Report on Business Excellence Schemes

1.0 Introduction

This report, prepared by Brown & Pemberton Planning Group Ltd, identifies the range of business excellence schemes currently available in New Zealand. The research was focussed on identifying business excellence schemes that may be operated on a national or regional basis, but must be of assistance to a resource consent (RC) manager seeking to enhance team performance.

This report:

identifies a range of business excellence schemes available in New Zealand of particular relevance/use to the local government/planning sector
summarises those schemes and their attributes
identifies the business excellence awards available in New Zealand.

For the purpose of this report, the term 'RC manager ' is applied to the person in a council who is responsible for the overall management of its resource consent processing functions. It is acknowledged that an RC manager may also be responsible for other elements of RMA processes and other planning processes within a council. The term 'resource consent team ' is used for the team, unit or department within a council that undertakes resource consent processing.

1.1 Applicability of business excellence schemes to resource management

Business excellence may be defined as the use of quality management principles and tools in business management to systematically improve business performance and organisational growth. It is based on the principles of customer focus, stakeholder value, and process management.

Business excellence is relevant to the work of a resource consent team, and potentially other RMA processes, because many RMA processes are essentially process-driven, with the RMA specifying statutory timeframes and outputs (for example consents, plan changes, certificates of compliance etc) which are all legal documents. As with manufacturing and other process orientated industries, there is a desire to see errors, defects, waste and repetition minimised or eliminated. A business excellence scheme can assist with improving systems, procedures, process efficiencies, customer satisfaction and ensure higher quality results, all of which are desirable in the resource management field.

2.0 Identification of business excellence schemes

There are a number of widely recognised business excellence schemes or models. The schemes vary in terms of the breadth of matters looked at to improve processes. In general, the schemes summarised in this report involve determination, time and effort to implement, and should not be entered into lightly. Successfully implementing a business excellence scheme requires adequate staff and time resourcing and can benefit from being driven by an in-house 'champion' (which may not be the RC manager). Achieving buy-in from all staff in the business area is also critical to achieving the goals of a business excellence scheme. Staff need to understand what the scheme is about, why it's important, what it means for them, and how it can help them do their job better.

The schemes identified in sections 2.1-2.5 are appropriate for an entire local government organisation or can be adopted by just the RM department. Where the resource consent team interacts with other council departments, for example engineering comments may come from a separate council department, it may end up driving organisational change towards a focus on business excellence.

The seven key areas that business excellence schemes range over include:

leadership
strategic planning
customer and market focus
measurement, analysis and knowledge management
workforce focus
process management
business results.

In simple terms, the more areas looked at, the more complex the business excellence scheme. In New Zealand, resource consent processing performance has typically been assessed by measuring timeframes for processing consents. Under a business excellence framework, a local government RC manager in New Zealand would be expected to have a degree of involvement in all of the seven areas set out above, with assistance in certain areas, for example human resources for item 5. To be useful for an RC manager seeking to improve performance, the business excellence schemes also need to be:

available in New Zealand
appropriate for local government
appropriate for resource management processes.

The following five schemes meet these three criteria and have been reviewed:

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence
ISO 9001
Six Sigma
Lean Processing
Balanced Scorecard.

Figure 1 below illustrates the seven components listed, and the placement of the five schemes indicates which areas they cover:

Figure 1: Extent of Business Excellence Schemes

Leadership	Business Results	Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management	Workforce Focus
Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence Organisation wide
	ISO 9001 Focuses on quality & compliance of processes
Various Leadership & Strategy schemes		Six Sigma Focuses on process variation reduction
		Lean Processing Focuses on process variation reduction & customer satisfaction
	Balanced Scorecard Focuses on measurement
			Investors in People - Focuses on HR

We note that numerous individual leadership and strategic planning schemes are available in the area shown grey in columns one and two. However, these are more suited to the RM managers themselves, rather than the overall resource consent team performance, and therefore have not been included in this assessment.

