...training new unit staff and also the float nurses. “Doctors can be most involved in reducing line entries,” he says, “following the standard work orders to ask every day with every patient, what can we do to reduce line entries?” Before QTN: Limited Data, No Analysis As for data collection, a rigorous requirement of QTN, Hord admits, “Before joining, we did not have good ongoing data collection about line days in our inpatient unit, much less elsewhere. Now, we have built a system to track line days of our entire patient population anywhere.” When a central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) occurred, the unit did not have any particular follow-up, much less the root cause analysis required by QTN. “Now, when a positive culture comes back, the team receives an email notification, and nurses involved in the care of the patient are quickly interviewed,” says Hord. “Two or three days later, the team convenes for the root cause analysis, and we go through a checklist of questions.” He cites a case of a positive culture for a bone marrow transplant patient. These patients need to be bathed to get the chemo off their skin, so the infection could have been from a waterborne pathogen. During the root cause analysis, the question...
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...----------------------- Energy Trace Barrier Analysis (ETBA) – Qualitative analysis technique used to identify hazards by tracing energy flow into, thru, & out of a system. “Energy hazard” is defind as an energy source tht adversely impacts an unprotectd or vulnerable target. Assessment is conductd by following the energy path to determine if adequate controls are in place to assure undesird energy release does not occur.– Energy flow is tracd through the system operation & energy transfer points are identifid– Barriers to ento energy flow are evaluatd to determine adequacy • ETBA process can be applied at any stage of the project lifecycle & can be very useful for:– Systems design –Developing procedures(e.g., lockout--‐tagout). – Planning/judging operational readiness. – During mishap investigation or making “safe--‐to--‐enter” decisions at mishap sites. ETBA Approach • Examine system & identify all energy sources • For each energy source, trace its path through the system • Identify all targets tht could be vulnerable to the energy source • Identify all barriers in the energy flow path • Determine if existing controls are adequate. Energy Source– any material, mechanism, or process tht contains potential energy tht can be releasd •Electrical •Mechanical •Chemical •Radiation• Sonic• Thermal• Nuclear• Pneumatic• Hydraulic• Others Energy barrier --‐ any design or administrative method tht prevents energy from being releasd or prevents a hazardous energy source from reaching a...
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...Problem Identification David is convinced that his boss wants to fire him. He will not meet 6-month and 12-month sales plan unless he uses creative accounting. Root Cause Analysis There is relationship conflict between David and his boss. Some elements did not fit with each other (open system). Carter had his own favorite, so promoting David created political situation (individual–informal organization, work–informal organization). Promotion rules were faulty, as David was promoted without his boss consent and basing on one presentation (work-formal organization). Above mentioned are situational factors in MARS model. Looking at abilities David had little agreeableness expressing his displeasure with flight booking and making impression of being pompous. Although very assertive, hid did not talk to Carter to explain political situation. David also did not have clear role perception as subordinate to Carter. He did not submit requested information or did it in unsatisfactory way, e.g. status of Meryll Lynch. He did not inform the office, where he was, if he changed plans. It made his position weaker to question Carter’s sales plans. After talking to clients, he believed Carter was too optimistic or even had fabricated forecasts to get promoted. Solution Building David should start obeying rules (call the office and inform about his whereabouts, deliver information Carter asks for, hand in assignments...
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...Simulation MBA Capstone Tasks: Best Practices If you are in the MBA Capstone course, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. These best practices are designed to help make the stretch of your educational journey as smooth as possible. A mindset of excellence Your MBA Capstone tasks should reflect your highest quality work; your current state of excellence. The standards are high for the capstone tasks. Doing just enough to get by or good enough will result in re-work and re-submissions. The best practice is to strive for excellence. Read for understanding Read the course of study, task instructions, and task rubrics. Seek clarification on any points that might be subject to multiple interpretations. Do not assume; know. The best practice is to be prepared by reading for understanding. Capsim Simulation The designation of MBA indicates the ability to lead and manage both vertically and horizontally across an organization. It is the ability to maximize organizational success by understanding the organization as a system of integrated and interdependent parts. Successful completion of assessments in your MBA courses signals that you know the theories and competencies; the simulation is an opportunity to demonstrate and apply your skills. The best practices are listed below. 1. Read the Team Member Guide; understand your role and the roles of other team members. 2. Complete the Capsim pre-work. 3. Understand the simulation is challenging, time intensive...
