De http://www.bportugal.pt/pt-PT/Estatisticas/PublicacoesEstatisticas/BolEstatistico/Publicacoes/4-produtividade%20custos%20laborais.pdf

A evolução dos custos do trabalho na Alemanha contrasta com a evolução nos restantes países europeus podendo explicar uma parte importante do bom funcionamento atual da economia alemã.

De http://www.gpeari.min-financas.pt/analise-economica/publicacoes/ficheiros-do-bmep/dezembro-de-2010/em-analise/Artigo-5-Competitividade-desequilibrios-da.pdf

Neste artigo e neste indicador são retirados valores de contribuições sociais que distorcem os valores apresentados e torna-se evidente que em 10 anos o custo unitário do trabalho  separa-se em 25 pontos entre Portugal e a Alemanha.

Em http://economicofinanceiro.blogspot.com/2011/06/quanto-sera-preciso-diminuir-os-custos.html apontam o mesmo gráfico para chegar a conclusões parecidas.

Com este gráfico do mesmo artigo é possível ver que o efeito combinado do aumento das remunerações e da produtividade em termos dos custos.

E por fim ver o impato da competitividade dos países.

O artigo refere ainda que “existem outros factores que determinam a evolução do desempenho das exportações. Entre estes, citam-se, por exemplo, a qualidade dos bens e serviços produzidos, o grau de especialização das exportações em termos sectoriais ou regionais e o acesso por parte das PME aos mercados de exportação.”

A produtividade é um palavrão com que os neoliberais, ministros, e ptrões, enchem a boca e os ouvidos dos portugueses. Para esta gente os portugueses não são produtivos porque são calões, preguiçosos e esforçam-se muito pouco no trabalho.

Será que a produtividade é mesmo sinónimo de trabalho árduo?

Um exemplo clássico demonstra claramente que não.

Um trabalhador munido de um sacho pode plantar em 8 horas de trabalho árduo 1 ha de milho. Se dermos, a esse mesmo trabalhador, um tractor com um semeador automático ele poderá cultivar 15 ha de milho nesse mesmo tempo. Temos assim que o trabalhador em causa ficou 15 vezes mais produtivo com muito menos esforço. O que dizemos aqui para um trabalhador rural serve para qualquer tipo de profissão – produtor de sapatos, escriturário, vendedor ou contabilista, ou seja, a produtividade de uma dada actividade depende fundamentalmente do tipo de processo produtivo que se utiliza.

Dizemos fundamentalmente porque é do processo produtivo que depende não só a produtividade do trabalho mas também a organização do trabalho, o melhor ou pior aproveitamento das matérias-primas e da energia, dependendo ainda dele o nível de poluição que provocamos. O elemento trabalhador tem aqui uma reduzida influência, mais que não seja porque o chefe não o deixa por pé em ramo verde!

Fica assim claro que por muito esforçados que sejam os trabalhadores de uma empresa eles só poderão ter um nível de produtividade idêntico ao de outra empresa que trabalhe na mesma actividade se os processos produtivos forem similares.

Desta forma não deveríamos poder comparar a produtividade de uma empresa construtora de automóveis, fortemente automatizada e até robotizada com uma oficina de automóveis.

Cada actividade tem, portanto, um determinado nível de produtividade máxima (que é função do melhor processo produtivo existente, em dado momento, para essa actividade) e que é diferente de actividade para actividade. Melhorias organizativas ou tecnológicas no processo produtivo conduzem a aumentos de produtividade fixando-se esta a um nível superior.

Porque a medida quantidade não facilitava a comparação entre actividades diferentes (importante para que os detentores de capital pudessem saber quais as actividades que possibilitavam uma maior produtividade a fim de para elas canalizarem os seus capitais) a produtividade passou a ser calculada em termos de moeda, foi monetarizada. Valor de produção versus custo dos factores utilizados nessa mesma produção.

Parece a mesma coisa mas não é!