Similarly, schemes with a human resources focus, such as Investors in People shown in column 7, relate almost entirely to the right hand column, and while valuable, were not considered to offer the type of product sought by an RC manager.

The five schemes are described below.

2.1 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence

As Figure 1 illustrates, the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (also commonly known as 'the Baldrige Model ' or 'the Criteria for Performance Excellence ') is more comprehensive than any other business improvement model. It provides a holistic framework to address every area of a business or organisation, and the relationships between key business functions. This framework is also used as the basis for over 70 other national business excellence awards around the world. The Baldrige framework thus works in harmony with other business improvement models. Its usefulness and popularity are reflected in section 3.0 which notes the two award programmes for business excellence in New Zealand both use the Baldrige criteria. New Zealand does not have its own unique business excellence model.

The Baldrige Model is the model behind the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, an award process administered by the American Society for Quality, and managed by the National Institute of Science and Technology, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce. The award is named after Malcolm Baldrige, who served as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until 1987. The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence represented the first clearly defined, and globally recognised, Total Quality Management (TQM) model.

The 11 core values of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence are:

visionary leadership
customer driven excellence
organisational and personal learning
valuing employees and partners
agility
focus on the future
managing for innovation
management by fact
social responsibility
focus on results and creating value
systems perspective

The criteria are designed to help organisations use an aligned approach to organisational performance management that results in the delivery of improving value to customers contributing to market success or, in the case of local government, robust, efficient and effective planning processes and community recognition of this. An improvement in overall organisational effectiveness and capabilities, and organisational and personal learning is also expected.

These 11 core values are then broken down into the seven categories shown in Figure 1, and listed below in 2.1.1. The seven criteria categories provide a systems perspective of the various elements essential to achieving performance excellence. The strength of the Baldrige Model is that it covers the whole range of organisational factors that can contribute to performance excellence. Unlike some of the other models reviewed (for example ISO 9001, Six Sigma and Lean Processing), it has not originated from the manufacturing industry but rather has been developed to apply to any type of organisation, including the service industry.

2.1.1 Summary of Baldrige model attributes

The model consists of the seven categories listed below as shown in Figure 1:

leadership
Strategic planning
customer and market focus
measurement, analysis and knowledge management
workforce focus
process management
business results

There are two New Zealand providers of Baldrige-related business excellence schemes:

The NZ Business Excellence Foundation
Business Excellence New Zealand

Both providers run a variety of programmes, workshops, seminars and other services at a range of different levels of involvement.

A council seeking to participate in a Baldrige-related business excellence scheme should contact:

the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (www.nzbef.co.nz) or
Business Excellence New Zealand (www.businessexcellence.co.nz).

2.2 IS0 9001:2000

The ISO 9000 series, including ISO 9001:2000, can simply be described as a 'family ' of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9001 is maintained by ISO, the International Organisation for Standardisation, and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. For example, Telarc Sai Ltd is a New Zealand ISO certifier.

The ISO standard provides a framework for organisations to coordinate and manage their quality activities and to gain independent recognition for their achievements through certification. Like the Baldrige criteria, an ISO certification can be compared internationally, which would be useful for a council seeking international comparison and recognition. A council or other organisation would implement ISO 9001 in order to:

meet customer and market requirements
gain a competitive advantage (for local government this could be in terms of how the resource consent team is viewed compared to other regulatory units within the organisation
improve their operational efficiency.

The standards were first published in 1987. The three previous standards, ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003 are now incorporated into the one standard, ISO 9001:2000, the latest revision. Quality management principles are the basis for ISO 9001:2000. There is a new emphasis on monitoring customer satisfaction, user friendly documentation, consistency between quality management systems requirements and guidelines, and promoting continual improvement.

Like many business excellence models, ISO 9001 originated to assist quality in manufacturing processes. However, as the list below indicates, the requirements in ISO 9001 can equally be applied to services such as the processing of resource consents. Requirements of ISO 9001 include:

developing a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business
monitoring processes to ensure they are effective
keeping adequate records
checking output for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary
regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and
facilitating continual improvement.