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...TUI UNIVERSITY Module 2: Case Effective support for information users ITM 301: Principles of Finance Date: 25 January 2011 Effective support for information users In this module I will address the question of “What are the five to seven important strategic things that a company can do to ensure that its Information Technology (IT) users get adequate technical support”. "Our clients know, within minutes, if their customers are unsatisfied with a service call - and they can react accordingly." says Anthony Lacopo, President and CEO for Utopia Image who believes that real-time service is of great value to the merchants. "Great service providers increase loyalty by constantly measuring service quality and adapting their customer assistance service in real time, which is drastically different than counting the number of tickets closed or resolved. Don't confuse customer satisfaction with customer service." The five strategies that I feel are most important to having an effective helpdesk and which will afford user with the most desirable technical support are the areas which I will discuss in more detail below. The first area is to train & empower help desk agents. “Complacency is the biggest challenge we face today,” says Technical Support Manager Drew L. Jaehnig of the Defense Information Systems Agency (www.disa.mil). “Education and an infusion of enthusiasm for change are the best ways to overcome that challenge. Make training a priority and be sure that...
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...Customer Loyalty Customer Loyalty by definition is a feelings or attitudes that incline a customer to return to a company, shop or outlet to purchase again, or else to re-purchase a particular product, service or brand. In general, the customer loyalty starts with a purchase, and ends with repurchase. Customer staying longer with the company tends to decrease maintenance cost, less prone to price fluctuation and good reference to other customers. “It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one” (Pfeifer, 2005). For company to remain profitable it is essential for the company to retain its current customers; In other words take care of current customer base before go after new ones. In today’s global market place competition, it is more effective business strategy to retain customer rather than continuously trying to acquire new customers (Anderson, 2004). Empirical data study from (Hallowell, 1996), illustrates that there is a direct relationship between customer satisfaction to customer loyalty, and customer loyalty to profitability. An estimate of the effects of increased customer satisfaction on profitability suggests that attainable increases in satisfaction could dramatically improve company profitability. In this age of internet, customers are empowered with different source of information over the various communication mediums (Griffin, 2002). Now, a company must also allow customers to pull the marketing information they want, when...
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...Diagnosing Service Problems Introduction to Services The critical and complex nature of today's business applications has made it very important for IT organizations to monitor and manage application service levels at high standards of availability. Problems faced in an enterprise include service failures and performance degradation. Since these services form an important type of business delivery, monitoring these services and quickly correcting problems before they can impact business operations is crucial in any enterprise. Service-level agreements are used to evaluate service availability, performance, and usage. By constantly monitoring the service levels, IT organizations can identify problems and their potential impact, diagnose root causes of service failure, and fix these in compliance with the service-level agreements. Enterprise Manager provides a comprehensive monitoring solution that helps you to effectively manage services from the overview level to the individual component level. When a service fails or performs poorly, Grid Control provides diagnostics tools that help to resolve problems quickly and efficiently, significantly reducing administrative costs spent on problem identification and resolution. Finally, customized reports offer a valuable mechanism to analyze the behavior of the applications over time. Grid Control monitors not only individual components in the IT infrastructure, but also the applications hosted by those components, allowing you to model...
