ABBREVIATED CONTENTS LIST TABLE OF CONTENTS-LIST OF CHAPTERS
Acknowledgements
- Quotations Stimulating Development Of EV Management & Measures
- Two Fundamental Questions The Book Tries To Answer
- Author’s Foreward
Chapter.1 EV Measures
Chapter.2 EV External Drive Strategy
Chapter.3 EV Internal Operational Strategy
Chapter.4 Organisation Structures
Chapter.5 Individual & Team Skills
Chapter.6 Installing EV into Various Types of Companies
Final Comments
Answers to the 2 fundamental questions posed on page.5
PREFACE The past 20 years haven’t just witnessed changes in local economies they have seen a global business environment transformed with the migration of people and jobs on a scale never witnessed before in human history. The competitor is now no longer in the same city, region or country but can be an anonymous entity half a world away, never to be met. Nations that had the recognition for being world leading economic powers are now among the largest debtor countries struggling to prevent economic meltdown.
Currencies that may have moved 50 basis points in several years now experience shifts of this magnitude and larger in a day.
In this chaotic world, business still has to continue, people hired, (if you can find them) developed, lead and motivated to produce an output that will sustain an enterprise and allow it to grow.
In the 30 years that I have been involved in company performance development I have seen dozens of methodologies come and go along with their much admired gurus and enthusiastic proponent groups who have surfed the wave as long as it would carry them, always with an eye for the next popular rising to come forth.
It is fair to say that there are many good points in all of these up-swellings but none of them could be called a comprehensive management system and remain a jumble of tools in the kitbag of management methods; to be dismissed by the cynical and poked at by the curious.
And so it was with time worn reservations that I listened to a presentation from Dr. Ian Brammar describe the Expanding Value (EV) Management method for total company management, with the stated intent to create high value companies, distinguishing the world-class management from what is termed the conventionally managed organizations.
In so doing Dr, Brammar in making this distinction and demonstrating its effect has measurably added substance and definition to the oft used term of “world-class”.
What really sparked my curiosity was the enhanced performance measurement method that when applied removed the traditional bias of the external assessor; instead using real numbers from the organization’s financial records that managers could neither deny or influence by the art of creative accounting.
This analysis approach develops an unarguable set of management measures that provide a concrete basis for decision making by the management team as to where improvement efforts will yield the most significant results.
Finally a connection had been made between financial performance measurements and efforts to improve operational performance. Contrary to the hundreds of measures called for by the assessment intensive performance development systems the 7 types of EV measures cascaded through the organization to the shop floor are more effective and provide more operational control than any of the other systems requiring dedicated resources.
Because of this, the EV Management system can be applied to the full scope of business entities; from the multinational Corporation to the small retailer.
Clearly the research of management processes and systems completed over the past 20 years has drawn on many of the ideas that have gone before, including Japanese management systems for which the west has only seen the tip of the iceberg but this research has gone further; to tackle the language of management!
To talk about people productivity in a staff situation is at best challenging and at worst confrontational. Productivity is currently a popular topic of analysis for Governments, particularly in the Western world, but while there are a plethora of initiatives to lift national output the real numbers indicate stubborn resistance to these interventions.
Learning from the Toyota Production System and work done by the Tavistock Institute in the United Kingdom, Dr Brammar has developed an approach that helps a manager and operator look at work performed in two components: percentage of time spent adding value verses percentage of time where no value has been added.
This framework of thinking and the actions that flow there from help operator and management thinking become more closely aligned with operational measures flowing directly upward into financial measures and the reporting system.
The focus of the team becomes, increasing the percentage value added through affirmative action; workplace design, investments in training and plant, product redesign and considering perhaps the hardest question, “should we be doing this job in the first place?” All issues highly relevant in a labour market under pressure.
As you read this scholarly work you will be struck with the simplicity of many of the concepts and their application and will ask is there not more? The clear answer is Yes: there is a lot more but frankly there is sufficient here for the enquiring and the thoughtful to see that growing; expanding the value of their business is neither beyond them nor requires a college degree, nor large capital expenditure but requires a willingness and sense of adventure to break out of the narrow introspective thinking that obscures opportunity, to another pathway for increasing the value of their organization and use of time.
If Governments, industry groups, regional business development providers and enterprises large and small could appreciate that the power to expand value and personal wealth lies within their current organization, fear of globalization, the competitor or any other market force would become a minor irritation.
This is therefore a call to action, one that will be both personally rewarding and good for the community in which you live. I commend thoughtful reading of this book and prompt action to understand and apply its direction.
David A Penny, Managing Director, Ship Projects New Zealand
Managing Director, BPDS (NZ) Limited