The quality management principles, which are certainly applicable to an RC manager, are:

Customer focus - Understanding existing and potential customer needs, meeting their requirements and striving to exceed their expectations.

Leadership - Establishing unity of purpose and direction of the organisation. Creating and maintaining the working environment in which people are fully involved in achieving the organisation 's objectives.

Involvement of people - Involving people fully at all levels of the organisation and using their abilities for the benefit of the organisation.

Process approach - Managing related resources and activities as a process. This involves the systematic identification and management of the various internal processes to achieve objectives.

System approach to management - Identifying, understanding and managing a system of interrelated processes for given objectives.

Continual improvement - Continually increasing the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the organisation; responding to customers ' growing needs and expectations; ensuring a dynamic evolution of the quality management system.

Factual approach to decision making - Basing decisions on the analysis of data and information balanced with experience and intuition.

Mutually beneficial supplier relationships - Establishing suppliers, for example engineers, landscape architects or other providers of specialist information, as an integral part of the organisation to create value through flexibility, speed and optimising costs and resources.

A common criticism of ISO 9001 is the amount of money, time and paperwork required for registration. Companies can often get bogged down in the documentation requirements. ISO 9001 has also been criticised as promoting specification, control and procedures rather than understanding and improvement. The standard is seen as especially prone to failure when a company is interested in certification before quality, which has happened in the manufacturing industry where large manufacturers have insisted their suppliers become ISO certified.

2.2.1 Summary of ISO 9001 model attributes

The model covers the four categories listed below as shown in Figure 1:

business results
measurement, analysis and knowledge management
process management
customer and market focus.

A council seeking to participate in an ISO 9001 programme should contact:

Telarc Sai Ltd (www.telarcsai.co.nz).

While not related to business excellence in a conventional sense, it is noted that the ISO 14000 family addresses 'environmental management '. This means what an organisation does to:

minimise harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities
achieve continual improvement of its environmental performance.

2.3 Six Sigma

The concept of 'Six Sigma Capability ', originally introduced at Motorola, has achieved increasing popularity in the business world. The idea behind Six Sigma is the notion that building business objectives on purely financial targets has little relationship to a long-term strategic vision. A Six Sigma strategy builds a measurement system that links financial and non-financial measures, and is now seen as a way of creating opportunities to improve organisational performance. While RC managers may not be expected to make a profit, they are expected to use ratepayers ' money wisely and achieve quality decisions.

As with ISO 9001, Six Sigma was originally developed as a set of practices designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects, but its application was subsequently extended to other types of business processes as well, including services. In Six Sigma, a defect is defined as anything that could lead to customer dissatisfaction, for example it could include mistakes in the final written decision of a resource consent requiring it to be re-issued (under s133A of the RMA).

Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, Total Quality Management, and Zero Defects. Like its predecessors, Six Sigma asserts that:

continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (ie, reduce process variation) are of vital importance to business success
manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be measured, analysed, improved and controlled
achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organisation, particularly from top-level management.

Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include:

a clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six Sigma project
an increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support
a special infrastructure of 'Champions ', 'Master Black Belts ', 'Black Belts ' etc. to lead and implement the Six Sigma approach
a clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data, rather than assumptions and guesswork.

Six Sigma is essentially a statistical idea that identifies the degree of variation present in a process with respect to the specification it is measured against. If a business is operated at a Six Sigma level of performance then 99.9997% of the product is within customer specified limits of acceptability. The lower the 'sigma level ', the lower the standard of operation.

The Six Sigma philosophy also looks at the bigger picture with the primary goal being to maximise performance and minimise cost. In a typical business, the cost of managing failure (effectively this is the cost of quality) represents approximately 25% of revenue. This large figure reflects the waste in terms of people, energy, customer handling, call centres, warranty, scrap, rework and the effects of customer dissatisfaction. Many organisations manage poor performance through manually intensive checking systems. Whilst these can protect the customer to some degree (at significant cost), they are still focussing on symptoms and not eliminating waste and the root causes of the issues.