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...need almost instant response on root cause analysis. These issues usually come through email or phone calls from the sales engineers. The steps I follow are, once the issue comes through an email or phone, I file a defect in the defect tracking system with the information at hand, and then the issue goes to engineers to reproduce and perform the root cause analysis. After that, the priority is to find the workaround for customer, provide the feedback in email and wait for customer response on the workaround, in some cases, the customer needs issue fix in the product and that request goes through the product management. I would like to streamline this process, because the email communication for the issues is very confusing and time consuming. Project Selection Method to Evaluate the Process Improvement List of problems: 1. Issues coming through emails do not have enough information about the issue itself, such as platform, configuration, customer setup, priority of issue, frequency of issue. 2. The sales engineers do not file any issue in the defect tracking system and email directly to engineers many a times for customer issues. 3. The emails have multiple issues under one subject matter, adding to confusion of the engineers. 4. The engineering team spends a huge amount of time to gather basic information on issue itself and it causes delay in the root cause analysis. 5. The customer service team is not in loop, so it causes discrepancy in the knowledge...
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...Case Analysis– Levendary Café: The China Challenge Statement of the Problem Mia Foster, the new CEO of Levendary Café, found that there is a disintegrated strategy between the American HQ and the Chinese subsidiaries. Further more, the huge resistance of Chen to comply with the specific plans and reporting processes required by Foster has greatly increased the tension and frustration between them. Key Problems and Issues * The expansion to China is moving far from Levendary’s well-defined concepts of store design and menu. This might have a great impact on Levendary as a whole as the long established brand image of Levendary is not maintained in the Chinese market. * Misalignment between the objective of the company in the U.S. and Levendary Café China’s operation style * The U.S. market emphasizes on the customer experience – provides place to sit and eat * The China market has a fast food establishment – e.g. take out counters and use of cheap furniture or no furniture at all (Quick casual dining) * Chen has a high reluctance to conform with the company’s planning and reporting processes * Lack of communication between the U.S. headquarter and the China market Secondary Issues * Different financial reporting processes in China and the U.S (not U.S. GAAP) * Is Chen really the best candidate for the role he serves or should he be replaced? Root Cause Analysis Symptoms: Most Levendary Café stores in China have different designs...
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...desired position. * To find the Root Cause of the Gap thus, providing solutions to eliminate/solve the problem and reach the desired goal. | Explain the purposes/uses of the Systems model (3 points) * Understands the parts of the system and how they are connected related to each other. * Identifies the problems occurring in the systems , their causes and provides for a solution for them * Then, identifies what to measure (feedback & monitoring) to determine whether the problem has been solved or measure the current performance in regards to the desired performance. | Check (✓ ) the performance improvement approach you are using: ✓ Discrepancy-Based Model ☐ Systems Model Company Project Paper: Discrepancy-Based Model Note: the points are based on correctly identifying the steps and providing explanation for each of those steps. Fill in any missing information. Points | Identification | Explanations | 2 | Appropriate sequence | Discussion of reason(s) for this sequence. Why these steps in this order? As the Problem Solving Process involves: * Understanding the current situation to analyze the problem or scope of improvement * Then, to define the problem due to which there is a GAP between the current & desired goal –challenges faced to overcome it, its impact on the business. * Determining the underlying CAUSE/CAUSES of the problem and making a list to determine the major cause...
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...XCOM/285 Checkpoint Wk6 Group Communication How does group communication differ from individual communication? When you are in a group or part of a team, there are a lot of ideas that can be place on the table from many different people. However, when you are the individual with the idea, then there is no conflict. Group communication can be a difficult skill there are numerous members, who may have differing views on the subject /issues, There is always the chance of disagreements as well. Regarding individual communication, disagreements and making decisions is much easier, because you are the only one involved making the process. Define group communication in three to five sentences. Group communication is a skill in which people comes together to solve certain problems and issues, depending on the issue, subject, and/or problem these groups could be made up of people from all over. Groups share their knowledge and sometimes there are some conflicts but what comes out of the conflict is mutual agreement in what they have done. Group communication provides the opportunity for people from different walks of life to come together to understand each other in cooperation. * What conflict resolution strategies could be used in case of disagreement? The first thing to do is to reduce the number of conflicts in the group, by Make responsibilities and ground rules clear at the beginning. Discuss problems as they arise, rather than letting them fester till people explode...