Supúnhamos 2 empresas produtoras de sapatos localizadas em sítios diferentes que, utilizando o mesmo processo produtivo, produzem 200 pares de sapatos, exactamente iguais, utilizando 10 trabalhadores. A produtividade destas empresas é absolutamente igual – 20 pares de sapatos por trabalhador.

O facto de estarem localizadas em sítios diferentes possibilita que a empresa A venda cada par de sapatos por 50 € enquanto a empresa B só os consegue vender a 40€. A empresa A tem uma receita de 10.000€ enquanto a empresa B se fica pelos 8.000€. A produtividade passa a ser de 1.000 contra 800 por trabalhador. Os trabalhadores produzem exactamente o mesmo mas por um passe de mágica os trabalhadores da empresa B passaram a ser menos produtivos.

Esta alteração, que nada tem a ver com a produtividade dos trabalhadores, possibilita que certos políticos e dirigentes de cofederações patronais, os tratem como calões pelo que deverão ganhar um salário inferior aos da empresa A (ou trabalhar mais horas) por forma a garantirem uma produtividade semelhante.

Acontece que o trabalhador não tem qualquer possibilidade de alterar a situação já que foi a monetarização da produtividade que alterou as regras de jogo.

A produtividade monetarizada passa a depender não só do processo produtivo mas também de factores externos à produção como sejam a localização, a marca, os custos de transporte, energia, distribuição, entre outros. Apesar dos trabalhadores nada poderem fazer contra estas variáveis, é sobre eles que recai o ónus da falta de produtividade e o epiteto de calões, como é também sobre eles que recaem os cortes de salários, as horas não pagas o trabalho precário e toda uma panóplia de penalizações que a enorme criatividade dos neoliberais possibilite inventar.

Por que razão não se pune os empresários quando são eles os principais responsáveis pela obsolescência dos processos produtivos, pela falta de inovação e pela inexistência de marcas de prestígio?

A monetarização da produtividade conduz a situações verdadeiramente caricatas. Vejamos um simples exemplo.

A empresa Nike não produz um único dos artigos que comercializa. A quase totalidade dos artigos Nike são produzidos por empresas localizadas em países de mão-de-obra barata. O conhecimento de tal facto faz com que as empresas produtoras se degladiem entre si por forma a apresentarem custos por peça extremamente baixos, peça essa que a Nike venderá a preços elevados através da exploração da marca e de maciças campanhas publicitárias. Como os preços das empresas produtoras são esmagados a produtividade dessas empresas é extremamente baixa ao passo que a produtividade da Nike aumenta de ano para ano. O resultado é que as empresas produtoras estão cheias de trabalhadores, que labutando no duro durante 10,12 ou 14 horas a troco de uma tijela de arroz, são considerados pouco produtivos, enquanto os trabalhadores da Nike, que não produzem uma única peça, são considerados altamente produtivos auferindo num só mês o correspondente a 10 anos de salário de cada um dos preguiçosos. Lindo, não é?

Se estes pseudo sabichões nos bombardeiam com disparates destes a nível das empresas e do País as coisas complicam-se ainda mais quando passam a comparar economias de países diferentes.

As economias dos países não são iguais e, bem antes pelo contrário, são fortemente diferenciadas. Esta diferenciação conduz a que a comparação das produtividades entre as economias de países diferentes não passe de um truque de batoteiros que os economistas neoliberais utilizam para forçar o abaixamento do preço da mão-de-obra dos países menos desenvolvidos visando explorá-la até ao limite do impensável na sua ganância de agradarem aos capitalistas que lhes pagam e lhes promovem os livros, os artigos ou as campanhas publicitárias para presidentes e ministros.

Vejamos com um simples exemplo como as coisas se processam.

