Training Challenges in a Dynamic Work Setting

Specific ways to identify training requirements 

when job responsibilities become a moving target.

The Training Process

            There are three unique segments to any training process.  They are: (1) explore the types of training available to the organization, (2) determine what ways the organization will use to maximize the training, and (3) what criteria will be used to determine the effectiveness of the training (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2012, p. 257).

Training Characteristics

            Training is intended to serve two essential objectives: (1) deliver specific skills for the employee to master, (2) enhance current skills so that the employee may improve performance (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2012, p. 258).  Training narrowly focuses on the work at hand so its return on investment is intended to be immediate (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2012, p. 258).  What training does well is that it addresses current organizational needs.  Although skills training could be a refresher for an employee to improve performance or develop new skills for the employee to expand his or her knowledge, either way, the skills are those which the organization utilizes in the current business operations. 

Business Skills in a Moving Window of Time

            Businesses evolve as their environment and landscape changes, their products develop, and businesses redefine themselves in order to maintain relevance in the market place.  Due to these dynamic forces, change is not restricted to one set of causes but rather, many causes often acting in concert, some related, many not related at all.  However, they serve as a catalyst that in effect, bear the net result we see as change (Cook, 2005, p. 50).  Since change in organizations is the result of dynamic forces, the requirements for employees to adapt also occurs in a continuous motion spanning time as it passes like a moving window across a calendar.  What works for employees skills today may be entirely different next year and will evolve during the time in between those periods.  Therefore, an organization must look beyond training needs for today and look into the future and discover what the developmental needs of their workforce will be in both the short-term and in the long-term future (Cook, 2005, p. 50). 

Identifying Training Requirements and Development Requirements

            One thing organizations need to do in order to remain competitive is to move beyond only training personnel for the challenges of today.  They must include a plan for developing personnel for the future needs of the organization (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2012, p. 258).  Many have understood this and have invested organizational resources intended to improve workforce competencies with this plan in mind (Srimannarayana, 2011, p. 119).  Like the business landscape and its change over time, the workforce skillsets will also need to keep changing to address the demands of the business in a never-ending evolution with the business landscape.  The trick is for organizations to look ahead and identify what those changes will be that will impact the business in the future and prepare ahead of that time so their workforce can be developed to meet those upcoming skill requirements. 

Training is Ongoing

Many business leaders tell of stories where they say that their people are their organizations most important assets, if people are our most important asset, we need to lift up the workforce that make the products and services a reality. Are people really the most important assets of your organization and are they responsible to a large degree in the success of business today and in the future? If you believe this to be true, then it would be wise for business strategy to include training for current needs but most importantly to develop the workforce for future needs in perpetuity if long-term success is important to the organization.  This will also open the door to another discussion not covered here but worth future research, that being, workforce compensation levels.  For assistance in this are contact us at Management Insights, we will be glad to assess your current pay scales and report to you about industry and regional scales to help you decide where you are against the competitive forces that are at work to steal your talent assets and place your business at competitive risk.

Insightfully yours,

Robert Majdak Sr, Co-Founder

Crystal Majdak, Co-Founder

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References

Cook, S. (2005). Learning needs analysis - part 2: Linking learning needs analysis to business needs. Training Journal, 50-52, 54.

Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2012). Managing human resources (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. ISBN: 9780132729826.

Grenness, T. (2011). The impact of national culture on CEO compensation and salary gaps between CEOs and manufacturing workers. Compensation Benefits, 43(2), 100-108.

Srimannarayana, M. (2011). Measuring training & development. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(1), 117+. 

Product Orientation vs. Market Orientation

Overview

There are two marketing strategies discussed in this article.  Product Orientation and Market Orientation.  These two marketing strategies impact the company directly because the organization is built around the support of one of these two strategies to optimize operations successfully.

Product Orientation

When marketing a product using product orientation the emphasis is placed upon the product itself and how it is differentiated from competing products.  Therefore, a company oriented in such a manner places it resources in such a way as to ensure its expertise, information and systems are focused accordingly.  That is, in supporting the success of the product by whatever measures are appropriate.  This could mean fast delivery, rapid warranty action, continuous development of periodic improvements, and easy access to instructional information.  We can expect to see company investments in developing its product, testing to ensure product performance and enrichment, and the centering of its efforts to ensure the product performs throughout its designed lifecycle.

