April 2009	E-News for the CSU Quality Improvement Community	Vol. 9, No. 2
In This Issue
General QI Program Update 2009 CSU QI Program Award Winners CAPE Bear Award 2007/08 Biennial Report on Quality Improvement QI Topic - LEAN Quality Improvement Calendar
General QI Program Update
New CSU Quality Improvement (QI) Program Steering Committee Chair The CSU QI Program is pleased to announce the appointment of Stephen G. Garcia as the CSU QI Program Steering Committee Chair. Garcia is the vice president & CFO, Administration and Business Affairs, at CSU, Sacramento. Garcia’s long-term leadership for Quality Improvement in the CSU has produced strong and effective programs at two campuses. QI initiatives at CSU San Marcos and Sacramento State are characterized by strong workforce engagement, teamwork and significant utilization of QI tools, including Strategic Planning, the Balanced Scorecard, process improvement, and assessment. Garcia emphasizes the importance of two-way communication, professional development, and staff-focused programs, such as recognition, newsletters, information sharing events, and staff representation on committees. Garcia promotes a culture of collaborative decision-making and transparency at both the division and campus levels, most notably through the provision of support and data to the university’s budget committee which has resulted in an informed constituency, enhanced relationships and mutual trust. Garcia replaces David DeMauro, who served as the QI Program Steering Committee Chair for the past four years. Mr. DeMauro recently retired as Vice President for the Administration and Finance Division at CSU San Bernardino.

2009 CSU QI Program Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2009 CSU QI Program Award Winners!

1. Champion of the Year – Linda Hawk (San Marcos)

Award Criteria

Leadership: Demonstrated leadership in the promotion and implementation of QI initiatives (example: process improvement teams), campus and/or systemwide.

Communication: Effective communicator of the principles of QI, campus and/or systemwide (examples: campus or division QI website, QI training or activities, coordination of QI groups, published articles, etc.).

Knowledge Sharing: Developing and sharing model practices, campus and/or systemwide.

Linda Hawk (San Marcos): Vice President Hawk has been a participant and leader of QI efforts since she came to San Marcos. Immediately after assuming her position as Vice President, she set about engaging the leadership team in establishing a new vision for the division and instilling a culture of QI into all aspects of the organization. To maintain the momentum of this new vision she developed a guiding principles program which is highlighted and reaffirmed throughout the organization using a variety of communication tools that disseminates via a QI approach to management to all departments. She embraces an approach to management that models all the value that QI can bring to an organization.

2. Distinguished Service in Quality Improvement – Abbi Stone (Sacramento)

Award Criteria

Ongoing promotion and support of QI on a systemwide or campuswide basis.

Leadership or membership in a systemwide QI committee resulting in significant demonstrated benefit to the CSU.

Abbi Stone (Sacramento): Over a span of nearly 10 years, Abbi has championed successful quality improvement efforts at two CSU campuses. Her leadership was instrumental in the development of comprehensive and widely respected programs at San Marcos and Sacramento, and the active participation of both campuses in the systemwide QI programs. She has been a pioneer in starting up new programs and the breadth of her QI efforts has made a significant impact at both campuses.

3. Team of the Year – Environmental Health & Safety Function Team (Kevin Brady, Scott Bourdon, Gary Pons, Regina Frasca, Tom Whitfield)

Award Criteria

Methodology: Utilization of QI tools and concepts, such as performance measurement, customer surveys, process mapping, or balanced scorecard.

Outcomes: Documented and demonstrated results, such as reduced cost, increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction, potential best practices, lessons learned.

Measurement and Assessment: Identified methods for assessing the effort after implementation (example: pbviews, status reporting, customer surveys, etc.).

Environmental Health & Safety Function Team: The team led an effort to implement the first ever Customer Satisfaction survey for the Environmental Health & Safety function in the system. They developed a survey tool that was administered at eight CSU campuses in 2008, establishing a new tool for benchmarking and nurturing a nascent culture of QI good practice in this functional area.

