What hidden performance “gaps” curb excellence in your organization?
Scorebook Navigator™ service detects
buried opportunities for improvement, compares actual performance with potential performance
 In
the Spring of 2008, Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM) was in the process of
implementing an overall LEAN strategy to improve the accuracy of their
warehousing and distribution services. The LEAN implementation strategy
was initially designed to achieve some small first wins. The Kansas City
store was supported by Daniel Saravia, Aleia Maciula and Nicole Langholz,
a Process Engineering Team. Omaha's implementation was supported by the
I.T. Process Improvement Team.
The
Kansas City Store Director, Jeff Lind, proposed that Brian Van Ormer, a
Business Analyst from the Omaha location and the Kansas City Process
Engineering Team work together to conduct a Baldrige-based
"self-assessment" to help compare its actual performance with
its potential performance in the LEAN implementation. The NFM planning
team, consisting of the CEO, COO and Directors, endorsed the idea and gave
this Team the go-ahead to direct the gap analysis to identify areas of
strength and opportunities for improvement. Brian had served as an
examiner for the Nebraska Edgerton Award where he had worked with the
Scorebook Navigator™ (SBN) software. He believed he could expand the
software's capabilities to serve as a gap analysis tool.
 The
method involved interviews with appropriate personnel, which were carried
out in tag-team fashion over several weeks. As each team member gathered
answers, the information was entered into the SBN database. Brian, as team
leader, compiled the data into a completed report, conferring with the
team as needed.
Over
the course of developing the self-assessment report, the Scorebook
Navigator software became an essential compilation tool, as team members
found it "helpful for tracking data as the 'buckets' were already
built." Once the data were compiled, the planning team reviewed it,
changes were recommended, and the completed analysis was signed off.
The
team found that there were no quantifiable, predictable measurements in
place for each result area. However, there were no real surprises in the
results: the organization had a good foundation of strategic objectives in
place. The self-assessment became a "burning platform for moving the
LEAN implementation forward." From these findings, the Planning Team
has moved forward with additional continuous improvement initiatives,
including value stream mapping of one of NFM's key supply chains.
Since
completing the gap analysis in late 2009, Brian Van Ormer has found the
self-assessment to be a repository of data about Nebraska Furniture Mart's
business processes. Recently, marketing staff approached Brian to see what
perceptions of the business existed in the community and amongst their
customers, and how best to formulate messaging to reach the community.
Brian is certain that other such requests can also be answered by the
self-assessment in the future.
What
is the Scorebook Navigator™ software?
Jim Shaw, President and Founder
of Shaw Resources, first became a Baldrige examiner in 1994 and he knows
firsthand the tedium examiners endure when scoring any Baldrige-based
assessment using MS Word. To reduce the tiresome task of ‘scoring’ an
assessment, he developed an online, SQL-based alternative to MS Word: Scorebook
Navigator™ (SBN) software. This web-based program pre-loads the
Baldrige criteria so the user can answer the criteria questions and use
the same maturity scale as examiners (Approach, Deployment, Learning and
Integration). The software can
be used as a self-assessment or to complete an application at
both state and national levels.
An
unexpected additional benefit of the SBN software is that it provides
assistance to those who wish to perform a formal ‘gap’ analysis using
structured criteria. The
Scorebook Navigator software has all criteria fields set up and ready for
input. Additionally, Scorebook Navigator software is readily adaptable to
use other criteria (e.g. safety).
About
Shaw Resources:
Jim
Shaw is founder of Shaw Resources, which offers leading-edge management
systems and related software. His clients include such household names as
Bank of America, Hexcel Corporation, Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and Stanford
University Medical Center. A popular speaker, Jim has written articles for
multiple journals and a book entitled Customer-Inspired Quality:
Looking Backward Through the Telescope.
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