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MSQPC, the Mid-South Quality Productivity Center, was the subject of
praise in a recent article appearing in The Commercial Appeal.
Five Firms win best-at awards
Excerpts from The Commercial Appeal, Sunday, August 24, 1997. By
Kevin McKenzie. © The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN. Used with
permission.
Corporations may scour the globe searching for the best examples
of how to run a business, but Memphians can find examples of best
practices in their own backyard. At least, that's the view of a
local organization, MSQPC - The Quality Center. As proof, the Center
is starting "best practices" tours that will highlight selected
processes at five very different organizations. Tours beginning in
September will shine the light on best practices at Federal Express,
Harrah's Entertainment, Smith & Nephew, St. Jude Children's Research
Hospital and Saturn corporations. Saturn's automobile manufacturing
site is in Spring Hill, Tenn., about 215 miles east of Memphis, but
it is being adopted for the tours.
"We think Memphis is a best practice city," said Donald C.
Fisher, executive director of The Quality Center, formerly known as
the Mid-South Quality-Productivity Center. "We honestly do think
that the story is not told about Memphis. We have some really
best-practice organizations here," Fisher said.
Instead of hiding their secrets to success, these organizations
are sharing the steps they take that make them outstanding models in
various ways. The practice of teams at Saturn, human resource
management at Harrah's, workforce development at Smith & Nephew,
employee recognition at FedEx and fund-raising at St. Jude are
examples of the processes to be displayed. Tours of the
organizations will focus on at least four best practices at each
one. Any company, regardless of its service or product, can learn
from the best practices of another, Fisher said.
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Hospitals' patient care and hotels' guest care, he said for example,
may both benefit by surveying customers. "In manufacturing, you can
apply some of the human relations management and some of the
training initiatives that Harrah's is doing or FedEx is doing. So
it's just such a crossover that is really neat because a few years
ago people couldn't think out of the box. They couldn't cross over,"
Fisher said. The center's best-practices tours are themselves an
example of creative thinking.
Lisa Higgins, director of bench-marking for the American
Productivity & Quality Center in Houston, said she knows of a fellow
in Europe who takes British groups and an organization in Korea that
takes Koreans on best-practice tours in the United States. Similar
tours in a local area seem to be a relatively new twist.
Benchmarking, Higgins said, is the process used to identify best
practices. No organization can be the best at everything. Those that
want to change and improve - and survive - learn from others, she
said. "You can be of the old school that says we're going to figure
it out for ourselves," Higgins said. "Or you can be of the school
that says I think we'll learn from somebody who has already done it
and therefore reduce cycle time in being great at it."
Generally speaking, one company isn't usually a model of best
practices in several areas, Higgins said. Purists reserve the
best-practice label for only the best. "There's a difference between
truly quantified best practices and best practice tourism," she
said. "It's hard to be good at baseball, football, soccer and
volleyball all at the same time. It takes too much attention.
Because if you don't practice, you're not going to get good."
For example, APQC recently visited Smith & Nephew in Memphis
after a customer of the medical device and implant manufacturer
suggested it is a best-practice company. The Houston organization
agreed that Smith |
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& Nephew is very good in a couple areas, she said, order fulfillment
being one of them.
The Quality Center's best practices tour of Smith & Nephew will
spotlight a broader list, including the firm's workforce
development, best manufacturing practices, community involvement and
leadership involvement.
Best practices at FedEx to be highlighted by the local tour include
the Memphis-based company's use of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award standards as an internal assessment for an organization. Even
though FedEx won the Baldrige award in, 1990, Higgins did not agree
the company is the best at using the Baldrige for internal
assessment."They are in my mind definitely not the best. There's
a whole lot more that are more mature and more sophisticated," she
said. Purists, Higgins said, could be satisfied with a name change.
Instead of best-practices tours, call them "successfully
demonstrated" practices. Fisher, noting that the Memphis
best-practices tour is an outside-of-the-box or creative idea,
wasn't surprised at a purist's comments.
The organizations selected for tours have national or
international reputations for their highlighted processes, he said.
Fisher is in a good position to know about such things. As a judge
for the 1997 President's Quality Award Program, he helped choose
outstanding agencies within the federal government. He has also been
a judge for the Rochester Institute of Technology/USA Today Quality
Cup Award and a veteran examiner for the national Baldrige award (he
has authored or co-authored five books on using the Baldrige
criteria to assess an organization).
Internationally, he's helping the island nation of Mauritius
practice quality and helped conduct a seminar in Malaysia. In
Tennessee, he's been a board member and judge for the Tennessee
Quality Award program and has trained the examiners for the Greater
Memphis Award for Quality. (More ...)
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