The use of the Six Sigma approach has led to a strong focus on performance indicators over a broad range of elements of business strategy. The Six Sigma approach gives a unified approach to measurement that is understood by manufacturing, services and administration alike, relying on the assertion that 'what gets measured, gets managed '. In the RMA field, the time taken to process an application is easily measured, and this can become the focus of a RC manager. This can result on less focus on the actual quality of the resource consent produced as measuring the quality of the decision making is more difficult.

Six Sigma has also been applied to service industries. Six Sigma 's customer focus, significant cost savings through reduction of waste, ineffective transaction processes and customer dissatisfaction has made it very popular in the banking world.

The principles, concepts and basic tools of Six Sigma are becoming better known in New Zealand, but their implementation so far has been inconsistent. There is scope for this method to be used at the personal, departmental and corporate levels to improve performance.

2.3.1 Summary of Six Sigma model attributes

The model covers the two categories listed below as shown in Figure 1:

measurement, analysis and knowledge management
process management.

A council seeking to participate in a Six Sigma programme should contact:

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (www.nzbef.co.nz)
The Thornley Group (www.thornleygroup.co.nz).

Training key people as Six Sigma 'Black Belts ' and 'Green Belts ' is one of the first practical steps towards becoming a Six Sigma organisation. Training at this level will provide the toolkit necessary to create improved customer satisfaction, Six Sigma level defect delivery, cost efficient processes and a motivated workforce.

2.4 Lean Processing

Put simply, lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as 'Lean ' is the systematic approach of eliminating waste from processes so that every part of the process adds value to the customer. Lean is the optimal way of producing goods and services through the removal of waste and implementing the concept of 'flow ', as opposed to the traditional approach of 'batch and queue '.

In recent years, Six Sigma has sometimes been combined with lean manufacturing in order to yield a methodology known as 'Lean Six Sigma '. The two models share similarities arising from their manufacturing origins.

Lean manufacturing is essentially a management philosophy derived from the Toyota Production System. Toyota is renowned for its focus on waste reduction in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest car manufacturer, has focused attention on methods for achieving such success.

It refers to a way of working that enables maximum customer satisfaction while utilising the least amount of resources. This may seem to be common sense but like many business excellence approaches, there is more to implementation than meets the eye. There are many forms of waste that are not apparent at first sight. Lean organisations are those that successfully identify wastes and eliminate them. Lean is called 'Lean ' because it uses less capital, space, time, materials and people effort to deliver the highest quality and most economical products or services in the most responsive and flexible way.

Lean has, in recent years, been widely adopted by manufacturing and service industries in Europe and the United States. For decades, Lean principles have been used by Toyota and other high-volume manufacturers to great advantage, and in more recent times it has been instrumental in improving customer satisfaction, service delivery and reduced operating costs in thousands of organisations world wide. It has been applied in organisations of all sizes and has benefited both manufacturing and service industries as diverse as foundries and healthcare.

2.4.1 Summary of Lean Processing model attributes

The model covers the three categories listed below as shown in Figure 1:

measurement, analysis and knowledge management
process management
customer and market focus.

A council seeking to participate in a Lean Processing programme should contact:

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (www.nzbef.co.nz)
The Thornley Group (www.thornleygroup.co.nz )
Brilliant NZ (www.brilliantnz.com).

2.5 Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard is a framework, or strategic management system that aims to incorporate all quantitative and abstract measures of importance to an organisation, and specifically to assist managers to achieve future competitive success.

The Balanced Scorecard is a performance management tool. Although it helps focus managers' attention on strategic issues and managing the implementation of strategy, the Balanced Scorecard itself has no role in the formation of strategy. Balanced Scorecards can comfortably co-exist with strategic planning systems and other tools.

