Question

You and four friends have developed a new environmentally friendly heater. You all have extensive business experience. Together, you have established a new company, Green Heaters Pty Ltd ACN 512 302 XXX, which will manufacture and sell the new heater to wholesalers. The five of you will comprise the board of directors. The board has forecast that Green Heaters Pty Ltd will sell 650,000 heaters in the first year and will employ 100 staff.

You have been given the task of designing and developing the standard documentation which will be used by Green Heaters Pty Ltd. You must present details of your plans to the board of directors. Prepare a comprehensive report (5 pages) for the board members in which you explain what Green Heaters will do to manage the design and development of business documents. The report must explain details of the methods and processes you will use to produce high quality documents.

In the report, you should provide details of the types of documents which you will produce and how you will ensure that they will be suitable for requirements. You should explain the methods you will use to develop standard documents including templates and macros and provide information about any assistance you will need, including details of external sources.

Your report should detail the strategies you will use to ensure employees use standard documents productively. Provide information about the proposed organisational policies and procedures which will be implemented to govern the use of standard documents as well as ensure standard documents meet any changing requirements of the organisation in the short and long term. It must include prototypes of at least five documents, together with a sample of the written instructions which could be provided to employees who will use those documents.

Answer 1

Clearly documented systems and processes as well as the standardized documentation system are most certainly the critical differentiators that set any organization apart from its competitors.

In order to ensure the above, Green Heaters shall create a department named "The Process Management Group" (PMG) that shall be an integral part of the organization since its inception. The core objective of PMG shall be to define processes, documents and educate the process users, facilitate implementation of policies and procedures, periodically measure and review progress, take corrective and preventive actions to ensure efficient and effective processes, leading to increased productivity and customer satisfaction.

Dedicated PMG members shall be involved in:

• Process Documentation – Designing and Release of documented processes focusing on Critical To Quality, Key Metrics of the Function and cross functional Service Level Agreements including standard templates and macros in order to encourage standardization across the organization.
• Process Education & Facilitation – Conduct process education workshops in coordination with the Functional Heads and process owners to educate & train all role holders on new release or changed processes, formats/templates and benefits of processes in order to take a buy-in as well as encourage the use of the standardized processes and documentations
• Process Implementation – Rollout of process implementation through In-person and Data Audits basis Critical To Quality parameters & Key Focus Areas of the Function. Thus recording observations with respect to non conformances and facilitating the closure of such non compliances along with focusing on creating and action plan to ensure repeated non compliances do not occur.
• Process Improvement – Change in processes as per the Change Requests received through process owners or through process Audits so as to make them in tune to changing external & internal environment.
• Closure of Action Points – Facilitate role holders/Auditees in closing the action points from internal Audits in order to align their activities with the documented processes
• Performance Report Card – Calculate and release Audit Evaluation Matrix Report every Quarter and NC Aging Report every month

PMG shall lay emphasis on process quality adherence through several measures such as:

• Process Audits – Conduct role based Process Audits covering each team and role at least once every quarter; and each role holder at least once every six months. The scope of Audits are defined Process Manuals (OLMP/SLMP), the KRAs, the SOPs, the Functional Policies, email directives, etc. The process variations and observations pertaining to role holder’s entire role are recorded during the Process Audit. The process variations are shared in the form of Non Conformance Report and PMG facilitates the role holders in preparing a corrective action. Post completion the Audit Findings Report is prepared and presented to the Functional Heads to highlight the key findings from the Audit of their team.

• Facilitation in NC Closure – Send reminders to role holders on or before the proposed date of closure of NC along with how to close the non conformance. Continuous follow up for closure of non conformances and ensuring adherence to laid down processes.

Publish Process Adherence Reports – Publish reports and rank teams and role holders basis their adherence to processes (Number of NCs raised during the Audits, percentage of non conformances closed within timelines and number of times Audits been rescheduled by role-holders). Thus bringing competition within the functions and organization.