J. Parrish & Associates Consulting - Organizational Management, Defense Surveillance and International Business Development

J. Parrish & Associates Consulting can provide you help by identifying those areas which would benefit by improved processes and organizational structure.

To improve performance, it is necessary to examine and understand the way products move through an organization and to develop processes that optimize the inherent efficiencies within the company. To do this, it is necessary for the company to establish clear common goals which everyone is working toward. To do this, the company must have an agreed upon vision, a guiding principle and common goals. Performance must be measured to these common goals and employees must be accountable for achieving these goals.

Typical company organization

Most companies are organized vertically. What this means is that working for the CEO/President are a number of Vice Presidents who each are responsible for a functional department, such as Finance, Marketing, Purchasing, Operations, etc. Working for the VPs are Directors who have Managers working for them. Under the Managers are the personnel actually performing the tasks.

Information passes up and down this organization, and often the personnel in this functional department are quite focused on their tasks, and are not particularly aware of activities in other functional organizations. Further, often the measures of performance and success within a functional organization, are contrary or non-supporting to the measures of performance and success in a different functional department.

An organization's product, however, typically moves horizontally through the functional departments. What this means is that the product of the company is a reflection of how well each of the functional organizations work together. When work passes from one organization to the next, often the communications between those organizations at these interface points, is not capable of supporting efficiency and common measures of performance and success. Figure 1 is an illustration of how products move through an organization.

If this sounds like your organization, take our test to find out if you can benefit from Quality Practices or read our Frequently Asked Questions.

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