Implementing Balanced Scorecards typically includes four processes:

translating the vision into operational goals
communicating the vision and linking it to individual performance
business planning
feedback and learning, and adjusting the strategy accordingly.

The Balanced Scorecard is a management system that is used extensively in business, government and non-profit organisations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organisation, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organisation performance against strategic goals.

When introduced in the 1990s, the Balanced Scorecard, first proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1992; 1996), was an innovative approach to measuring a firm 's performance. Instead of just measuring the financial results of a firm, the causal factors for financial outcomes were identified and included in an expanded and 'balanced scorecard '. Others had previously proposed measuring organisational performance in non-financial terms, but this was the first time that performance measurement was proposed in a systematic way.

Prior to Balanced Scorecard, companies had already been measuring non-financial indicators such as customer satisfaction, cycle times, market shares, product quality and service quality. Resource consent teams often carry out this type of research, including applicant satisfaction surveys with a resource consent decision. The Balanced Scorecard, which was developed from a multi-company study, provides a multi-dimensional view of the company, linking financial and non-financial measures in a coherent system.

2.5.1 Summary of Balanced Scorecard model attributes

The model covers the two categories listed below as shown in Figure 1:

business results
measurement, analysis and knowledge management.

A council seeking to participate in a Balanced Scorecard programme should contact:

Frameworks (www.frameworks.co.nz)
New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (www.nzbef.co.nz).

3.0 Self-assessment for business excellence

Section 2.0 has identified a range of models that can be adopted to improve business performance. A manageable starting point for an RC manager seeking to improve team performance would be undertaking a self-assessment exercise to better understand where their team 's current performance sits within an established range.

Self-assessment is a key tool utilised by organisations to improve performance and capability. An organisation undertaking a self-assessment exercise will be able to:

identify where it currently fits within an established framework
identify strengths
identify opportunities for improvement
identify where to focus resources (prioritisation)
compare itself with other organisations and with best practice.

3.1 Self-assessment/benchmarking tools

While there are literally hundreds of benchmarking tools, the two identified below have been developed in New Zealand and would be a good starting point for an RC manager.

3.1.1 Benchmarking and Performance Excellence Self-Assessment

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF) (www.nzbef.co.nz) provides a range of assessment services that have been developed over time to suit the specific needs of different types and sizes of organisation. The assessment criteria have been developed in partnership with the Ministry of Economic Development and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and are aligned to and kept current with the US Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence framework. These criteria are also utilised for sectoral and regional Business Excellence Awards in New Zealand.

The NZBEF provides facilitated self-assessments from a half-day duration through to a full National Award simulation of three days. The foundation also provides in-house training for assessors when an organisation wishes to conduct its own assessments.

Self-assessment templates are available to NZBEF members free of charge. Additionally, benchmarking of results is provided utilising an extensive database of prior assessments within various business sectors. There is a comprehensive database of local authority assessments drawn from Award applications and stand alone assessments.

The Centre for Organisational Research at Massey University has developed a self-assessment pack with the support of the NZBEF. The design of this tool, called Benchmarking and Performance Excellence Self-Assessment (BPES) is based on the Criteria for Performance Excellence (otherwise known as Baldrige criteria) discussed in section 2.1. The BPES is updated every year to correspond to updates to the Baldrige criteria, and to be of specific help to New Zealand organisations.

The BPES is designed for use by all organisations whatever their size, structure or industry type. The BPES will enable to an organisation to rapidly:

establish the health of the organisation
benchmark the organisation 's performance against organisations from around the world
help to determine the actions required that will have most impact on improving an organisation 's performance.

3.1.2 Assessor

A deliberately low tech approach to self-assessment has been developed by New Zealand firm Pyxis Consulting (www.pyxis.co.nz). Called the 'Assessor ', the approach is a self-assessment card system that enables businesses to quickly recognise and work on areas that need improvement. The card-based nature of the assessment tool makes it suitable for the wide range of resource consent teams in councils throughout New Zealand.