Admitamos que as economias de 2 países diferentes produzem e consomem apenas 2 bens. O bem A insere-se numa actividade com uma produtividade 21 e o bem B numa actividade com produtividade 6. Por razões históricas, de divisão do trabalho ou qualquer outra, o país X produz 2/3 de A e 1/3 de B enquanto o país Y tem uma produção exactamente oposta. A produtividade do País X é de 16 (2/3*21+1/3*6 = 14+2) enquanto a do país Y é de 11 (1/3*21+2/3*6 = 7+4). Isto não significa que os trabalhadores do País B trabalhem menos que os trabalhadores do país A ou que os trabalhadores de A sejam mais produtivos que o de B, significa apenas que o tipo de produção dos países é diferente e que o País A possui um tipo de produção que lhe possibilita obter uma maior produtividade.

A alteração deste tipo de situações é extremamente difícil e morosa, e só é possível por alteração da estrutura produtiva do País de menor produtividade. Tal alteração só se consegue através da modificação de processos produtivos e/ou introdução de actividades que induzam acréscimos de produtividade e/ou acréscimos de valor nos produtos produzidos (novos produtos, marca, moda, design, etc,).

Se admitirmos. no nosso exemplo, que o País Y introduzia uma nova actividade cujo índice de produtividade fosse 35 de forma a provocar uma alteração de produção para 25%, 50% e 25% o resultado seria um aumento de produtividade para 17 (0,25*21+0,5*6+0,25*35 = 5,25+3+8,75), isto é, o País de preguiçosos passava imediatamente a ter os trabalhadores mais laboriosos do mundo. Parece anedota mas não é!

A diminuição de salários, prática muito querida dos neoliberais, conduz apenas a uma transferência dos rendimentos do trabalho para o capital que mascarando o problema não só não o resolve como o agrava.

Na realidade ao aumentar a margem comercial o empresário passa a ter uma maior capacidade negocial (competitividade como os neoliberais gostam de chamar) junto dos compradores o que lhe possibilita uma de duas actuações: ou baixa o preço de venda, ou embolsa o diferencial. Se optar pelo abaixamento do preço provoca uma espiral negativa na produtividade (baixa de preço,queda de produtividade, baixa de salários, baixa de preço, queda de produtividade, baixa de salários) que conduz a um abaixamento do PIB, a uma menor cobrança de impostos, e ao encerramento da empresa com o consequente aumento do desemprego. Se mantiver os preços embolsa o diferencial que deposita num qualquer paraíso fiscal acabando por encerrar a empresa mais rapidamente mas de bolsos cheios. Qualquer que seja a opção o empobrecimento do País e o desemprego dos trabalhadores é o resultado inevitável!

Para discutir este artigo http://produtividade.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=1

Ainda há dias dizíamos que a legislação laboral era a mesma dos anos 70 e brindaram-nos com um inesperado mimo: vamos ficar com o regime laboral mais flexível da zona Euro. E agora? Bem, agora vamos ver se o merecemos. Isto é, vamos ver se empresários e gestores conseguem desmentir uma ideia várias vezes repetida aqui: a baixa produtividade é espelho da má qualidade da gestão em Portugal. Há excepções? Há, mas não nos entusiasmemos com elas: são mesmo excepções.

O novo regime laboral, que surpreendeu até os mais optimistas, vai deixar muitos empresários sem saber o que fazer com ele (sobretudo os que confundem “empresário” com “patrão”). Alguns, os broncos, vão despedir sem pudor nem critério. Outros, espera-se que muitos, vão perceber que só deve ir para a rua quem se recusa a criar valor (também os há) e vão usar o despedimento apenas como arma de último recurso. Apostando em quem faz a diferença.

Mas há uma questão que subsiste: como usar o novo regime laboral para aumentar a produtividade? A resposta segue nos próximos meses… se as empresas perceberem o desafio histórico que têm pela frente: o de adoptar uma cultura nova, que junta o melhor de empresários e trabalhadores. Uma cultura assente em ganhos mútuos, que tomam como base de negociação o valor criado.

É uma visão idealista? Não, não é. Porque com este modelo de partilha, qualquer trabalhador passa a ter um incentivo para ser… mais produtivo. Caro leitor, se o seu chefe o convidar a “entregar” mais, prometendo em troca a partilha do valor criado (mediante objectivos acordados), você diz que não?

