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Improving business processes is the key to increased profits and market share. This article presents a new, systematic approach to improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability of these critical processes which make the difference between success and failure.

The purpose of this paper is to align accountability and responsibility of each level of the organization and to establish internal and external customer supplier relationships and performance criteria.

Major processes within each natural work team are analyzed to establish efficiency and effectiveness requirements.

Major improvement in employee morale and internal customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive complete implementation limited to only a few organizations. Conceptual approach widely accepted.

The paper establishes individual performance indicators for every natural work team within the organization.

The paper provides each worker with a understanding of the natural work team's customer and the activities within the natural work team.

The paper shows that through the establishment of individual performance indicators, the natural work teams are allowed to focus on high payback improvements.

If the proper strategies are used to change the business process, high quality and high performance will return to the U.S. workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to define the quality and productivity problems, and improvement opportunities that face the construction industry today.

The authors conducted interviews and surveys plus they researched pertinent literature to come to their findings.

The paper concludes that there is a lack of good research for improved approaches and that construction work is considered an undesirable profession. It also concludes that there has been a slow change over from quality control (QC) to total quality management (TQM).

The research for this paper was limited to surveys and interviews conducted in the USA.

The paper concludes that improved quality and productivity is needed to eliminate high levels of waste in the construction industry.

The paper defines construction problems as they exist today.

By almost every measure manufacturing quality has improved tremendously in the past decade; unfortunately, the same is not true for service. Yet, manufacturing processes represent less than 5 per cent of all business processes. Clearly, the opportunity area for the twenty‐first century is in the understanding and improvement of the service processes that drive value and customer experience. There are two major characteristics of service that distinguish it from product. The understanding of these differences and often‐painstaking attention to detail in delivery determines ultimate success and competitiveness of service. The first is that almost every service is a series of situations where every subsequent process depends on those that precede it. The second unique characteristic of service is that the customer usually plays an important role in the process and each involvement strongly influences downstream processes and requirements. The vast riches and opportunities of the future service‐oriented world belong to those who understand the customer experience from the customer’s viewpoint and can and will offer high value solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of the Directed Evolution methodology, illustrate its usefulness in creating systemic change, and how it can be implemented in face of strong resistance to change. The paper aims to demonstrate how comprehensive product/program systems redesign for higher organizational effectiveness can be realized through a well‐defined Directed Evolution implementation.

A novel model and process for Directed Evolution implementation to facilitate systemic change in organizations and in communities are described. After successful implementation in several types of organizational units, the model was examined for congruence with well‐known frameworks in change management.

The paper finds that the model has congruence with several systemic change management frameworks. It complements systems thinking by harnessing organizational knowledge through creative involvement of organizational members, employing five‐phase execution to sustain organizational members’ motivation throughout the program; and realizing comprehensive patent and intellectual property redesign while improving program and product functionality.

The study show‐cases system thinking and new innovation tools and techniques as an excellent systemic change intervention.

A lot of brilliant work has been done to develop methodologies and approaches to apply change management concepts to managing the development and implementation of projects and programs. This has resulted in major improvements in success rates, delays, and the total effectiveness of these projects and programs. Unfortunately, these endeavors have not resulted in the desired improvement in the organization’s ability to endure the constant change activities that the environment, technology, customer, and international competition have placed upon the organization. This technical paper presents a new concept called Culture Change Management (CCM) that will strengthen the total organization’s capability and willingness to accept and prosper in a rapidly changing worldwide environment. It will require a major change in the way organizational change management has been structured, minimizing the focus on projects and programs and maximizing the focus on organizational operations.

Suggests that organizational improvement methodologies have a life cycle. This takes them through the stages of being the “in” thing to do, then into a decline because they are no longer exciting or have failed to produce results. Ultimately they are left being pursued by only a few committed individuals before the arrival of a champion to revive the approach with a new twist. Notes that process reengineering is now falling out of favor and looks at the reasons for its rapid rise and failure. Suggests factors such as its negative impact on the organization which was not clearly defined and the project cycle time which was too long. Concludes that the approach still has a role to play.

Good is no longer good enough. To survive in today’s competitive environment, you need to excel. To excel, an organization needs to focus on all parts of the organization, optimizing the use and effectiveness of all of its resources. After years of working with all types of organizations using many different approaches to improving performance, we have come to realize that there are only five things that need to be managed in order for an organization to excel. We call these five key elements “The five pillars of organizational excellence”. Organizational excellence is designed to permanently change the organization by focusing on managing the five key pillars of the organization. Each of these five organizational pillars is not new by itself. The key to organizational excellence is combining and managing them together. The five pillars are: Pillar I – Process management; Pillar II – Project management; Pillar III – Change management; Pillar IV – Knowledge management; Pillar V – Resource management. All five must be managed simultaneously. Top management’s job is to keep all of them moving ahead at the same time. To concentrate on one or two of them and let the others slide, is a surefire formula for failure.