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Focused Operations Management shows how to do much more with existing resources in terms of throughput, response time and quality. It provides a system view and will touch upon performance measures, operations management, quality, cost-accounting, pricing, and above all, value creation and value enhancement.
Focused Operations Management for Health Services Organizations offers managers and staff the practical knowledge and tools they need to accomplish much more within existing resources. This text identifies common bottlenecks and constraints and focuses on the critical issues and processes faced by managers in the health care field. The book provides tools to significantly improve organizational operations as well as enhance quality and customer satisfaction without increasing the use of physical, human, and financial resources.
In an educational context where school and district performance is of increasing focus, it’s essential for leaders at all levels of the educational system to focus on improving student performance. This volume zeros in on a promising set of strategies and practices for all leaders to motivate, support, and sustain learning in contemporary schools. Learning-Focused Leadership in Action explores what it means for educational leadership to be "learning-focused," what this looks like in practice at both the school and district level, and how such leadership changes can be set in motion. Drawing on extensive case study research in schools and districts that are making progress on learning improvement, this volume explores how leaders at all levels of the educational system can productively seek to improve the quality of learning opportunities and student performance, no matter how challenging the circumstances.
The global economy is witnessing previously unseen levels of competitiveness, forcing business leaders to contend with unprecedented challenges. No longer can companies seize and hold a customer base by operating adequately. In order to enjoy a competitive advantage, an organization must operate at exemplary levels of performance in every facet of business and maintain that degree of excellence indefinitely. This is achieved through careful alignment of operational systems and the use of innovative process management initiatives. “Unless an organization is uniquely qualified to deal with its customers by understanding its own strengths and weakness,” writes internationally renowned operational management expert Christopher K. Ahoy, “it will be unable to understand what is required to move from the current paradigm of doing business.” In Customer-Driven Operations Management, Ahoy distills the most current business theories and practices that will help you weed out and eliminate operational inefficiencies and put in place the necessary metrics for providing products and services better, cheaper, and faster than ever. Ahoy walks you through the steps of creating a world-class organization, which include Mapping your company's processes to target weak points Realigning management systems from functional to process-focused Setting benchmarks throughout the process to help quantify levels of success Establish a system of knowledge management for the seamless alignment of teams and departments Improving process management using Lean, Six Sigma, and other methodologies Create a sound strategic planning initiative to eliminate future surprises With diagrams and figures to highlight salient points, Customer-Driven Operations Management clarifies and simplifies the otherwise daunting task of enacting major changes in your company's operations systems.
ïAs the services sector has become the most important sector of many of our economies, this book makes a valued contribution to our greater understanding of what features are critical to operational success in this sector. Based upon sound research and drawing on numerous cases studies, the author has delivered an expose that will be of value to academics and practitioners alike. From a long career in the field, the author has distilled critical content into a well-organised book that is a must for students and practitioners in services operations management. It is welcoming to read of service operations management in the not-for-profit and public sectors.Í _ Peter Liesch, University of Queensland Business School, Brisbane, Australia ïDavid has captured the essentials of service operations within a complete enterprise framework. Based upon case studies from a broad variety of organizations from around the globe, this easy to understand text is a must for students and practitioners alike. Students of service operations and indeed services marketing have been long awaiting a reference such as this.Í _ Derek Lundberg, Metcash Food & Grocery ïThe author recognizes the critical fact that service operations is worlds apart from manufacturing operations management that produces tangible products _ a failing of so many other texts that have drawn on yesteryear manufacturing paradigms to try and explain services. This book succeeds in combining operational analysis with the empirical research to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the forces that shape and change the service sectors. Drawing on a wealth of information by virtue of his track record of many years researching the service sectors, this book will be invaluable to both students, practitioners and anyone interested in successful service operations _ tourism, hospitality, transport, retailing, utilities, not for profit, public service.Í _ George Downie, Senior Lecturer, Southampton Business School, UK ïThis is an important book for educators, students and professional managers. As the services sector becomes a larger and increasingly pervasive part of our economy and as service operations management becomes the biggest part of most organizations, the opportunity to increase productivity, quality, flexibility and innovation of service provision must be grasped firmly by those who want their organizations to remain competitive and successful. This book very effectively blends conceptual frameworks with new, practical case studies. It is full of valuable and useful insights.Í _ Danny Samson, University of Melbourne, Australia This comprehensive textbook will become required reading for postgraduate students seeking to understand the principles of service operations management and for undergraduate students specializing in hospitality, tourism or the public sector. It will also serve as a handbook for operations managers in service organizations as they seek to develop and implement improved operations strategies. Focusing on service delivery design, capacity, recovery, performance measurement and service strategy, the challenge of delivering exceptional service quality is addressed through a comparison of customersÍ perceptions and expectations. A new approach to quality in services describes the tools and methods for continuous service improvement. This accessible and engaging textbook is the ideal foundation for a course in service operations management. Each chapter: - ' represents a lecture and specific topic _ with specified learning objectives and outcomes ' develops using a ïchunking and scaffoldÍ pedagogical technique _ sub-sections in the chapter develop the chapterÍs theme ' includes examples of organizations and small case-vignettes suitable for class/group discussion and larger cases of international organizations for set-work activity ' draws upon contemporary research with clear citations to show the source _ each chapter has a bibliography and reference list ' includes a series of questions that can be asked of the audience/students _ either to promote discussion or to be set as an assignment See the companion website _ INCLUDE LINK _ for an Instructor Resource Guide and PowerPoint slides, with tips for activities and as a general guide to explore issues raised in the book.
Supply Chain Strategies: Customer Driven and Customer Focused highlights the main challenges facing organizations wanting to select, design and implement successful supply chain strategies in an increasingly global and competitive environment. The text features discussion questions at the end of each chapter to promote learning, and numerous industry examples to ilustrate key concepts within chapters. Each chapter discusses the issues in relation to previous literature, contemporary practices and the lesson to be learned from different industries where successful management of supply chains has improved organizational and industry level profitability. The text includes a number of industry examples, thereby giving a wide-ranging approach to the topic.
A Powerful New Approach to Performance Management from the Creators of the Balanced Scorecard In Today's business environment, strategy has never been more important. Yet research shows that most companies fail to execute strategy successfully. Behind this abysmal track record lies an undeniable fact: many companies continue to use management processes-top-down, financially driven, and tactical-that were designed to run yesterday's organizations. Now, the creators of the revolutionary performance management tool called the Balanced Scorecard introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from more than twenty in-depth case studies-including Mobil, CIGNA, Nova Scotia Power, and AT and T Canada-Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their ground-breaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of key management processes and systems. Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building Strategy-Focused Organizations: (1) translate the strategy to operational terms, (2) align the organization to the strategy, (3) make strategy everyone's everyday job, (4) make strategy a continual process, and (5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements. Presenting a practical, proven framework steeped in rich case study experience, The Strategy-Focused Organization helps solve a universal management problem-not just how to formulate strategy, but how to make it work. Building on one of the most revolutionary business ideas of our time, this important book shows how today's leaders can shape their own companies to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a new competitive era.
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement, PROFES 2016, held in Trondheim, Norway, in November 2016. The 24 revised full papers presented together with 21 short papers, 1 keynote, 3 invited papers, 5 workshop papers. 2 doctoral symposium papers, and 6 tutorials were carefully reviewed and selected from 82 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Early Phases in Software Engineering; Organizational Models; Architecture; Methods and Tools; Verification and Validation; Process Improvement; Speed and Agility in System Engineering; Requirements and Quality; Process and Repository Mining; Business Value and Benefits; Emerging Research Topics; and Future of Computing.