P.S. – João Proença, várias vezes aqui criticado, merece uma chapelada. E o ministro também

Change Management

Developing Support for Innovation

TDM Encyclopedia

Victoria Transport Policy Institute

About This Encyclopedia

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Updated August 28, 2007

This chapter discusses various ways to help build support for innovation within organizations. This tends to support TDM implementation.

Description

Change Management refers to activities that support organizational innovation and reform (in this case the organization can be range from a small, private company to a government agency or even an entire community or jurisdiction). It recognizes that organizations often have inertia that must be overcome to create more efficient, responsive and resilient organizations.

Change Management requires anticipating and addressing potential obstacles to innovation, and building support by showing individuals that new approaches can ultimately make them better off. It requires managing risk, since change involves uncertainty. It requires including stakeholders in decision-making, and responding to their concerns, since change usually affects many people. It requires correcting distortive institutional incentives that encourage individuals to oppose innovation. All of these changes reflect good management, and are particularly important when implementing fundamental change.

Charge requires persistence and redundancy. It is important to treat current opponents as possible future supporters. Most people need to hear a new idea several times before they embrace it. They will first perceive it as somebody else’s idea, but the second or third time they may begin to take ownership and begin to think of it as their idea.

It is important to understand how stakeholders perceive innovation and reform, and to frame issues to highlight benefits (TDM Marketing). For example, road and parking pricing can be described as “motorists paying directly rather than indirectly for the facilities they use,” rather than simply a new fee. Similarly, congestion pricing can be described as “a discount for offpeak users” rather than a premium for peak-period users. It is important to show how TDM strategies can help achieve equity objectives, by reducing the need for non-users to subsidize road and parking facilities, and by improving mobility options for non-drivers.

Sometimes, when a problem seems particularly difficult it is best to reconsider how the problem is defined, how options are evaluated, and the types of solutions considered. This is called a “paradigm shift,” (Kuhn, 1970). Famous paradigm shifts include Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the universe, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and liberal democracy as a political structure. Common management clichés such as “Work smarter, not harder” and “Think outside the box” are admonitions to consider new approaches to problem solving, i.e., a paradigm shift.

Transportation Demand Management represents a type of paradigm shift. Specifically, TDM requires:

·       Evaluating transportation system performance based on Accessibility and Mobility, not just vehicle travel.

·       Comprehensive Transportation Planning, rather than reductionist decision-making, so the full benefits of TDM can be considered.

·       Least Cost Planning, so strategies that increase system efficiency are given equal consideration as strategies that increase system capacity.

·       Consideration of Transportation Diversity Benefits.

·       Application of Market Reforms to increase overall efficiency and equity.

·       Changing the way transportation activity is Measured and solutions Evaluated.

·       Institutional and Regulatory reforms.

Although these strategies are often desirable for many reasons, their benefits tend to be dispersed and long-term, and so are often overlooked or undervalued.

TDM implementation often requires a “change agent”, that is, somebody with vision to provide leadership, who is able to articulate the benefits of change and has the resources to overcome the barriers that inevitably develop. This is not for the faint-hearted or easily discouraged: initially such reforms often face exaggerated criticism and fail or are only partially implemented. However, over time, worthwhile reforms take hold and become normal. Once they are well established, people who originally opposed innovations will often claim credit for them!

People often assume that what is considered normal must be good. For example, efforts to encourage use of alternative transport modes often face resistance from people who are accustomed to automobile travel and so cannot believe that alternatives could be better. “I just want to be able to drive where I want,” they might argue, implying that such behavior is quite reasonable, even if factors such as population growth, land prices and travel demand are increasing the costs of accommodating additional vehicle traffic and making alternatives more cost effective.