The system is unique in that it is an interactive, card-based assessment system that is also time-efficient and affordable. It enables businesses to measure themselves against world-class organisations by showing how they achieve strategic goals through smarter execution, better aligned resources, improved communication and efficient processes.

4.0 Identification of business excellence awards

A distinction can be made between business excellence awards, and the scheme upon which they are based. New Zealand currently has two national quality award programmes in place, both of which use the Baldrige criteria discussed in section 2.1. These awards recognise companies or organisations that have adopted the Baldrige criteria.

4.1. New Zealand Business Excellence Awards

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF) is based in Auckland and administers the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards, which recognise the top performing organisations in New Zealand. Applicants come from both public and private sector and entry is available to all New Zealand businesses. Applicants are assessed under the same stringent conditions and are evaluated in a similar manner to the prestigious US Malcolm Baldrige Award. This award is internationally recognised and respected.

Award applicants have their organisation assessed by a team of trained national evaluators. At the end of the evaluation process, a comprehensive feedback report is provided, which includes applicants ' current strengths and opportunities for improvement. Applicants are also provided with a score of their current performance. The advantage of using the Baldrige criteria is that the score allows comparison with organisations nationally and internationally.

Applications need to respond to the Criteria for Performance Excellence. The criteria are built upon the set of eleven inter-related core values set out in section 2.1. From these eleven core values, seven criteria categories provide an overall 'systems perspective ' of the elements essential to achieving business excellence.

Further information on the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards can be found on the NZBEF website: (www.nzbef.org.nz).

4.2 Performance Excellence Study Awards

The Performance Excellence Study Awards (PESA) are managed by Wellington-based Business Excellence New Zealand. The awards are sponsored by the New Zealand government and New Zealand businesses to promote the use of performance excellence criteria in New Zealand. The awards have been running since 1993.

The PESA criteria are the internationally recognised Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria. Baldrige-trained assessors provide all PESA applicants with independent written feedback on their application. The assessment criteria for the awards continue to evolve in line with international best practice, while remaining aligned to the Baldrige criteria. The benefits of using the PESA criteria are well recognised, and the annual updating process against the Baldrige criteria ensures that New Zealand organisations remain aligned with international best practice. An annual PESA study visit to the United States of America is also available for award applicants.

Further information on the Performance Excellence Study Awards can be found on the Business Excellence New Zealand website: (www.businessexcellence.co.nz)

4.3 Regional Business Excellence Awards

Regional and district based chambers of commerce also frequently offer an annual award, or a range of awards, often specifically related to business excellence. The links below are to the major chambers of commerce throughout New Zealand. Nearly every chamber 's website provides information on its award(s) and past winners. Additional city or district based chambers of commerce that are not listed below may also offer awards:

Northland - www.northlandbusinessawards.co.nz
Auckland - www.aucklandchamber.co.nz
Bay of Plenty -www.rotchamber.co.nz
Waikato - www.beawards.co.nz/
Gisborne - www.gisborne.org.nz
Taranaki - www.taranakichamber.co.nz/
Hawke 's Bay - www.hawkesbaychamber.co.nz/Business_Awards_28.aspx
Manawatu - www.manawatuchamber.co.nz
Wanganui - www.wanganuichamber.co.nz
Wellington - www.wgtn-chamber.co.nz
Hutt Valley - www.hutt-chamber.org.nz
Nelson Tasman - www.commerce.org.nz/nelson/awards/
Marlborough - www.mcoc.org.nz/awards.asp
Canterbury/West Coast - www.cecc.org.nz
South Canterbury - www.scchamber.org.nz
Otago - www.otagochamber.co.nz
Queenstown - www.queenstownchamber.org.nz
Southland - www.commercesouth.com

5.0 Training opportunities

Various training opportunities are available for an RC manager seeking to learn more about business excellence. A selection of relevant tertiary-level courses has been identified below. Courses range from one day to a semester or graduate diploma. Section 5.2 lists suitable short courses that are more industry led, with delivery often occurring at the workplace. Section 5.3 lists reading further sources of information on business excellence.

