Methods and Tools
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CIMPA Fr: info@cimpa.com
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Balanced Scorecard (BSC) – Prospective Indicator Chart
The BSC is a management system designed to help corporate or organisation executives deploy their strategy in accordance with the mission, vision and values they have formalised.
In the BSC approach, the strategy is translated into strategic objectives expressed on 4 axes of concern:- 2 external axes: Finance and Customer
- 2 internal axes: Internal processes and Resources
In this representation, called the “strategy map”, the objectives are connected by hypothetical relations of cause
and effect.
The objectives on the internal axes constitute levers.
The objectives on the external axes constitute results.
The Organisation/Company is managed based on indicators related to each objective.
The strategy is cascaded down and communicated to the lowest level of the organisation so that every person is aware of his/her own contribution to the strategy of the Organisation/company.
To attain the target values set at the indicator level, action plans or initiatives are set up and monitored very closely.
This entire management system constitutes a remarkable knowledge
base for managers insofar as over time they control the levers of their strategy, levers they can activate according to the results they control.
In a change management context, that is increasingly being generalised, this management system allows managers to
focus on the real priorities as regards proposals of value for shareholders and customers and as regards internal processes, employee training, technology, work environment as contributors to these proposals of value.
KPI Management Tool
KPI Management Tool is a simple, user-friendly decision aid IT application developed by CIMPA.
Implemented for organisation steering purposes, it allows the creation and use of indicator charts related to performance objectives defined and modeled according to the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach.
Capable of connecting to enterprise information systems supplying indicator measures, KPI Management Tool offers the possibility at any time of graphically generating on the screen or in an Acrobat format report the report of the performance of an organisation and its developments, to record and share the analyses of these reports, record, share and monitor the actions decided upon subsequent to these analyses.
Enabling Managers to easily define and record indicator cockpits, KPI Management Tool is the ideal performance management tool.
KPI Management Tool exists in French and English versions and its documentation is available on-line.
It runs under Windows 2000 or XP Pro, in single workstation or network mode.
A rights administration module allows read/write access to be restricted for the objects of the strategy map.
CMII Configuration Management Standard
Configuration management is a process that allows products, resources and processes to be managed by their data, taking into account their changes and by ensuring that these data are what they are supposed to be at any time.
CMII, initiated by the ‘’Institute of Configuration Management’’ (ICM), extends the field of Configuration Management beyond product design to include any information likely to have an impact on security, quality, lead times, costs, profit or the environment.
With CMII, Configuration Management emphasizes the following objectives:
- Facilitate change
- Facilitate the reuse of standards and best practices
- Assure that all requirements (published information) remain clear, concise and valid
- Communicate 1, 2 and 3 to each user quickly and accurately
- Ensure results that comply with requirements
In this spirit, a requirement is not a requirement until
it is documented, validated and published.
“Requirements must lead, physical items must conform.”
In the CMII approach, an Organisation must operate on the basis of requirements, avoiding spending time and money on corrective actions and benefiting more from the reuse of standards and best practices.
CMII makes the field of reuse of knowledge clearer and thus more profitable.
Design to Cost
Design to Cost is a method used in designing a product or service. It is based on the definition with the customer from the outset of the project of costs that cannot be exceeded (in particular recurring costs in the manufacturing phase) and on the definition of the specifications for the product or service to design.
This method enables competitiveness by controlling the value of the product
or service and its cost thereby meeting the customer’s requirements.
Its aim is not to achieve marginal cost reductions but rather to make real progress
in the way a product is designed with a real concern for reducing costs.
Based on a “value analysis” approach, design to cost allows at least three of the following objectives to be met:
- Meet the technical requirements initially expressed by the customer
- Avoid the inflation of unnecessary product or service performances
- Attain, without exceeding them, the initial cost objectives (development costs and product manufacturing costs, cost of ownership, technological costs).
Design to cost is composed of 5 phases:
- Define the target sales price
- Determine the target profit
- Infer the target cost
- Calculate the estimated cost
- Reduce the difference between target cost and estimated cost
In this approach, opportunities for cost savings and the associated risks are identified and analysed. Knowledgeable decisions can then be made. The traceability of the decisions and their justification make Design to Cost a true design process knowledge management system.
CIMPA has developed Orkestra, a software application that implements the Design to Cost approach. Orkestra also takes into account target parameters other than cost, in particular weight.
Modelling and Process Evaluation
PROCESS (according to standard ISO 9000): ‘’set of correlated or interactive activities that transforms inputs into outputs’’.
The aim of a process is to produce an output attaining objectives (associated expected results). For example; the “MANUFACTURING” process aims to produce a manufactured product with a quality objective.
End purpose of processes:
All the processes of a company/organisation fulfill the end purposes of its management system, for example:- Products and services to deliver to the customer
- Achievement of objectives set by the Management of the company/organisation (end purpose = product/service and objective)
Systemic approach:
Approach in which the object analysed is seen as a system.
SYSTEME : “Set of interacting elements, organised to carry out determined mission in a defined environment”.
It is thus defined by the mission it carries out (what it is used for) and its components are themselves defined and ordered according to this mission.
CIMPA approaches process analysis through a systemic approach:
- Clearly define the system composed of processes to analyse
- Clearly define the mission of the system
- Identify a hierarchy of components of the representative system, of their level of participation in accomplishing the mission
- Identify key processes (those that participate in the value chain, in the mission)
- Highlight the interactions between processes (the quality of the interfaces between the components of a system conditions the performance of the system)
- Identify the human resources, methods, tools and organisation involved in their operation