Change tends to be difficult because it requires “psychic effort,” that is, it makes people to think about situations that they otherwise can take for granted. For example, a shift from free to Cashed Out parking requires people to think about the value of teach trip and consider use of alternative modes. Similarly, it may seem stressful to try cycling or riding public transit. The first few times people face such a decision it may seem stressful. But over time people become accustomed to new options and conditions, and will often admit that they are better off overall, despite initial opposition. The psychic effort can be reduced by making changes:

• Convenient
• Desirable
• Considered normal

Consider the first generation of trains, cars and airplanes. To modern eyes they look awkward, and their performance was poor. The first cars were horseless carriages, steered by a tiller rather than a wheel. The first Wright Flyer had various wings, stabilizers, steering panels and reinforcements that seem unnecessarily complex and inefficient; it could only carry one passenger lying on their stomach. But these modest beginnings evolved into modern cars and planes. Similarly, new transportation management programs and policies often seem awkward and inefficient when first introduced, in part because people are unfamiliar with them, and in part because important details may still need to be adjusted to improve performance. Do not let a program be judged too soon, do not be afraid to adjust programs and policies when needed, and continue to maintain a vision of what the program should achieve in the long term.

Organizations often require change management to reform standard practices and resources. For example, a planning agency may need to change its zoning codes, development standards, staff training, funding formulas and decision-making processes to effectively implement TDM.

Relationships With Other TDM Strategies

Change Management is a necessary foundation for many TDM policies and programs. Least Cost Planning, Change Management, Regulatory Reform, Market Reforms, TDM Programs, Institutional Reforms, and Commute Trip Reduction programs often require Change Management.

Best Practices

Current management literature provides guidance on change management. Below are some specific recommendations for applying change management to support TDM.

·       Work to create a climate that values innovation and supports appropriate risk taking.

·       Establish a vision with clear goals, objectives and performance indicators (Transport Planning). This vision provides a reference for describing to stakeholders why change must occur and evaluating progress. Establish a long-range plan, which identifies how individual policy and program reforms support overall goals.

·       Develop a team to support change. No single person can implement change alone.

·       Communicate a sense of urgency. Most stakeholders will consider change uncomfortable and risky. Without a sense of urgency people tend to avoid change. To motivate change it is necessary to make existing conditions seem more dangerous than the proposed changes. Failure should be defined as continuing with the status quo.

·       Educate stakeholders about new policies and programs. Opposition often reflects misunderstandings.

·       Don’t be deterred by setbacks. An innovation often fails to be accepted the first time it is introduced, but succeeds with persistence. Do not abandon TDM if a proposal is rejected the first time it is introduced. Instead, continue to educate stakeholders of its value, address objections, and try again.

·       Accept risks. Change requires risk. Accept the change that a plan will not turn out as expected. Learn from the experience and try again.

·       Emphasize (but don’t exaggerate) benefits. TDM tends to provide multiple benefits, so let stakeholders know about all of them.

·       Emphasize different types of benefits to different interest groups. For example, to transportation professionals and businesses, emphasize the economic justifications for TDM, since it is often a cost effective way to address parking and traffic problems. To community groups, emphasize benefits to neighborhood environmental quality, and benefits to non-drivers. To designers and planners, emphasize increased flexibility and support for strategic development objectives.

·       Work with stakeholders to identify and address points of opposition.

·       Look for small victories. Small victories are the fuel that will keep your team energized for ongoing efforts. Find reasons to celebrate successes whenever you can. Use small victories to build team confidence and momentum.

·       Be willing to negotiate and compromise. For example, if there is opposition to priced parking on the grounds that this would impose an excessive financial burden on some lower-income people, offer a certain number of need-based discounts or exemptions.

Examples and Case Studies

Collaboration in Transport Planning

TransManagement (2005) describes the following examples of successful cooperation among transportation planning organizations:

Montgomery County, Maryland: The availability of federal and state grant funding served as one of many catalysts for the development of a multimodal operations center with centralized computer-aided bus dispatch and traffic signal control. The initial collaboration occurred between two divisions of the Montgomery County Department of Public Works and Transportation that had responsibilities for road operations and transit services. Growing demands to centralize transit operations, an established culture of innovation in traffic management services, the availability of federal and state funding, and strong leadership from top agency management caused this collaboration to occur and to thrive up to the present.

