Every business that exists within different sectors has its own unique set of quality performance standards. These are the performance criteria that help businesses maintain their goods and services, systems, and standards.
Pillar 1 : Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
This formal process of documenting the various processes within a company (operations, production, manufacturing, etc) is known as the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
When the SOP is accurately documented and followed diligently, the processes can be replicated across the organization or even to parties outside the organization when relevant. This becomes valuable intellectual property belonging to the company.
However, the execution of the SOP may leave room for interpretation and different roles may have different responsibilities in each process.
Pillar 2 : Training System
To minimise that variance, a training system that serves as an extension of the SOP is necessary, to help the team members develop the requisite skills to carry out the tasks successfully.
The focus of the training program is to ensure that the standards of the management are clearly and well communicated to help guide an individual’s progression within a specific role horizontally across different departments. This training program will take into consideration the learning outcome of the course, the learner’s journey, and evidence of skill development.
The objective of the training is to develop specific and useful knowledge, skills, and techniques necessary to implement specific sections of the SOPs. It is intended to prepare the team to be efficient and carry out predetermined processes in well-defined job contexts.
Once the training is completed, the team members go about their daily tasks in the business. During this period, the team members leverage their training to execute their work responsibilities with the goal of increasing the quality and efficiency of their goods and services.
Pillar 3 : Audit Program
Over time, standards may veer from the ideal standards, or perhaps external changes impact the efficacy of the processes or service standards. Regular audits and quality control help to measure performance standards and compare performance against actual financial performance.
For instance, when operations management scores are low, it may mean the team, including the manager, require a refresher training and assessment session to improve their performance.
If operational quality performance scores are high but financial performance is weak, this may mean action is needed at the brand management level. Strategic actions based on operations management key performance indicators offer business managers lead statistics that can allow them to take pre-emptive measures to maintain and improve the overall performance of the business.
Astreem Consulting’s Quality Business Operations Management Framework
Astreem‘s operations management framework revolves around this triumvirate of key pillars of SOP, Training & Assessment as well as Audit. The successful management of operations depends on the active engagement and iterative improvement of all the key pillars of the framework.
To simplify the implementation, a Quality Operations Management technology can be used. Astreem leverages a platform called TREE AMS to help our clients manage their quality standards.
This platform allows the SOP to become a dynamic platform that is easily assessed by users anytime, anywhere, and has a training platform to engage their team members in an internally managed Training and assessment framework.
This system reduces a lot of face-to-face onboarding time and reduces the need for a live facilitator session anytime a new team member comes on board. The scores of each team member, by company location, are recorded and can be used to measure against other benchmarks for deeper analytics to be conducted.
Conclusion
Finally, to maintain quality operations management, an audit framework needs to be established.
Audits, even within an organization, may have different uses and may be conducted from different perspectives.
Audits may be used at the store levels, like checklists for example, by group-level managers to assess the overall compliance of their outlets, and by the management in HQ to check more qualitative aspects of brand management.
Together, all these form an audit framework – a system that encapsulates the standards required by different roles and functions within the company.
