Business Excellence - achieving best practice:
Most businesses cannot afford waste, yet
everyday large quantities of cash are lost through
inappropriate or poorly managed processes.
These inefficiencies permeate every aspect of the business
from product design through sales and production and finally
on to product support. In the ‘90s there were major advances
within large manufacturing companies resulting in dramatic
improvements. Similar advantages can be had by small and
medium- sized manufacturers and service providers using the
proven techniques of Business Excellence. Following the
Business Excellence route can be challenging but the effect on
a business can be truly amazing.
Small and medium sized businesses often think that they are
too small to need "world-class" techniques. The questions to
ask yourself are i) can I afford to waste money ? ii) why not
have the best possible processes?
What is Business Excellence ?:
The simplest definition is,
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"..
doing the simple things perfectly frees up time
and money to spend on the more complex issues.." |
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In reality Business Excellence is a whole
range of techniques that improve the efficiency of various
processes within the business. The real benefits occur when
every part of the business strives to be perfect and ensures
that it never passes on a known problem. When all the parts of
a business work in this manner the overall effect is amazing,
resulting in improvements that few people would think possible
until they have experienced it.
Over the years a large number of techniques
have been developed to improve the effectiveness of an
organization. These techniques can be pulled together under the generic
title of “business excellence” or “world-class operations”.
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Strategic planning
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Active communication with stakeholders
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Personnel development
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Total Quality Management
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Lean enterprise approaches
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Appropriate ERP/MRP II implementation
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Sales and Operation planning
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Data accuracy
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Activity based management
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Supplier relationships
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Although the individual techniques are well
documented and can be shown to operate well within a closed
unit, the combination of these approaches to produce an
effective overall system is highly dependent on the individual
operation. Thus to be successful “business excellence” needs
to be implemented as a custom solution matched to the
requirements of the individual business |
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