New York City: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1986 formed a voluntary partnership of the key operating agencies in the New York region to act as a mechanism to exchange information on construction schedules. This original collaboration has now evolved into a regional information clearinghouse that disseminates system performance information to 16 member agencies and 100 affiliates, as well as serving as a test bed for the application of new technologies. The reasons for forming and the continuing evolution of TRANSCOM were primarily the mutual perception of a regional need (and avoidance of embarrassment when different agency construction projects conflicted) and the perception that information exchange, especially between transportation operators and emergency management agencies, needed a common home. This was especially found to be true in the regional response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, where TRANSCOM was credited with providing important coordination and communication capabilities.

Houston, Texas: In 1993, the Texas DOT, the region’s transit authority, the City of Houston, and Harris County formed a partnership called TranStar to serve as a forum for planning, designing, and operating the region’s transportation system. All of the region’s operating and enforcement agencies are part of this collaboration. The catalysts for this effort included a strong transportation professional desire to coordinate transportation system management in Houston, the existence of a regional “champion” in the form of Houston’s mayor, and the existence of a federal demonstration project that required more formal inter-organizational agreements as a prerequisite for receiving program funds.

Oregon: In 2000, the Oregon DOT announced the creation of a statewide origin-destination public mode trip-planning information system. In developing this system, the DOT developed a collaborative planning structure with the state’s transit operators and with public health providers who viewed this program as a critical element in reaching out to those in need of health services. The initial catalyst for this effort came from middle-level staff members who thought such a coordinated approach to trip information would be beneficial to the citizens of Oregon.

References And Resources For More Information

Quality Information Center (www.transportation1.org), by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, provides information about quality management programs used by public and private transportation organizations.

J. Richard Atkins and Daniel S. turner (2006), “Upgrade Stakeholder Service by Changing your Agency’s Organizational Culture,” ITE Journal, vo. 76, No. 12 (www.ite.org), December 2006, pp. 30-37.

R. Beckhard and R.T. Harris (1987), Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change, Addison-Wellesley Publishing Company (Reading, MA).

BV (2003), The Workplace BUG Guide, Bicycle Victoria (www.bv.com.au).

Edward de Bono (1997), LATERAL THINKING: Guaranteed… to Change the Way You Think! Thinking Management Techniques (http://home.pacific.net.sg/~tmt/site_lateral.html).

Cambridge Systematics (2003), New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation Organizations, TCRP Report 97, Transit Cooperative Research Program, Transportation Research Board (www.trb.org).

Doris Kearns Goodwin (1998), Lessons of Presidential Leadership, www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/121/summer98/goodwin.html).

Thomas Kuhn (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago.

Todd Litman (1999), “Reinventing Transportation: Exploring the Paradigm Shift Needed to Reconcile Transportation and Sustainability Objectives,” Transportation Research Record 1670, Transportation Research Board (www.trb.org), pp. 8-12; available at the Victoria Transport Policy Institute website (www.vtpi.org/reinvent.pdf).

Steve Lockwood (2005), “Systems Management and Operations: A Culture Shock,” ITE Journal, Vol. 75, No. 5 (www.ite.org), May 2005, pp. 43-47.

P. Lorange, B. Chakravarthy, J. Roos, and A. Van De Ven (1993), Implementing Strategic Processes: Change, Learning, and Cooperation, Blackwell Publishers (www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk).

Michael D. Meyer, Sarah Campbell, Dennis Leach and Matt Coogan (2005), “Callaboration: The Key To Success In Transportation,” Transportation Research Record 1924, TRB (www.trb.org), pp. 153-162.

Terry Moore (2006), Making Decisions Using An Outcomes-Based Approach To Evaluation Of Alternative Actions, Memo to Portland Metro Council (www.metro.dst.or.us/library_docs/trans/criteria_outcomesapp.pdf), 11 April 2006.