Marketing Orientation

When marketing a product using a market orientation the emphasis is placed on an appealing attribute in the market.  When a company is so oriented, its expertise, information and systems are built to ensure that all customers (seen as its market) is satisfied.  This could mean a company being a low price provider, having fast product preparation, ensuring ease of product use or consumption, providing high availability and easy access.  We can expect to see the company investing in researching market demand, and conducting thorough market testing and changing consumer trends while also preparing for complete customer support and interaction.

Table 1, Product Orientation vs. Market Orientation^

Transfer of Marketing Strategies

We can also expect the passing of time to change a company’s focus and move from one marketing orientation to another.  For instance, a fast food restaurant can start up on a product orientation then find it necessary to transform its strategy to a market orientation as the brand develops into a sustainable restaurant chain.  All of a sudden the number of variables to its success grow exponentially causing the company to scan a broader business landscape and horizon.  This is the desirable result of growth and management needs to keep open and flexible during this time of transition.

Insightfully yours,

Robert Majdak Sr, Co-Founder

Crystal Majdak, Co-Founder

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References

Kottler & Keller. (2011) Product Orientation vs. Market Orientation (Powerpoint). Pearson Education. Prentice Hall

Mentoring a Corporate Culture

Mentoring a Corporate Culture is about creating an organization that people want to belong to, that is, they desire to become an employee there. They are inspired to work there and become a part of something greater than themselves and in this they find their reward. Your employees should desire to adopt the organization’s code of conduct as their own, something that they have internalized, and they should be delighted to help newcomers immerse themselves within. The code of conduct establishes everyone’s expectations which are expressed by everyone else because everyone feels good about the “fit” of it and their “fit into it”. Notice, fit is not fear!

                                    

The code of conduct is a starting point and should consist of three easy to grasp expectations about how the employees should treat each other and your customers. For instance, (a) treating associates the way you want to be treated, (b) treat the customers the way you would want to be treated if you were wanting to get help from that company, and (c) strive to exceed customer’s expectations.  These topics are easy to understand since your company cannot exist without the customer’s business.  In addition, things cannot get done to satisfy your customers if the employees are not pulling their share of work together, the work in which they are hired for.

From here a corporate culture, those higher goals you have as the CEO, can begin to grow. With everyone pulling in the same direction your corporate goals can be measured. So have reasonable and achievable goals laid out for everyone to see. Explain them too! Mentor top management to understand and organize their areas delegated to them in order to achieve your goals using the resources you are providing. In turn, managers need to mentor their subordinates on what their part is with regard to achieving the corporate goals. Specifically, what they must do to accomplish their part of the corporate strategy.

Everyone from the CEO to managers to subordinates must support the effort and stand accountable to the measures. The outcomes, if negative, must focus on problem identification and actions that lead to resolutions. With everyone on-board and understanding what they must do to succeed, the business will be much easier to manage, develop, and grow. In the end, it’s about the customer’s satisfaction and a corporate culture that supports the customer.

Management Insights stands ready to assist you in creating the design and plan for your corporate culture that you desire. Feel free to email us to arrange for a personal meeting including a no-cost appraisal for your project.

Insightfully yours,
Crystal Majdak, Co-Founder
Robert Majdak Sr., Co-Founder
Management Insights

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Reference

Glasbergen, R. (1996). Company with a heart (cartoon). url: https://donotflyemirates.wordpress.com/tag/organizational-culture/

Cellular Production in Manufacturing

Group Technology

Overview.  Cellular manufacturing systems often use the concept of group technology (GT) in their basic design.  The relative juxtaposition of machine part characteristics are important in order to develop a logical relationship that facilitates organizational grouping.  Cellular manufacturing is the quintessential expression of this grouping and guides the design of cellular production (Singh, 1993, p. 284; Rajagopalan, & Batra, 1975, p. 567).  By the decomposition of manufacturing systems into cells, manufacturing processes gain unique efficiencies not otherwise appreciated (Singh, 1993, p. 284).  For instance, using GT, parts may be identified by characteristics which enable them to be produced efficiently by the best grouping of machine processing order possible to reduce their time in manufacturing (Singh, 1993, p. 284).  When viewed in this way the efficiencies gained may come through by reduction of work-in-process, reduced setup times, reduced tool requirements, and reduced lead time, generating efficient control of manufacturing operations (Singh, 1993, p. 284).  The expectation is value-added product quality and enhanced productivity (Singh, 1993, p. 284).