5.1 Tertiary training opportunities

University of Auckland

Short course, Graduate School of Enterprise - Business Process Improvement. Includes the Baldrige criteria. Currently available. http://www.shortcourses.auckland.ac.nz/courses/65/

Short course, Graduate School of Enterprise - Performance Excellence for World Class Organisations. Not currently available. http://www.shortcourses.auckland.ac.nz/courses/116/

Short course, Graduate School of Enterprise - Lean Manufacturing. Not currently available. http://www.shortcourses.auckland.ac.nz/courses/295/

Massey University

Graduate Diploma in Quality Systems (GradDipQualSystems). Available extramurally. One year full-time study, usually taken part time over four years. http://extramural.massey.ac.nz/massey/study/programme-course-and-paper-search/programme.cfm?prog_id=92244

Graduate Diploma in Business Studies (GradDipBusStuds). Available extramurally. http://extramural.massey.ac.nz/massey/study/programme-course-and-paper-search/programme.cfm?prog_id=92761

Massey University also hosts the Centre for Organisational Research (COER), which undertakes benchmarking and business excellence research and consultancy. The COER runs the website www.BPIR.com, which is the knowledge transfer mechanism for best practice sharing. http://www.coer.org.nz/

Victoria University

Business Benefits Realisation. One-day workshop: learn how to put together and deliver a performance strategy for the organisation that can allow you to track programme and project outputs and outcomes that ensure planned benefits are ultimately realised. http://ceed.vuw.ac.nz/(j3lgasb2gf05bqiussvd2na3)/course.aspx?portfolio=professional&cid=362

University of Canterbury

MBAD 651 - Managing Quality. A paper that forms part of an MBA programme. The course focuses on the design, implementation and continuous improvement of quality management systems. This course provides participants with a sound understanding of the concepts and philosophy of quality management and with the ISO accreditation process. http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/courseinfo/GetCourseDetails.aspx?course=MBAD651&occurrence=08M3%20(C)&year=2008

University of Otago

MANT 333 - Quality and Operational Excellence. A paper that forms part of a Bachelor of Commerce. This is an 18-point paper that provides students with an understanding of the principles and philosophies of quality management and operational excellence. Tools and techniques used to improve quality, and popular practices used to improve product, process and service quality levels are examined. Places quality management theory within the context of application and practice. http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/mgmt/study/mantpapers.asp?papercode=mant333

5.2 Short training courses

The following short training courses have been identified as suitable for RC managers seeking to increase their knowledge of business excellence either personally or for their resource consent team.

5.2.1 New Zealand Organisation for Quality

The New Zealand Organisation for Quality offers the courses below for in-house training, or the development of programmes to meet specific training requirements. Price is subject to negotiation. Refer to www.nzoq.org.nz for further information.

Certificate in Quality Assurance - The programme covers the principles and practices of quality management and quality systems and explores the tools and techniques used in developing and implementing a quality approach into an organisation. It involves an internal assessment component.

Quality Systems Auditing - This five day workshop is intended for people with a sound background in quality systems who wish to become involved in second party (supplier) or third party (certification) audits. This course meets the training requirements component for both the JASANZ and IATCA approved auditor registration programme operated by the Quality Society of Australasia.

Internal Auditor Training - This two day workshop is for those familiar with the basics of quality management systems wishing to gain the knowledge and skill necessary to conduct internal quality systems audits within their own organisation.

Quality Management: Practical Skills - This course has been developed to provide a practical application of quality to the workplace, resulting in increased efficiencies, reduced risks, and improved products and service to internal and external customers.