Northwestern University Office of Change Management (www.northwestern.edu/change-management/ol.htm).

Quality Information Center (http://quality.transportation.org) is an AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) sponsored website to enable state highway and transportation agencies and other organizations involved in transportation to share information about their continuous quality improvement activities.

Office of Operations (www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov) is a U.S. Federal Highway Administration department dedicated to promoting roadway operations and management.

John Poorman (2005), “A Holistic Transportation Planning Framework For Management And Operations,” ITE Journal, Vol. 75, No. 5 (www.ite.org), May 2005, pp. 28-32.

TransManagement (2005), From Handshake to Compact: Guidance to Foster Collaborative, Multimodal Decision Making, TCRP Report 106 and NCHRP Report 536, Transportation Research Board (www.trb.org); available at http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_536.pdf.

TRB (2001), Managing Change in State Departments of Transportation, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, NCHRP 20-24(14), Transportation Research Board (www.trb.org).

Neste artigo em http://www.ogc.gov.uk/documents/The_Productive_Time_Improvement_Journey(1).pdf pode-se ver várias dicas e exemplos.

a)  How does someone currently spend their time?
There are two ways to work smarter
•  spend less time not doing “the right things”
•  get more done in the time available

b) How slick is our service delivery?

How could we get there?

1.  Reduce variation in performance – “moving everyone to ‘good’”

2.  Improving the ‘frontier’ performances – “moving what ‘good’ looks like”

3.  Changing the landscape

I’m convinced this is a good idea – how do we start?
The first steps are:
1.  Know why you want to change things – for example:
•  “so that our staff can deliver services to more people”;
•  “so that we can increase the amount of service we deliver to our users”;
•  “so that we can release resources to take on more / different activities”.
2.  Set your ambition – and make it measurable – for example:
•  “to remove half of the time our people spend on non-core activities”;
•  “to reduce the overall time our customers wait for us to deliver the service to them by at least half”;
•  “to reduce the number of time we make rrors in processing forms by 90%”.
Then decide on the approach you are going to use – the second rticle in this series (“tools & techniques”) explains some of the main options, and describes the circumstances in which each is appropriate.

BPM: Process Improvement vs. Process Automation

Another lesson learned I encountered recently is to clearly define the intentions of your BPM projects. There is a huge difference between attempting to improve processes versus automating processes. First let’s discuss the pros and cons of each:

Process Automating in a BPM world

Pros

• Quick wins (unless processes are extremely complex)
• Less culture shock
• Reduce human error
• Start collecting process metrics baselines to analyze future process improvements
• Reduce paper, fax, emails, etc.

Cons

• Only small efficiency gains are realized
• Automating non-value add processes
• Missed opportunity to optimize work flow
• May never get a chance to improve processes

Process Improvement in a BPM world

Pros

• Reduce or eliminate waste
• Potential huge return on investment
• Improve employee performance and customer experience
• Reduce complexity of systems
• Financial justification of process steps

Cons

• Potential culture shock issues
• Requires more executive support
• More expensive to implement
• Requires more attention to change management

Like any other large enterprise initiative, a company must have a vision or a roadmap. Some companies may want to achieve financial benefits as soon as possible. For those companies, they should embark on a process improvement initiative right out of the gates. This means that the company must invest in training the business on process improvements with tools like lean sigma, TQM, and others or bring in talent to assess and recommend new processes.

Other companies may want to ease into the culture transformation and start with process automation. This allows the employees to get familiar with the BPM tools and to start collecting data about the current processes (time, costs, bottlenecks, etc.). This information can lead to process improvements down the road. The downside to this approach is that it will take the company much longer to reach the “promised land” of having streamlined and cost effective processes. The real danger that I see is other priorities may take precedence and the company may never get the opportunity to eliminate waste. In my opinion, process automation by itself may not justify the expense of purchasing a BPMS tool. The real value is in process improvement.