Using classification and appropriate coding systems.  Classification and coding systems are developed through the relationship of part design or part material attributes which guide processing order however, manufacturing specific attributes can also influence this system (Singh, 1993, p. 285).  Examples of similar attributes that can influence the development of part families are specific machining techniques such as cutting, drilling, extruding and cold forming.  Others are casting metals or layup and curing of advanced composite materials like Kevlar and graphite. 

Machine Grouping.  Machine-component grouping provides further refinement in cellular design (Singh, 1993, p. 285).  For instance, certain drilling processes require a specific order of machine tools in order to create a part properly. For instance, a sequential increase in drilling tool sizes used to create a properly dimensioned hole using a step increasing size of drills.  Machine-component grouping ensures that a proper production flow (Singh, 1993, p. 285) through those steps occur in the correct order.

Similarity Coefficient.  The basis behind similarity coefficient methods is to delineate measures of similarity between machines and their machining capabilities.  Based on these similarities, part families are created via subsequent machining processes thus creating an efficient production methodology (Singh, 1993, p. 286).

Heuristics.  Mathematical and heuristic methods form a sequential method of forming part families in the first stage of manufacturing then they implement a cost based mathematical

programming methodology to assign machines to part families in logical manufacturing cells (Singh, 1993, p. 286).

Pattern Recognition.  Pattern development using knowledge based systems and expert systems integration, optimizations qualities as it pertains to material handling capabilities, technological requirements and machine capacity and machine dimensions for the basis to create production cells (Singh, 1993, p. 287).

Fuzzy Clustering.  Fuzzy clustering develops unique solutions where issues of ambiguity in cell formation problems exists (Singh, 1993, p. 287).  Since many day-to-day manufacturing problems stem from machine cell operator availability, fuzzy multi-criteria decision making can enhance workflow by preventing interruptions as they occur (Azadeh, Nazari-Shirkouhi, Hatami-Shirkouhi, & Ansarinejad, 2011, p. 329).  In this way, efficient use of available qualified machine operators are incorporated into the overall production system planning logic (Azadeh et al., 2011, p. 329).

Neural Network Approach.  Neural network based approaches deploy an artificial intelligence process through mathematical models (Singh, 1993, p. 287).  As Artificial Neural Networks develop and are implemented into cell formations, unique and efficient processes take place (Singh, 1993, p. 287).  Some of these solutions control the best order of processes involved in batch production as well as the mixing of batches (Rajagopalan et al., 1975, p. 567) as inputs of demand and machine availability change. 

Conclusion

            Conventional manufacturing systems found in traditional manufacturing organizations have led designers to rely on GT to overcome many new age problems that exceed the limitations of traditional manufacturing methods (Saxena, & Jain, 2011, p. 11).  Due to the flexibility of mathematical algorithms, solutions beyond the scope of traditional manufacturing methods include, in part, to lot splitting between cells, work load balancing, alternative process routing, and more (Saxena et al., 2011, p. 31).  Additionally, GT also impacts worker performance and job satisfaction (Huber, & Hyer, 1985, p. 214) likely through successful job completion and a 33% increase in employee output over traditional methods (Huber et al., 1985, p. 216).  The basic idea is to obtain the least costly production method in the shortest time possible (Meredith, & Shafer, 2013, p. 66) in order to increase profits and promote customer satisfaction though fast service and fast time-to-market.

Insightfully yours,

Crystal Majdak, Co-Founder

Robert Majdak Sr., Co-Founder

Management Insights

Video Highlights

References

Azadeh, A., Nazari-Shirkouhi, S., Hatami-Shirkouhi, L., & Ansarinejad. A. (2011). A unique fuzzy multi-criteria decision making: Computer simulation approach for productive operators’ assignment in cellular manufacturing systems with uncertainty and vagueness, The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 56(1-4), 329-343.

Huber, V. L., & Hyer, N. L. (1985). The human factor in cellular manufacturing. Journal of  Operations Management, 5(2), 213–228.

Meredith, J. R., & Shafer, S. M. (2013). Operations management for MBAs (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN: 9781118369975.

Rajagopalan, R., & Batra, J. L. (1975). Design of cellular production systems. International Journal of Production Research, 13(6), 567.

Saxena, L. K., & Jain, P. K. (2011). Dynamic cellular manufacturing systems design—a

comprehensive model. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 53(1-4), 11-34.

Singh, N. (1993). Design of cellular manufacturing systems: An invited review, European Journal of Operational Research. 69(3), 284–291.

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