Today, everyone understands that the only norm in the world of business is that continuous, rapid, and often unexpected changes have become a way of life.
In order to successfully adapt to this new business environment, successful organizations are embracing an organization-wide Continuous Improvement Process.

HPL’s Continuous Improvement Training will enable your managers
and employees to:

• Quickly adapt to changing customer requirements.
  
• Continuously improve work processes and reduce unnecessary costs.
  
• Solve problems by providing a common set of skills and tools for team-based problem solving.
  
• Align your business processes with your customers’ key “care abouts” and requirements.
  
• Delight your customers everyday!

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The Quality Advantage prepares people in all functions and at all levels of your company to become effective participants in Continuous Improvement. Specifically, this proven quality awareness program:

• Teaches the fundamental principles and concepts of Continuous Improvement
  
• Helps your managers, supervisors, and employees understand their roles in meeting customer requirements and expectations
  
• Introduces customer-based criteria for measuring the quality of work
  
• Prepares everyone to reduce the cost of quality
  
• Provides the tools needed to improve work processes and break down functional barriers
  
• Shows managers how to develop their own Continuous Improvement implementation plans

The following training materials and services are available to support your implementation of The Quality Advantage:

• Set of four videocassettes
  
• Guides for Managers and Professionals
  
• Workbooks for Participants
  
• Pocket Guides
  
• Facilitator workshops
  
• Facilitator Manuals
  
• On-site implementation consulting
  
• Senior management, management, and employee workshops
  

Your employees will participate in four video-supported modules of The Quality Advantage.

	“The Meaning of Quality”—introduces the essential Continuous Improvement concepts and describes the five pillars of a quality organization: customer focus, total involvement, measurement, systematic support, and continuous improvement
	“The Cost of Quality”—helps employees grasp the true cost of not doing quality work, differentiate between necessary and avoidable costs, estimate the cost of quality for their own work, and plan how they will reduce and eliminate their avoidable costs of quality
	“You and Your Customer”—prepares employees to use three simple questions to build positive working relationships with their own customers and suppliers, and to use the PRIDE elements (Product/service, Relationship, Integrity, Delivery, Expense) to guide their customer-supplier interactions
	“Continuous Improvement”—teaches employees how to use contingency diagrams to anticipate and prevent quality problems and how to use the why technique to get at the preventable root causes of recurrent problems

Managers and supervisors are vital to the success of Continuous Improvement in your company. Therefore, your company’s managers and supervisors participate in another version of The Quality Advantage that provides, in addition to the materials included in the employee version:

• Guidelines for establishing customer requirements and relevant quality measures
  
• Presentations on achieving continuous improvement and breakthrough improvement
  
• Exercises on flowcharting work and measuring work processes
  
• Instruction in the use of control charts, prevention planning, benchmarking, and other continuous improvement techniques

Managers and supervisors also participate in a fifth module devoted specifically to management’s role in implementing The Quality Advantage program. “Implementation” prepares managers and supervisors to personally lead continuous improvement efforts, develop a kickoff plan for quality in their own organizations, and collaborate with colleagues across functions to bring about large-scale organizational change.

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Quality Action Teams (QAT) helps your company meet two vital needs—skills and structure. We prepare your people to build quality into daily work within their own function or department and across functions throughout your organization.

Quality Action Teams teaches your people how to apply more than twenty proven problem solving and process improvement tools to reduce cycle time, solve and prevent quality problems, and increase customer satisfaction.

Quality Action Teams also teaches your managers and team leaders how to drive and support continuous process improvement, so that your managers and team leaders can:

• Form and focus teams on priority improvement opportunities
  
• Make team meetings and activities highly productive
  
• Track the progress of teams as they proceed
  
• Recognize team achievement and document the impact of continuous improvement activities
  
• Use what they have learned to replicate quality advances in all parts of your organization

The following Quality Action Teams training materials and services are available:

• Set of six videocassettes
  
• Guides for Managers and Team Leaders
  
• Guides for Team Members
  
• Facilitator Manuals
  
• Facilitator workshops
  
• HPL-led quick-start teams

  
  
  
  For team members, Quality Action Teams provides video-supported training that introduces and illustrates each phase of the process, reinforces Continuous Improvement principles and skills, and provides models for applying problem-solving skills and tools.
  
  Team members receive the Guide for Team Members, which includes a Team Member Workbook, a Pocket Guide reference booklet outlining important skills and tools, and a set of convenient Action Cards that summarize important Quality Action Teams skills and approaches.
  
