Bakgrund: Kvalitetsutveckling inom vården pågår i hela världen. Internationell forskning indikerar att förbättringscoacher kan vara en framgångsfaktor i förbättringsarbetet. Det är i dag oklart hur man kan utveckla interna coacher till att stödja kontinuerliga förbättringar. Studien utvärderar ett lokalt, tvärprofessionellt coachprogam inom vård och omsorg i ett geografiskt område i Sverige med en etablerad samverkanskultur. För att främja ökad kundcentrering ingick en pensionär i programmets planeringsgrupp. Deltagarna introducerades i grundläggande förbättringskunskap och i lösningsfokuserat arbetssätt som ett sätt att bättre kunna hantera komplexiteten i vård och omsorg. Programmet utformades med åtta gemensamma träffar under perioden mars till oktober 2011.   Syfte: Att identifiera faktorer i ett lokalt coachprogram som framstår som mest väsentliga för att medarbetare i vård och omsorg ska kunna gå in i rollen som förbättringscoacher. Metod: Studien är en observerande fallstudie med inslag av aktionsforskning och en induktiv kvalitativ ansats. Deltagare i studien var blivande coacher, pensionärer, planeringsgruppen och erfarna coacher. Sju semistrukturerade intervjuer med totalt 17 personer genomfördes, samt analys av lokala dokument och fyra enkäter. Data analyserades genom en manifest kvalitativ innehållsanalys och triangulering. Resultatet validerades av samtliga deltagare i studien. Resultat: Involvering av pensionärer ansågs vara en viktig faktor eftersom det förstärkte kundfokuseringen. Deltagarna i studien poängterade att kundfokus, ett lösningsfokuserat förhållningssätt, nätverk och systemförståelse var grundläggande för utvecklingen av coachrollen. Dessa faktorer bedömdes som viktigare än de specifika förbättringsverktygen. Diskussion: De mest väsentliga faktorerna kan delas in i det som uppmuntrade till idéer, vilja, görande och uthållighet. Pensionärsinvolveringen förstärkte kundfokuseringen, och det lösningsfokuserade arbetssättet framstod som ett bra komplement till de sedvanliga förbättringsverktygen. Det vore intressant att jämföra detta program med förbättringsprogram i andra kontexter. / Background: Internal improvement coaches can support quality improvement efforts. The study is about a local interprofessional coach training program in a region in Sweden with an established culture of collaboration. The program included participants from different health care disciplines and was organized over eight days between March and October 2011. A senior citizen was involved in faculty and participated during all training sessions. The participants were introduced to basic improvement knowledge and a solution focused approach.Purpose: To explore essential elements of a local coach training program and what appears to be crucial in moving into the role of being an improvement coach.Method: The study is a mix methods case study with elements of action research and an inductive qualitative approach. Participants in the study were prospective coaches, senior citizens, the program team, and experienced coaches. Data were collected through seven semi-structured group interview sessions with a total of 17 individuals, document analysis and 4 questionnaires. Data were analyzed using a manifest content analysis and triangulation. The results were validated by all participants in the study.Results: The data suggest that the involvement of a senior citizen was essential for strengthening customer focus. Participants in the study pointed out that customer focus, developing a value base, networking skills with a solution focused approach and systems thinking were fundamental to the development of the coaching role. These factors were assessed as more important than improvement tools.Discussion: The results can be divided into those which encouraged ideas, will, execution, and endurance. Senior citizen involvement enhanced customer focus and the solution-focused approach seems to be a valuable addition to the usual improvement tools. It would be interesting to compare this program with other improvement programs or in other contexts.