ADMINISTRATIVE AND

SUPPORT OPERATIONS

1
 INTRODUCTION

lity “movement,” attention was devoted predominantly to those activities which mos

ivities is normally located in “staff” or administrative functions, such as Financ

ature, the role of all administrative and support activities is to support the re

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 INTRODUCTION

me change relates to the processes of administrative and support work, some to th

sing the tools of quality management and are often significantly improved.

taken and old operations are eliminated or transferred to other organizational un

t of the organization change—and new roles and relationships emerge—as administ

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 INTRODUCTION

ked at as occurring in three related areas: administering the internal activities

Administrative activities involve processes that affect primarily or exclusively

systems and plant maintenance—that enable the organization’s members to do work

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 INTRODUCTION

s analysts.

or quality that has not been quantified is the interference in the organization’s

and so on.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OGRESS IN ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVIC

hundreds a month to one or two, cycle time to complete credit analyses or to dra

final inspection of completed products and then quality assurance during product

t” activities.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OGRESS IN ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVIC

em-solving activities.”
ng.”
oriented,” all departments are involved. Although he cites only design, manufactur

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OGRESS IN ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVIC

her suppliers. These internal suppliers were not exposed to a clear competitive w

ertness to the profit impacts of administrative and support operations, a lack of

between product quality and cost and organizational profitability and competitiv

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OGRESS IN ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVIC

a widely held belief was that companies could not “do quality” in finance, in mark

and profitable. Training and consulting resources for improvement inside and outsi

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OGRESS IN ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVIC

ations and contributing to the much more aggressive adoption of quality approache

choice of making dramatic improvements in quality, cycle time, and cost-effectiven

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CHANGES FROM QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES

e of improvement that is moderately “special” to administrative and support opera

ations may be grouped into three broad and well-recognized categories:

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CHANGES FROM QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES

portunities for improvement. While some activities in the unit already may be cons

e found to add little or no value. When these changes are quite large in scope an

r parts of the organization.

ity improvement initiatives, many finance functions find that they are producing

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CHANGES FROM QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES

transformations that alter the ways individuals and groups work together. These ch

unit itself that eliminates the non value-adding work, although the external cust

r units, internal audit inspections and requirements for changes that can be oner

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CHANGES FROM QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES

alue in improving customer service.

nization. Administratively imposed requirements, such as unnecessary reports to st

ly have that opportunity.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CHANGES FROM QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICES

stimuli that encourage rapid progress in administrative and support areas. The st

strative and support functions rise.

ues actually work in their own company (reducing the “not invented here” syndrome)

uality consultants within the company.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
RNAL AUDIT : AN EXAMPLE OF PROFOUND CHANGES IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERAT

st, internal audit can be looked at as the quality control unit of the management

r parts of the organization to modify the ways they work, resulting in marked add

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

ry brief form, they are “Identify the customers and their needs. Develop a product

comparatively low power of customers to demand quality improvements, and the rela

ional process re-engineering projects.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

operations are expected. Motorola’s series of 10X and 100X defect-reduction goals

cale improvement. Early administrative and support functions benchmarked were the

sed to many of the skills of quality improvement. They experience first hand succe

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

arts, cause-and-effect diagrams, control charts, and scatter diagrams) in administra

itigate the effects of the root causes—permanently improving process performance

ng improving quality, reducing costs, involving and developing people, training in

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

es called kaizen and the large-scale, discontinuous improvements usually called re

ce. The discontinuous efforts are usually biased toward radical gain through radi

improved but still familiar process. Second, the organizational changes required

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

improvement efforts. Since collecting organizational data involves numerous repeti

his repetitive corporate activity and freed up resources for use in activities th

their traditional accounting-based measurement systems to capture and disseminate

ple earlier. These changes have moved these audit groups from their traditional r

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

ed basis. Human resources functions play key roles in enabling organizations to a

nsformation because the function is actively involved in designing and administer

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

or recruits with interest and skills in teamwork, problem solving, and quality imp

er and peer evaluations, placing greater emphasis on team and organizational goals

organizational incentives rather than individual incentives, emphasizing nonfina

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

raining provided to all employees every year, preparing for cross- and interfuncti

training in leadership, self-leadership, and self-management.

R’s traditional preoccupation with routine personnel activities, training employee

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

is placed on selection and development. HR professionals shift their emphasis to

plexity, eliminate unnecessary work, simplify and streamline communications and co

such as electronic data interchange between the organization and its customers, s

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

ys.

emplate saved time and increased the likelihood that the application would be acc

with additional time taken in the critical parts of drafting of claims and defini

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

tance, moving from dispute resolution to dispute avoidance, establishing a matrix

es two major approaches to resolving disagreements: one involves adjudicatory proc

ts in the future.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

central database accessible to all parts of the organization, and customized rep

ent sets priorities and allocates resources to improve customer satisfaction.

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
OTHER EXAMPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

mpetitive advantage. Federal Express learned to see its service as going beyond pa

mers are reacquired each period, to a long-term approach that creates loyal buyers

d Xerox now expect, and sometimes demand, that their suppliers meet increasingly h

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS
 CONCLUSION

ns in administrative and support areas are often as great as opportunities elsewh

t of new services, and the elimination of burdens placed on customers and supplier

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Sec 26 ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT OPERATIONS