Education and Training Courses 2010

To support Process / Operations Management for managers, team leaders & first line supervisors including improving quality, productivity, delivery, flexibility and innovation performance

Our Training Philosophy and Approach

The following 8 training courses (indexed to details below) are available. They can be readily tailored to suit individual requirements for in-house workshops.

To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

More Best Practice and Training Links below

Operations Management Course Summaries

OM01 Organising & Engaging the Team (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for: Team leaders; first line supervisors, cell leaders & team members aspiring to these roles

Course Objectives:

Creating a successful, engaged, motivated and self-managed team, does not happen by chance.

This detailed course will enable you to:

• Organise your team
• Align team goals with the aims of the organisation
• Engage the team in contributing to the goals and performance

Course Highlights & Examples of course participant's feedback:                                                                                                                           "Thought provoking - Helped me understand my own faults".......................................................................................... "Very good, Reinforced our leadership methods".........................................................................................."Helped me understand ways of changing culture + Team creation".............................................................................................."Made me examine my role and leadership methods".............................................................................................."The methods of revealing hidden problems and tackling them were really useful".........................................................................................."The ways of engaging the staff, motivation and team development are obvious NOW".........................................................................................."The break out session on team meetings gave me an opportunity to practice and the confidence to try it"........................................................................................."I can see how to overcome some of our barriers to change".........................................................................................."We can use some of the techniques straight away"

Topics covered include:

• Introduction
  • Aims of operations management; Core disciplines; Management styles; “Ideacide”
• Organising the people
  • TAKT Time; Team working; Getting help; Prioritising; Changing other people’s priorities; Defensive strategies & countermeasures; Gaining commitment to your problem; Helping each other; Delegating; Eating an elephant: (In small bites); Measuring the delegated outputs
• Engaging your people in your processes to create a team
  • Improvement Culture / Culture for change; Identifying & removing barriers to change; Culture development process; Motivation; Leadership; Influencing behaviour; Codes of conduct; Success, reward & punishment; Your behaviour; Ownership, Accountability & Empowerment; The black hole; Peer pressure
  • Engagement: attributes of a successful, engaged, self managed team; The problem board; Communication / The team meeting
• Managing Performance and aligning goals
  • Performance measurement objectives; Good and bad performance measures / Balanced SCORECARD; Measure of performance design; Reporting & action; Justification and low cost improvement
• To create a successful, engaged, motivated and self-managed team

OM02 Managing and improving individual skills and overall skills levels (Manpower development, Appraisals) (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for: Team leaders, First line supervisors, cell leaders & team members aspiring to these roles

Course Objectives:

Your people are your most valuable asset and the way you get things done. You need to ensure you have sufficient, but only sufficient, of the appropriate skills to do the work required, now and in the future.

This detailed course promotes the opposite of "tick-in-the-box" appraisals processes. It is designed to widen and deepen the skills and improve the motivation of your team & how you, as team leader, you should be spending a substantial amount of your time.

It will enable you to:

• Understand the principles & practice of maintaining a sufficient pool of available skills

• Create a manpower plan & make it happen

• Conduct an appraisal which leads to personal development in others

• Help team members to develop by creating personal development plans

Course Highlights & Examples of course participant's feedback:                                                                                                                           "Helpful, informative and well presented".......................................................................................... "Good to think about how to develop a person's skills and get them on board".........................................................................................."Eye opening - Informative and creates ideas for developing people".............................................................................................."The methods to judge performance objectively were really useful".............................................................................................."The appraisal techniques have given me ideas on the use of tools / information that are available".........................................................................................."Good content that can be applied to every day issues".........................................................................................."Completely new to me and will be very helpful in the near future"........................................................................................."The method of analysing skills and appraisal reviews will be easy to start".........................................................................................."The skills matrix was a really useful way of assessing our overall capabilities"

Topics covered include:

• Introduction
  • Agile cultures, people and organisations; The world class development process; Objectives of the skill management process; Sharing the business vision; Communication: What is it?; The personal development cycle
• Skills Planning
  • The Skills Planning Process; Analysing current skills: The skill matrix; Judging levels of competence; SWOT analysis; Paired comparison / job evaluation; Analysing skill requirements: Rough cut capacity planning; Gap analysis; Target setting; Recognising personal aspirations; The skills development plan; Follow up / Implementation
• Managing Performance & Developing People
  • Talent & talent spotting; Continuous performance monitoring; Appraisal purpose; Appraisals emotions; The emotional transformation curve; Personal motivation for personal change; Fairness; What do you need to know from an interview; Appraisal types; Appraisal focus; Preparing for an appraisal; Interviewing: Body language; Appraiser behaviour; Open & Closed questions; The personal development plan; Training: Fear of failure; Coaching & Helping
• Making Skill Availability Happen
  • Creating the slack for training; Versatility vs. mobility; Making transfers productive; Negotiating a transfer; The generalist vs. the specialist; Absenteeism: Root causes & controlling absence; Fishbone diagrams; Managing the holiday chart; The Culture Implementation Plan

OM03 Organising & Managing the Workplace (Creating effective and efficient workplaces, Visual Control systems, Housekeeping) (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for: Team leaders, first line supervisors, cell leaders & team members aspiring to these roles

Course Objectives:

Creating and operating an effective and efficient workplace is an important part of "Lean" and "Agile" thinking.

