so that a bridge between the two communities can be established.
Start up for growth: The localmed experience
Authors: Mandeville Scott L. , Bajor Jordan 
Published: July 2007

AbstractLike many a start‐up company, LocalMed—a medical device manufacturer based in Palo Alto, California‐was born in the garage of its founder. But that is where the similarities with most start ups end. Nearly from day one, this company's visionary founders planned for the growth and future of their business in a highly organized and systematic manner. This strategy has enabled the firm to concentrate on producing a high‐quality product in a streamlined environment of efficiency.
The role of management intervention in the development of empowered work teams
Authors: Carroll Bob 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAlthough most organizations realize the value of organizing employees into productive work teams, they also know that, in so doing, they cannot abdicate their responsibilities as managers and leaders. But what does this mean in terms of day‐to‐day managerial performance and strategy? As this case study shows, organizations reap the most benefits from empowered work teams not by expertly managing them, but by taking the time and making the effort to teach them to properly manage themselves.
The three dominant cultures of the workplace
Authors: Fisher James R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractWorkplace culture has taken on a pivotal significance. Yet, it is too easily treated as though it were an interchangeable part in a machine. This has resulted in mass confusion, some bitterness, failed strategies, and misspent assets. Because workplace culture is slow to acknowledge, assimilate, and adapt to necessary changes, managers are often tempted to maintain the status quo, thereby causing little surface disruption—and leaving the organization vulnerable to the competition and incapable of meeting the challenges of the global marketThis article illustrates how three dominant workplace cultures have evolved in the American workplace and offers a detailed picture of their content and character, along with the consequences of their development. It also suggests some steps that might ease the transition to a more appropriate workplace culture and urges senior managers to become more deeply involved in cultural change issues that relate to work, workers, and the new workplace.
Teams need more than enthusiasm to succeed
Authors: Gittler Adam 
Published: July 2007

AbstractA month ago, Ron, Margaret, Paul, and John finished their team‐building skills training and were excited to begin cutting costs in their area. Their excitement gradually waned, however, and their production team coach became frustrated by his inability to secure the resources they needed; information, time to meet, engineering expertise, and management's attention. The plant manager had not told them how long the team would last, and they all silently wished the team would end the next day. They each earnestly wanted their team to succeed, so why couldn't it?
The rise and fall of Japanese productiuity
Authors: Arai Joji 
Published: July 2007

AbstractLong considered a leader in productivity improvement and the techniques to spur competitive advantage, Japan of late has been suffering from the effects of a stagnant economy. In this insightful interview, Joli Arai, secretary general of the International Productivity Service in Washington, DC. details how Japan rose to economic prominence following World War II and the events that led to Japan's current economic woes. Despite his homeland's present‐day challenges, Arai believes in the viability of the Japanese productivity model, and he paints an optimistic picture of Japan's future in the burgeoning Asian market.
Improuving productivity and profitablility round the clock
Authors: Penkala Don 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn most multishift operations, there is untapped potential for reducing costs, improving quality, and speeding throughput and delivery. The solution lies in aligning goals, developing cross‐shift teams, and improving organizational communications. This article outlines some strategies for improving round‐the‐clock performance while increasing job satisfaction for shift workers.