Name Dept. Campus Role

Kevin Brady	Risk Management /Environmental Health and Safety	Los Angeles	Function Chair
Scott Bourdon	Environmental Health and Instructional Safety	Fullerton	Taskforce Member
Gary Pons	Safety and Risk Management	Long Beach	Taskforce Member
Regina Frasca	Risk Management and Safety	San Marcos	Taskforce Member
Tom Whitfield	Environmental Health and Instructional Safety	Fullerton	Taskforce Member

4. Innovative Practice – Donna Amos, Dara Manker, Elaine Thurmond, Lygia Smidt (San Luis Obispo)

Award Criteria

Practice: Identify how the practice:

· Successfully addresses an important problem;

· Represents an original, inventive, creative, resourceful utilization of methods to improve quality;

· Could be defined as noteworthy and could be used to showcase/promote campus or systemwide Quality Improvement efforts;

· Can serve as a model that other campuses may seek to replicate.

Outcomes: Results are demonstrable, documented, or practice is recognized as innovative locally, regionally, nationally, or systemwide.

Admission, Evaluation and Selection process at San Luis Obispo: The team automated the faculty-designed comprehensive review process that is used to screen, score and select students for admission. This effort brought together a cross functional group of experts from across the campus who collaborated on an innovative way to automate the selection process. They used QI tools to define the problem and develop a strategic plan, which resulted in a transformation of the classical organization model in place. One of the most significant adoptions was the multi-criteria admission selection scheme (MCA) that combines academic factors with other objective values to comprehensively review all student applicants for selection. Applicants compete for admission against other applicants applying to the same major. Decisions are based on the available spaces in each major, which varies from quarter to quarter. CSUMentor, an on-line application, was utilized as the electronic admission portfolio and was integrated with CMS SA PeopleSoft admission module and the MCA database. This is a model that could be applied throughout the CSU.

Name Dept.

Donna Amos	Associate Director, Admissions and Recruitment
Dara Manker	ITS-Application Integration Analyst/Programmer
Elaine Thurmond	Data Analyst
Lygia Smidt	Manager, Academic Affairs Technical Services

5. Facilitator of the Year – Dennis Muraoka (Channel Islands)

Award Criteria

Campus Involvement: Promoter of QI on his/her campus leading to process improvement efforts, utilization of assessment tools, and increasing campus participation in campus and systemwide QI initiatives resulting in demonstrated benefit to the campus community and/or its stakeholders.

Mentoring: Supporter of and resource for others, dedicating time and effort, helping others understand and apply QI methodologies and tools, leading or involving others in a QI program (for a campus, department, or team) with a demonstrated benefit to another individual. Examples may include working with other QIFs, giving training or workshops on QI tools, publishing QI articles in a campus newsletter, developing a campus QI website, or performing outreach activities.

Other Contributions: Active participation in systemwide and/or multi-campus QI activities (e.g., training, workshops, etc.), initiatives or committees or author of one or more articles for the QI newsletter.

Dennis Muraoka (Channel Islands): Dr. Muraoka successfully used QI principles in his role as campus Accreditation Liaison Officer, which resulted in Channel Islands earning both accreditation and praise from the team and WASC. The inclusive structure he designed for completing the accreditation process involved the entire campus and ensured broad awareness of institutional and divisional goals, each unit’s role in meeting those goals, and each employee’s responsibility for furthering the successful operation of the university. He established a novel “bottoms up” approach for an on-going assessment approach throughout the campus, which can serve as an excellent model for other campuses.

If you have any questions please contact Alexis Naiknimbalkar at anaik@calstate.edu.

CAPE Bear Award

Sarah Whyte, Director of Strategic Planning & Quality Improvement and CSU QI Program Planning Committee Chair, is the recipient of a CAPE Bear Award, in recognition of her contributions as a CAPE volunteer in 2008.

CAPE is the California Awards for Performance Excellence. Administered by the California Council for Excellence (CCE), the CAPE program emulates the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Program recognized internationally as the hallmark for performance excellence. Examiners are certified to review the performance of applicants from leading California organizations in seven key business areas, including leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, measurement and knowledge management, human resources, process management and business results.

The prestigious Bear Award recognizes CAPE’s most valuable volunteers for their leadership and contributions that help sustain the success of the CAPE Program.

Award recipients are selected by the CAPE Volunteer Reward and Recognition Committee, from among nominations submitted by peer volunteers. Sarah’s nominator described her as “an outstanding examiner that made a positive difference for the team and to the outcome of the process. Throughout the cycle, she remained cheerful, helpful, insightful, and always willing to share her knowledge and expertise with her teammates. Sarah worked tirelessly as part of the team to ensure the applicant’s processes were carefully and objectively reviewed and evaluated." Sarah has served as a volunteer examiner since 2005.