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...in RWE my company’, the percentage response on that question was 58%, below what was expected. The question is why does it need to be improved? If communication is not improved the cost of this could be lack of motivation, increasingly bad reputation of the department, if team members cannot communicate within the team it could be found that team members are expressing their opinions outside of the department. If there is lack of motivation this could cause the following: • Decreased Production • Increase of attrition rate • De-motivating new starters within the company • Lack of respect within the department • Increase in negativity from the team. Therefore the main object is to improve the percentage from 58% to higher percentage by the time the next staff survey is issued in 2008. Investigation This question directly links back to communication within the team, if people feel it is unsafe to speak up there is a communication issue. However further investigation is required to find the root cause analysis. The initial problem was recognised via the staff survey, to find out further specific information a questionnaire was given to a cross section of the training team (see appendix 1). This then provides the voice of the customer. The responses to these...
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...Stefanie Ryan Individual Project #4 11/4/13 An overview regarding the value of human capital management Human Capital is “the totality of talent that is found in an organization” (M.U.S.E). Some examples of human capital management are skills, abilities and behaviors. It also includes critical thinking abilities by employees, providing problem solving and conflict resolution capabilities. The biggest intrinsic value of human capital is the ability to take a company who is functioning poorly and move it into a company who is in a place that can continually improve. Various human capital management problems There are a couple of problems that seem to affect human capital the most. They are employee retention, employee motivation, and training & employee development. A company wants to be able to keep the employees that they have and it has proven to be a difficult task if the employees do not feel like they are invested in a company or feel that they are needed. If you have employees who feel like they are a part of the team then they will stay motivated to keep up good work and there will be fewer turnovers. Leadership styles and their impact on organizational cultures There are several different leadership styles in business. They are: 1. Autocratic-have power over people, employees' suggestions not taken into consideration. 2. Bureaucratic-follow rules by the book and make sure that procedures are followed 3. Charismatic-inspire enthusiasm and are energetic...
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...Fine Foods need to expand management team to encompass the needs of the growing organization. When are we seeing the problem? Overall, in the business-Kathy is no longer able to run the operations by herself, the organization is in need of technological advances, and financial analysis going forward. How big is the problem? The problem is reflected by looking at the insufficient inventory and purchasing system, need for better financial planning with opening and consolidating the new store with the struggling store. In addition, Kathy is stretched thin with visiting each store with the frequency that she does. What specifically is the problem? Management team needs to be expanded with dependable people who can focus on different aspects of the business allowing Kathy to focus on the company as a whole. What requirements did the company fail to meet? Failure to prepare a good analysis when expanding to DelMar versus Espanita and now looking to consolidate DelMar with the new store because of fledgling sales. Using technological advances to create a value-added purchasing/inventory system. Having better understanding of customer purchasing cycles and trends. PROBLEM STATEMENT ANALYSIS Identifying issues within an organization is important to determining the overall performance goals within an organization. Creating a problem statement for the issues is the most important step in solving these issues. A good problem statement will contain the following information:...
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...rapidly, new products had to be introduced more quickly, new plants had to be opened more rapidly, and supply chain networks had to be expanded more aggressively. I think it was the step that Toyota did wrong. Quality should always be the key competency and main focus for Toyota. 2. What should Toyota do now? I believe that Toyota should have a right attitude to respond to the crisis. They should not delay recall the cars and have a slow response to the public. Instead, they should face the evidence that problems exist with its accelerators. And Toyota has to learn to trust non-Japanese leaders in order to communicate efficiently to avoid delay fixing future problems. Furthermore, The top management and engineers should focus on root cause analysis and coming up with solutions in order to recover its reputation from public. Moreover, I suggest that Toyota needs to break down problems into a smaller set of more tractable problems. Teams might be set up to focus on more targeted areas such as quality & safety development, customer-complaint management, engineering changes, public relations, and government relationships. For example, Toyota could implement total quality management to reduce the defects and increase...
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