  
  
  
  In addition to the training provided to team members, your managers and team leaders participate in video-supported training developed specifically to prepare them for their vital role in implementing Quality Action Teams.
  
  The Guide for Managers and Team Leaders includes all the materials received by team members, plus individual development plans for building team leadership skills and readings on leadership. Team leaders also receive a Quality Action Teams Project Booklet for tracking the progress of their teams and documenting process improvement outcomes.

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Managing Process Improvement prepares your managers and employees to make your key work processes more effective (better able to meet customer needs), efficient (able to meet customer needs at lower cost), and flexible (more responsive to changing customer requirements).

Specifically, Managing Process Improvement teaches your managers and employees how to:

The participant workbook is divided into three modules.

	“A Process View of Work”—explains why viewing work as a process is vital to achieving breakthroughs in productivity and customer satisfaction; develops a common language and conceptual architecture for process improvement; and stresses the practical and strategic benefits of pursuing process improvement in your organization. Exercises and presentations include “What Is a Work Process?” and “What Gets in the Way.”
	“Leading Process Improvement”—prepares managers to identify the most important improvement projects, select and support process improvement teams, determine when to start and stop team activity, and effectively review process improvement activities. Exercises, presentations, and process improvement tools include “Assessing Your Likelihood of Success,” “Process Selection Matrix,” “Relationship Diagram,” and “Strategy Selector.”
	“Improving Work Processes”—prepares all employees to apply the seven-phase process improvement blueprint to analyze work processes, identify gaps in work process performance, and pursue breakthroughs in process performance. Exercises, presentations, and process improvement tools include “Cross-Functional Flowchart,” “Impact Wheel,” “Data Source Menu,” and “Measures Development Guide.”

HPL can provide expert consulting support for your implementation of Managing Process Improvement. Specifically, we can work with your organization to:

• Coach and counsel senior-level process management teams
  
• Plan, schedule, and prioritize your efforts to achieve breakthroughs
  in process performance
  
• Identify the best in-house resources to deliver Managing Process Improvement training
  
• Create corporate, divisional, and on-site support structures for process management teams
  
• Revise, review, and modify your process measurement systems

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The Voice of the Customer prepares your managers, supervisors, and employees to gather and analyze customer-focus data they can use to guide daily work and drive continuous process improvement. This multimedia training program also teaches the practical interpersonal skills your people need to improve internal and external customer relationships.

Specifically, The Voice of the Customer helps participants from all functions and levels of your organization

• Bring the voice of the customer inside your organization in the form of actionable customer-focus data
  
• Identify and remove costly organizational barriers to customer satisfaction
  
• Achieve breakthroughs in customer service to enhance customer loyalty

At the core of The Voice of the Customer is the concept of “delighting the customer.” Participants learn that by meeting basic requirements, they can prevent customer complaints. By reaching beyond basic requirements to anticipate and satisfy the customer’s unstated needs, they also develop customer confidence and build customer loyalty.

	“Total Customer Focus”—defines a total customer focus organization as one in which all work processes work as one to delight customers. Participants learn why they must use the voice of the customer to drive continuous process improvement and to define quality in daily work. A customer-focus audit helps participants assess current customer-focus levels.
	“Listening to the Voice of the Customer”— Participants learn how to identify barriers between themselves and their customers and how to apply the needs evolution technique (a simple form of quality function deployment) to translate general customer needs into specific, clearly prioritized customer service standards. Participants also learn how to partner with their internal customers and suppliers to enhance customer loyalty.
	“Opportunities to Delight”—shows participants that each interaction with a customer offers not one but at least three different opportunities to delight—before, during, and after the delivery of products and services. A customer-feedback questionnaire helps participants identify and prioritize opportunities to improve their own customer relationships in the before, during, and after phases.
	“Customer Focus Skills”—teaches participants how to read the customer’s unstated needs, how to analyze those needs to determine what he or she cares about most, and how to respond in ways that demonstrate a commitment to the customer’s delight. This interpersonal-skills module prepares participants to go beyond traditional “smile” techniques to uncover and meet the customer’s root needs.
	“Managing Customer Focus”—introduces your managers and supervisors to six keys to supporting total customer focus. Management and supervisory participants use these keys to evaluate the environment for customer focus within their own work groups, create specific customer service standards, and plan how to empower their employees to exceed customer needs.

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