Editorial

Citation

Burgess, T. and Heap, J. (2013), "Editorial", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 62 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2013.07962aaa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 62, Issue 1.

Welcome to the first issue of the 62nd volume. As usual we have six papers and, as usual, these cover a variety of topics and contexts. Papers two to five cover the theme of improvement initiatives to enhance organisational performance. However, the first paper, from the Netherlands, focuses on performance at the individual level. Koopmans et al. develop a short questionnaire for self-completion by a broad spectrum of blue, pink and white-collar workers (the less-familiar term “pink-collar” means service workers such as nurses and hairdressers). The authors’ starting point was a conceptual model of individual performance based on four dimensions; this was refined by factor analysis to a three-factor model using data from a sample of 1,181 Dutch workers. Their study documents the successful design of an instrument that enables individual work performance to be measured in a variety of situations and thus it opens up opportunities for a whole raft of research studies linked to measured individual performance. Of course practitioners are also sure to find some use for a robust, reliable instrument that can gauge individual worker performance.

Burgess and Wake from the UK report in the second paper on the application of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model (VSM) to small- and medium-sized enterprises. The VSM approach has been used in the past, but often in the context of large organisations, to identify the root cause of problems that might threaten the effective functioning of the organisation. In particular VSM can be used to diagnose problems that might undermine business performance. The authors draw from seven case studies that form part of a larger study comprising 50 case studies to demonstrate the usefulness of their approach. In many respects this is an unusual slant to business performance management; one that relies on a different philosophy to that underpinning many of the currently fashionable approaches such as just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM) and Six Sigma. However, diversity of approach is worth cultivating as an antidote to the ossification that can occur if we rely too much on doing the same thing that we always do – innovation is required in many things including the theory and practice of performance management.

In the third paper, Sternberg et al. focus on lean thinking. They take the classical lean framework of seven types of waste and apply this to a service situation, rather than the more conventional application to manufacturing. In particular they concentrate on identifying waste in road transport operations using empirical data from Sweden. Although there is a difference in tangibility between the two sectors (manufacturing vs service), they were able to transfer over the bulk of the traditional waste framework and, with some minor modifications, fit the framework to the new context. This provides practitioners with a valuable diagnostic tool to guide their performance improvement initiatives.

Much has been written about the various operations philosophies (or management innovations) that organisations can, and do, adopt to improve their performance, e.g. JIT and TQM. Most of the writing explores instances where organisations adopt a single initiative – we have an illustration of this focus in the previous paper in this issue. Less explored are situations where combinations of two or more philosophies are applied at the same time in the same organisation. Kaur, Singh and Ahuja report on a small-scale sample of 34 Indian manufacturers that have implemented both TQM and total productive maintenance (TPM). TPM is not as frequently encountered as TQM with a lower number of TPM implementations, so the small sample is to be expected. Notwithstanding this, the numbers of situations in which multiple initiatives co-exist are bound to be high when the variety of different philosophies and the potential interactions are taken in to account. So what we have here is perhaps the tip of an iceberg of possible studies into the more realistic scenarios that apply in practice.

Following on from this point, Kumar, Choe and Venkataramani present a case study where Six Sigma is combined with lean production, i.e. lean Six Sigma, although the company phraseology emphasises other terms (lean pull replenishment). Their paper describes the poor delivery situation in a large electronics supplier in the telecommunications sector; and describes a project that accomplished major improvements. The case study has a variety of interesting aspects, e.g. the authors acknowledge that many previous attempts to improve the situation had been thwarted by the activities that arise in large companies as a consequence of mistrust and misunderstanding between the various functions. They also point out that this company's problems were not just an operations or manufacturing problem, as these situations are often characterised, but they encompassed complete “end-to-end” processes and therefore “belonged” to all the different functions. Indeed one of their main points is that the project was unique in involving sales personnel right from the beginning and this was the key factor in the project's success.

In the last paper Schla¨fke et al. connect together the topics of business analytics and performance management. However, rather than go down the conventional path of proposing that integrating the two would support better knowledge about past activities, they emphasise combining the two to better predict the future and to shape strategy formulation. They describe their approach as performance management analytics (PMA). This kind of thinking where the intention is to take performance management forward rather than simply explore, in ever more finer detail, current ideas is to be commended. Perhaps we need to check back in a few years to see how far these ideas have taken the field forward.

Tom Burgess and John Heap