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2227.pdf: 8104905 bytes, checksum: 007b8367355d1612e8ec1c006c64045c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-19 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / The capacity to improve the processes has been considered as an important factor for the companies competitiveness. However, the improvement activities don't happen spontaneously, people involved must have knowledge and abilities, besides domain on techniques and methods to achieve the improvement. Therefore, the company needs to invest in training, to make possible that the people involved in improvement projects dedicate time, and to support with financial and organizational resources. This investment will be applied to accomplish improvement projects, but, however, how to verify if the efforts are being used in an effective way? For that, it is necessary to measure the efforts allocated for the accomplishment of the activities and to compare with the obtained results. The importance of this study is its contribution for the evaluation of improvement projects. Besides, the theme has relevance, considering the shortage of works that analyze the factors involved for the accomplishment of improvement actions, quantify them and compare with the obtained results. The bases for that investigation are the descriptions found in the literature, they present the efforts involved for the improvement accomplishment and the possible results. For the investigation, some approaches were analyzed, like Total Quality Management, Kaizen and Six Sigma, identifying the efforts that each one judges necessary for the improvement and to achieve results. All these information helped to create a structured tool to measure and to characterize the improvement projects. To use the tool are necessary some procedures, of rising and analysis data related to the projects efforts and results. This work was developed using multiple cases study, were investigated four companies, which have improvement culture disseminated, guaranteed by the use of programs like Lean Production and Six Sigma, allowing an analysis of different improvement project types. It was verified that utilizing the tool developed in this research was possible to evaluate the improvement projects, verifying the relation between efforts and results. / A capacidade de melhorar os processos tem sido considerada como fator imprescindível para a competitividade das empresas. Contudo, as atividades de melhoria não ocorrem espontaneamente, é necessário que as pessoas envolvidas estejam capacitadas, possuam conhecimentos e habilidades, além de domínio sobre técnicas e métodos. Dessa maneira, a empresa precisa investir em capacitação, treinamento, possibilitar que as pessoas envolvidas dediquem tempo para as ações de melhoria e apoiar com recursos financeiros e organizacionais. Esse investimento será direcionado para realizar projetos de melhoria, mas, no entanto, como verificar se os esforços estão sendo utilizados de maneira eficaz? Para isso, é necessário mensurar os esforços alocados para a realização das atividades e comparar com os resultados obtidos. A importância deste estudo é dada por sua contribuição para a avaliação de projetos de melhoria. Além disso, o tema pesquisado tem relevância, considerando a escassez de trabalhos que analisam os fatores envolvidos para a realização de ações de melhoria, os quantificam e comparam com os resultados obtidos. Tem-se como base para essa investigação as descrições encontradas na literatura, que apresentam os esforços envolvidos para a realização da melhoria e os possíveis resultados. Para essa investigação foram analisadas abordagens como Gestão da Qualidade Total, Kaizen e Seis Sigma, identificando os esforços que cada uma julga necessário para realização da melhoria e os resultados esperados com as mesmas. Com base nessas informações foi criada uma ferramenta estruturada para auxiliar na mensuração e caracterização dos projetos de melhoria. Para a utilização da ferramenta são necessários procedimentos de coleta e análise de dados referentes aos esforços utilizados e aos resultados obtidos. Este trabalho foi desenvolvido com estudo de múltiplos casos em quatro empresas de grande porte e que possuem a cultura da melhoria disseminada na organização, isso é assegurado pela adoçao de programas como Produção Enxuta e Seis Sigma. Foram analisados diferentes tipos de projetos de melhoria em cada empresa. Constatou-se que foi possível avaliar os projetos de melhoria utilizando a ferramenta desenvolvida no trabalho, verificando a relação entre esforços e resultados de cada projeto.