5.2.2 New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation

The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF) has a wide range of training options which are delivered via public courses or in-house courses tailored to fit particular needs. The courses are designed to provide an understanding of the fundamentals of business excellence, the characteristics of world-class organisations, the use of quality tools, how to assess your organisation against the best practice framework and how to prioritise and turn opportunities for improvement into action. The majority of the training delivered by NZBEF is in-house. Available courses include:

Implementing Benchmarking - Learn how to plan and undertake benchmarking as a strategic and operational tool to accelerate improvement, including studying real life cases and by participating in simulated benchmarking on real topics/projects.

Implementing Six Sigma - Many organisations strive to effectively apply the principles of Six Sigma in an operating framework and sustain ongoing benefits. This workshop will demonstrate how to apply and implement Six Sigma and to maintain the momentum.

Implementing Organisational Self-assessment - Learn how to plan and undertake organisational self-assessment from a suitable framework of excellence for effective and sustainable improvement

Introduction to Business Excellence - An introduction to business excellence as a concept, the various improvement methodologies available, and how to initiate a business improvement programme for an organisation.

Quality Tools - This course will assist participants to identify and understand common quality tools and their uses and to practice using them in group workshops.

Self-assessment and Planning for Improvement - Examines self-assessment as a key organisational improvement tool, the various options available and how to go about conducting an assessment.

Defining, Managing and Improving Processes - This workshop is a mix of practical application of a proven range of processing mapping, process control and process improvement tools. The course content draws from three essential publications: Process Redesign, the Memory Jogger and the NZ Criteria for Performance Excellence.

Champions for Change - This course recognises that, at times, one person within the organisation becomes the 'Change Agent': the individual who is charged with orchestrating the quality initiative. This course provides preparation and advice so a participant can make a great contribution to the success of their organisation.

NZBEF provides:

consultancy advice, training and accreditation for Six Sigma trainees. The NZBEF also runs in-house workshops for organisations on how to effectively apply the principles of Six Sigma in an operating framework and sustain the ongoing benefits
consultancy, advise and training in Lean Processing
consultancy, advice and training for the development of Balanced Scorecards.

5.2.3 Business Excellence New Zealand

Business Excellence New Zealand offers Performance Excellence Criteria In-house Workshops for organisations throughout New Zealand. The workshops include examples from businesses of how to achieve improved results. The sessions are designed for organisations to improve their results on an ongoing basis. These practical four-hour workshops clearly explain:

what businesses need to do day to day to achieve excellent ongoing results
how to implement techniques to achieve improved results on a sustainable basis.

The workshop agenda includes:

training on the Performance Excellence Criteria and how to implement them
an on-the-spot assessment of how your organisation is currently performing
how to apply for the Performance Excellence Study Awards

5.3 Further reading

The following books are recommended for further reading on business excellence:

Foster, S. T. (2007). Managing Quality: Integrating the Supply Chain (3rd Ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Brown, M.G (2007). The Pocket Guide to the Baldrige Criteria. United States: Productivity Press.

Marash, S. (2004). Fusion Management - Harnessing the Power of Six Sigma, Lean, ISO, 9001:2000, Malcolm Baldrige, TQM, and Other Quality Breakthroughs of the Past Century. United States: American Diabetes Society.

The website www.bpir.com also provides a range of free articles and research on business excellence. Subscribing to the website provides full access.

6.0 Conclusion

Research has identified a spectrum of seven areas over which business excellence schemes extend. In simple terms, the more of the spectrum covered, the more comprehensive the scheme. Five schemes were identified as being suitable for use by RC managers seeking to improve their team 's performance.

The most comprehensive approach is the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, upon which the two New Zealand awards are based. The Baldrige criteria have the advantage of being able to be compared internationally, as does the ISO 9001 standard. The Six Sigma and Lean Processing models have their origins in industrial manufacturing and processing, and are more suited to such processes; however they can be extended to the service industry with their focus on waste reduction. Balanced Scorecard is an approach that seeks to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organisation, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organisation performance against strategic goals. All of the five models reviewed would be of assistance to a RC manager seeking to improve their team 's performance. The best starting point could be an in-house training session run by the NZ Business Excellence Foundation or Business Excellence New Zealand.