Fellow ITToolbox blogger Vladimir Stojanovski wrote a good post on this topic several months ago called Synergies of Process Improvement and Process Automation. In his post he pointed out some interesting statistics that I will mention here:

• 
  

  Process automation resulting from technology investments yields 2 percent productivity gains. These are the types of projects where technology is used to make old, tired, and broken processes run faster.

• 
  

  Process improvement through re-engineering yields 8 percent in productivity gains.

• 
  

  When done together, productivity improvements from both process automation and improvement yield 20 percent in productivity gains.

Mark Smith wrote a post back in 2005 called Process Automation Can Undermine Performance. The key take away from this post is his closing statement:

To succeed at BPM, assess for success, think beyond automation and make performance improvement your number-one process improvement goal.

My point is, the real value in leveraging BPM is process improvements. Process improvement combined with process automation is a powerful combination that can bring real value to an enterprise. Process automation by itself is nice, but it still allows waste to exist in the organization. But whatever your BPM strategy is, make sure it is clear to all team members what the direction is. If some people have an expectation that the goal is automation, while others think the goal is improvement, you will create a lot of unnecessary conflicts.

Outro artigo em http://www.datamax-france.com/ieee00.pdf

Department productivity benchmarking is one of the most powerful and versatile tools available to progressive hospital management teams. Here are just a few of its uses.

• As a Cost Management Tool: Labor costs remain the largest single component of any hospital’s expense budget. Managing labor costs is important for both financial and moral stewardship reasons. Department productivity benchmarking is an important first step in identifying and resolving excessive labor costs.

• As an Overall Performance Screening Tool: Staffing variances are a marker for potential performance issues that go far beyond excessive labor costs. Departments frequently “staff up” to overcome operating problems caused by everything from organizational cultural issues and resource inadequacies to work process factors. Departments that consume an abnormal amount of labor resources because of these factors are more often than not also struggling with quality, physician and patient satisfaction, employee relations and community image issues. Done correctly, department productivity benchmarking will help identify those departments in the most need of management action.

• As a Management Data Set Validation Method: More than sixty percent of U.S. hospitals are managing with inadequate or inaccurate management information. A systematic review of data, performed during the course of the benchmarking process, will identify errors in the management data set leading to better decisions.

• As a Change Management Resource:  Is your team in the process of building a new organizational culture to meet today’s challenges? Productivity benchmarking serves as an essential component of any serious management initiative to transform the classic hospital culture. Hospitals that  routinely and systematically benchmark department productivity are communicating powerful performance expectations with action as well as words.

Outro artigo encontra-se em http://provider.thomsonhealthcare.com/uploadedFiles/01_06_MTM.pdf 

Sales Time Benchmarking
Using efficient questionnaires and analyses, we quickly give executives in-depth insight into how their sellers spend time and how this compares to best practice…in their own organization and in relevant market comparators. We quickly deliver sales executives the facts about:

	How much sales time sellers really have
	Which sellers have the most sales time
	The relationship between sales time and sales results
	Activities that “rob” sellers of valuable sales time
	How sales time compares with selected benchmark companies

The service provides detailed reports and an executive briefing at which skilled AGI consultants interpret findings and suggest possible areas for improvement.

Sales Cost Benchmarking
This service helps sales executives benchmark their cost of sales relative to companies both inside of and outside of their industry.

This service will deliver the facts on how a company’s approach to sales coverage compares in several critical dimensions:

	Revenue generated vs. expense incurred in the direct sales channel Field sales Major account sales Telephone sales
	Relationship of Revenue to Expense generated through internet and other sales channels
	Revenue to Expense for the entire “go to market” organization
	Trends and observations in each channel to market

Um artigo sobre o assunto pode-se ver em http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0732-2399(1996)15%3A4%3C301%3AEOSSAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage#abstract

Evaluation of Salesforce Size and Productivity Through Efficient Frontier Benchmarking
Dan Horsky, Paul Nelson
Marketing Science, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1996), pp. 301-320
This article consists of 20 page(s).