Magister Commercii - MCom / This study aimed to assess employee’s responses with regard to the implementation of a new workplace improvement programme. The purpose of this research was to focus on the understanding that could be gained about employee’s responses to organisational change using qualitative research

This diploma thesis deals with problems which often occur during implementation of kaizen philosophy into economic practice in Czech environment. Many Czech companies that adopted this philosophy do not reach such good results, compared to companies in Japan. Czech employee's do not accept it in good way. Thus the target of this thesis is to find out possible causes of this unfavourable situation. In theoetical parts, kaizen phiosophy and other related factors such as organizational culture are described. Furthermore, most frequent kaizen practice and its most important effects are described well as a brief history of it in Japan, USA, and Czech. Real implementations of kaizen in three companies in Czech Republic are analyzed in empirical part of this thesis. Most important points of this part are qualitative research (interviews with employees of these three companies) and quantitative research (questionares were filled by employees in one of these firms). The outputs of the thesis are general as well as specific suggestions for these three companies.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

With the rapid growth in the hospitality industry, its owners and managers are also facing serious challenges. The industry is becoming more and more competitive. Managers are pressed to find the balance between cutting cost to increase profit and improving the quality of the service/product to increase the value their customers’ experience. Customers are nowadays more aware of the quality of the service or the product provided to them and more than ever before, hospitality owners and managers need to focus on improving their quality. The main objective of the research was to establish whether the implementation of selected Six Sigma principles would result in a measurable improvement in the quality of a hospitality establishment. An analysis was done based on three different feedback systems, some Sig Sigma-inspired changes were made and a post-measurement was done to establish the effect of the changes. The study concluded that the implementation of selective Six Sigma principles, can improve the quality of services and products in hospitality establishments, as well as reducing their process waste in such establishments. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

With the rapid growth in the hospitality industry, its owners and managers are also facing serious challenges. The industry is becoming more and more competitive. Managers are pressed to find the balance between cutting cost to increase profit and improving the quality of the service/product to increase the value their customers’ experience. Customers are nowadays more aware of the quality of the service or the product provided to them and more than ever before, hospitality owners and managers need to focus on improving their quality. The main objective of the research was to establish whether the implementation of selected Six Sigma principles would result in a measurable improvement in the quality of a hospitality establishment. An analysis was done based on three different feedback systems, some Sig Sigma-inspired changes were made and a post-measurement was done to establish the effect of the changes. The study concluded that the implementation of selective Six Sigma principles, can improve the quality of services and products in hospitality establishments, as well as reducing their process waste in such establishments. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Published Article / The changes brought about by global competitiveness place increasing pressure on local government to deliver more and better services to communities. To determine whether South Africa has benefited from globalisation per se in terms of improved performance, performance management in the South African local government needs to be investigated through benchmarking the prerequisites for such a system set, and an appraisal of the performance of local government in South Africa since 1994. Strategies for improved performances to be globally competitive will furthermore be advanced.

Published Article / Postgraduate supervision and research training are core academic activities for most higher education institutions. Worldwide, including in South Africa, there is concern about the quality of postgraduate training in higher education institutions, the length of time it takes postgraduate students to complete their postgraduate studies, and the high percentage of students who terminate their studies. Against the backdrop of these concerns, the quality of research supervision is essential for the successful completion of studies. However, ensuring the quality of the input dimension within South African postgraduate supervision is complicated – the reasons being that the process is entangled with issues of power, desire, and differences in relation to supervision practices, along with rapid higher education transformation demanding more quality and accountability, etc. Therefore it is recommended that the supervision process be monitored for improvement purposes and to address context-specific needs. This article reports on an improvement-oriented investigation into the current supervision practices at the case study university.

This project was inspired by a declaration made by built environment professionals at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (GABS, 2002), of the need for a common framework to improve decision making for sustainable development. Priori theorising indicated the suitability of governance as a topic of consideration and the possibility that a governance framework offered a potential solution. The research question was therefore: “would a governance framework for the built environment sector provide a framework in which decision making for sustainable development could be improved for all built environment stakeholders?” With an added dimension of testing for developed and developing countries, the research project was constructed on the case study methodology using the built environment sectors of the UK and Ghana. The project commenced with a review of literature which confirmed that governance is a core component of sustainable development and of increasing relevance to built environment stakeholders in both developed and developing countries. A significant gap in the literature concerning governance and the built environment sector was identified. Through analysis of literature a governance framework was constructed to act as the theoretical framework for testing. A comparative analysis of the current governance arrangements impacting on the built environment sectors in each of the case studies provided data to test the theoretical framework. A contingency valuation carried out with built environment policy makers and practitioners in Ghana provided data to further test the acceptability and applicability of the theoretical governance framework. It was concluded that a governance framework provided a robust framework in which decision making for sustainable development could be analysed and improved. Furthermore, evidence indicates that the completeness of a sector’s governance framework is a key indicator of performance for sustainable development in the built environment sector. The framework developed in this project has been used to analyse performance in Ghana’s built environment sector and the resulting policy guidance has informed the development of policy and institutional reforms in Ghana.