(Article from the Sacramento State Administration & Business Affairs website)

2007/08 Biennial Report on Quality Improvement

This report details the many quality improvement efforts occurring throughout the 23 CSU campuses and the Office of the Chancellor. These efforts make the system a stronger and more effective organization and help us to fulfill our commitment to excellence and our mission to provide high-quality, affordable education. Now, as much as ever, we need to identify opportunities for improvement and strive to operate as efficiently as possible.

Link to a PDF version of the report:

http://calstate.edu/QI/presentations/2007_08_QIReport.pdf

QI Topic - LEAN

At the 2008 CSU QI Symposium, Karen Kusler from the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) presented on Transactional Lean as a process improvement method for administrative areas. (Certified Lean Facilitator training is available through Lean University at UCO, more information can be found at: www.leanuniversity-uco.com)

In 2002, UCO was facing staffing and budget limitations during a time of enrollment growth. To deal with the inefficient processes staff used the “band-aid” approach instead of seeking the root causes of problems. The bleeding had to stop. The Executive Vice President for Administration introduced Transactional Lean as a process improvement method. The pain points were identified and Lean Teams took action. Waste was reduced and efficiency improved in the purchasing, employment, facilities, safety, and accounting Administrative division departments. Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and Enrollment Management have also used Lean to analyze processes.

Transactional Lean improves communication, reduces expenses, and empowers employees. Moving from the way it has “always been done” enables innovative ideas to surface.

Lean methodology guides an organization through a process to eliminate non-value-added activity and sets the stage for dramatic quality improvements and customer satisfaction. By applying Lean principles in your organization, you will:

· Save time and money in a variety of unexpected areas

· Help your employees develop a Lean mentality that sustains the positive changes they help make

· Remove layers of unnecessary work that act as an obstacle to progress

“In a typical organization, data is collected, analyzed, and reported, quite often without any real relevance to the issues and opportunities of the organization. Using a cookie-cutter approach often leads to work for the sake of work. Eliminating work waste and reducing variation is a more effective way to help an organization meet its goals. Lean methodology guides an organization through a process to eliminate non-value-added activity and sets the stage for dramatic quality improvements and customer satisfaction. The simplicity of the Lean tools, combined with a systematic implementation, allows all employees of the organization to participate in change. The most powerful aspect of Lean is not what is added to a process to improve it, but what your team removes.” (Source: Using Lean for Faster Sigma Results - A Synchronized Approach, M.A. Nash, S.R. Poling, S. Ward, Productivity, New York, 2006.)

History of Lean:

Henry Ford is credited with starting the original movement. Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno developed the Toyota Production System in the 1930’s, which shifted the focus on the manufacturing engineer from individual machines and their utilization, to the flow of the product through the total process.

Lean term was popularized by Jim Womack, the Founder of Lean Enterprise Institute, and author of Lean Thinking, The Machine that Changed the World, and Lean Solutions.

Non-Manufacturing Organizations are starting to use Lean:

· Healthcare (1990’s)

o Primarily in patient service areas

· Military and Government

o Primarily in service areas, not office functions

· Higher Education (2000’s)

o Primarily in business and physical property operations

Lean is NOT – a method to eliminate positions.

Lean IS – a method to streamline processes where employees can work more efficiently and produce quality results.

If you are interested in learning more about Lean and how to apply it to your office environment, the following book can help get you started:

Lean Office Demystified:

Using the Power of The Toyota Production System in Your Administrative Areas

by Don Tapping, Anne Dunn

Publisher: MCS Media Inc.

Pub Date: September 2006

Print ISBN: 0-9770720-3-7

Lean Office Demystified is a simple and easy to understand book that provides a practical set of Lean tools, worksheets, and forms that allow you to clearly analyze and eliminate waste in the office environment. It provides a step-by-step approach with case studies on how each Lean tool should be implemented.

There are three parts in the book with “Readiness Guides” to gauge your understanding of the material before proceeding to the next section.

· Part One: Get Everyone Aligned and Started in the Right Direction

o Basic tools and concepts

o Understanding the need for behavior changes

o Implementing tools

· Part Two: Create the Structures Allowing Work Flow to Emerge

o Detailed “Current State” analysis

o Creating Standards

o Work load balancing

· Part Three: Sustain the Gains to World Class

o Create measurement systems and visual controls

o Clearly defined roles for organization and leadership