This detailed course, following lean & agile principles will enable you to:

• Organise the workplace for effective and efficient work
• Provide simple visual methods of managing the workplace and the work
• To implement and engage in good housekeeping practice

Course Highlights & Examples of course participant's feedback:                                                                                                                           "Excellent - A very detailed course on this "lean" topic".......................................................................................... "I found it easy to connect the exercises to my work".........................................................................................."Good in depth information about very relevant issues".............................................................................................."Excellent content - The exercises reinforced the points well".............................................................................................."The housekeeping side is very relevant to us".........................................................................................."Very enjoyable and pleasant way of course delivery".........................................................................................."Lots of examples from practice and visual controls"........................................................................................."The housekeeping side and value stream mapping were really helpful".........................................................................................."Focused my thoughts and provided much insight and tools to move many of our issues forward"

This course will show you how to:

• Remove waste & streamline the flow of work
• Remove complexity & organise your process
• Maintain good housekeeping: (The Six Steps to a Perfect Working Environment)
• Apply simple, inexpensive, Visual Controls (from our list of 30 ways to Visually manage your workplace & work)

OM04 Finance for Team Leaders (Understanding Budgets, Product Costs & Financially Justifying Proposals) (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for: Team leaders, first line supervisors, cell leaders & team members aspiring to these roles

Course Objectives:

Team leaders do not need to be qualified accountants, but they do need to be able to:

• Convince their managers and accountants of the financial benefits of their proposals;

• Set and manage a budget;

• Explain how financial constraints affect their operations.

Designed as an introduction to financial management for non financial team leaders, this detailed course will enable you to:

• Understand important aspects of the way that finance & cash management cycles work & some of the associated accounting jargon
• Understand your budget & the budgeting process
• Understand product costs and which costs to worry about
• Make financial justifications for your proposals

Course Highlights & Examples of course participant's feedback:                                                                                                                       "I can see how to concentate on the big cost areas".......................................................................................... "The explanation of overheads was helpful in explaining why the visible costs are only part of the overall cost".............................................................................................."All this is new to me but I feel able to explain what I have learned"............................................................................................"A good confidence boost - This topic is no longer a mystery for me".........................................................................................."A very good and enjoyable course"..........................................................................................."Made it easy to understand - No Jargon"........................................................................................"The practical exercises helped a lot"

Topics covered include:

• Introduction & Overview of Finance & Accounting:
  • Added Value vs. Adding Cost; Value & Profitability; Balance Sheet & Profit & Loss Account; Common Business Ratios; Debits & Credits (E.g. Stock gain & loss); Debtors, Creditors & the cash cycle; Assets & Liabilities; Cash management; Accruals; Provisions & Recurring Charges.
• Product Costing & which costs to worry about
  • The purpose of costing; Cost objects; Identifying Fixed & Variable Costs; Granularity; Level of detail in costing; Accuracy; Direct & Indirect Costs; The overhead problem & its solution; Fixed Overhead / Variable overhead; Allocating costs; Which Costs To Worry About.
• Budgetary Planning & Control
  • Why budget? Weakness of the budgeting process; Budget Frequency & Horizon?: Rolling Plans vs. Budgets; Forecasts vs. Budgets? Control systems theory; Context, Hierarchy & Accountability; Preparing the budget; “Top Down” Plans plus “Bottom Up” Plans; Purpose Analysis; Value Added / Non Value Added (Process Objectives & How To Validate Them); Zero Based Budgeting (ZBA); “Middle up” Objectives; Agreeing the budget; Reconciling conflicts & ownership; Managing the budget (The 4 R’s).
• Evaluating Investment; Justifying Expenditure & Avoiding Risk
  • Replacement theory; Simple Cash flow / Payback; Discounted cash flow (DCF); Compound Interest; Present Value (PV); Net Present Value (NPV); Internal Rate Of Return (IRR) & Discounted Cash Flow (DCF); Who gets the money; Justifying proposals; Cash flows & payback; Evaluation of risk / Disaster recovery; Contingency Planning (FMEA).

Other Operations Management Courses

The above courses together with the following courses (follow links) form a comprehensive toolkit for operations management:

D03 Six Steps to Near Perfect Quality

M10 Simple Stock Control

M11 Simple Ways To Maximise Output & Workflow

C04 Continuous Improvement Basic Tools & Techniques

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To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

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© SM Thacker & Associates (Consultancy and Training Specialists)  Original April 2000 Version16 November 2009