University Project: Continuous Improvement at Australian Hardware

This project focuses on continuous improvement strategies within Australian Hardware, a major Australian retailer. The assignment covers various aspects including strategic planning, performance management, communication strategies, and knowledge management. It begins with an introduction to continuous improvement and its application within the organization, followed by an analysis of problem identification and decision-making processes. The project also delves into communication strategies for work teams and stakeholders, including the use of various communication media and procedures. A significant portion of the project involves planning and participating in a continuous improvement session, followed by a written reflection on the process. The project emphasizes the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs), monitoring strategies, and the integration of continuous improvement into the organizational culture. The student uses role-playing scenarios to demonstrate practical application and reflects on the effectiveness of the planning and communication processes. The project highlights the benefits of continuous improvement in achieving organizational goals and maintaining quality.

Running head: Continuous Improvement
Continuous Improvement
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
TASK-1............................................................................................................................................3
PART-B- Summary Report.........................................................................................................3
Part C COMMUNICATION STRATEGY.................................................................................5
TASK-2............................................................................................................................................8
PART-A Plan and participate in a continuous improvement session (role-play)........................8
PART C: Written reflection.........................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10

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TASK-1
PART-B- Summary Report
Introduction
The current paper focuses on the planning and delivering continuous improvement in
Australian Hardware. The business Australian Hardware is a well-known hardware retailer in
Australia, headquartered in Sydney, NSW. The business was first inaugurated in the year 1921,
by the name of Percy’s Home Goods in George St Sydney. The organization owns 138 stores
and approximately 10,000 staff across the whole country. In 1982, the company was listed in
Australian Stock Exchange and was offered to public in a share float.
Continuous Improvement in Australian Hardware
Continuous Improvement is a continuous effort and ongoing effort executed in the
organizations in order to improve the services, products and processes. There are various process
and approaches which helps in ensuring efficient, effective and accurate process. The strategic
plans and objectives plans helps to achieve the organization goal. The organizational goals are
benchmarked in four approaches and they are competitive benchmarking, internal benchmarking,
external benchmarking and sector benchmarking. The methodologies used for the study are lean
manufacturing, six-sigma and total quality management (Mitra 2016). The lean manufacturing
focuses on five system and six waste control such as inventory control, maintenance
improvement. The waste control such as controlling transportation, processing efficiency and so
on. The six sigma approach is delivered in five steps; define, measure, analyze, implement and
control.
Problem Identification and Decision-Making

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The problem identification and decision-making is ensured by the method of value stream
mapping, process mapping and affinity diagram.
Strategies for Encouraging Participation
The individual and team can be encouraged by communicating verbally and non-verbally,
initiating team-problem solving, and active listening, negotiating and so on. Ownership and work
culture by practicing diversified culture and securing management commitment (Mitra 2016).
Effective communication with various strategies such as strong message and clear objective must
be delivered.
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management is an approach of systematically maintaining the organization’s
knowledge asset so as to create value and meeting the strategic requirements. It includes both
hard and soft skills and includes information technology which are relevant to document sharing
and storage. The sustainability objective identified are social relevance, ethical sourcing, work
enrichment, resource efficiency, engagement and location.
Performance Management, KPIs Metrics
The performance management approach helps the organization to maintain team and overall
organization performance by measuring the performance and getting feedback. The KPI is a tool
of quantifying the performance of the organization ad how the organization is effectively
achieving the key objectives (Pearce 2017). The KPI is measured in three levels; input level,
output level and process level.

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The legislative compliance helps the organization to maintain quality in their process,
product and services. This helps the management to abide by the law especially the corporate
quality policy which focuses on improving processes and also targeting the optimum level
satisfaction of the customer.
Part C COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
Communication Objectives
Understanding the importance of planning and effective executing against the plan.
Determine the strategy in order to ensure the achievement of the targeted results.
Identifying good opportunities for standardization.
Two audiences
The two audience for whom the message is delivered is work teams and stakeholders.
Communication Media
The methods of communication media could be intranets and extranets, social software and wen
conferencing. These are electronic communication tools which helps to connect with the
audiences in order to deliver the messages effectively and efficiently.
Procedure for informing the team of the outcomes of continuous improvement activities
The manger need to incorporate continuous improvement approaches in the organization, in
order to do so the manger needs to deliver effective message to the audience. The
communication strategies incorporates procedures and policies, reports and newsletters and the
web-based communication tools. The management cam inform the outcomes of the continuous
improvement activities through procedural audit. The other various ways is through electronic

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devices such as extranets. Extranets is basically organization’s private communication system
used to communicate with the suppliers, customers and other approved parties (Groomer and
Murthy 2018). After deliver the message the manager could ask for feedback from the audience
for the same.
Monitoring Strategy
Targets Standards KPIs Reporting and
recording
Timelines
To complete
the target
within the
deadline
The Australian based
companies makes certain
adjustments such as to
move financial year July
to June to October to
September
The Australian Securities
Investments Commission
(ASIC) and Australian
Taxation Office (ATO) is
required to be informed.
Formal documentation
must be provided to the
shareholders and the
regulatory authorities
through emails, letters or
with notification in
websites.
The target
completion is
increased by
10%
Management
reports
2 weeks
Productivity The productivity
of the company
is increased by
5%.
Dashboard
reports and
management
reports
4 week
wise
Customer
services
The customer’s
retention is
enhanced by 4%
as compared to
last year.
Balanced score
card
One week
WHS audits The risk has
been lowered
with 2%.
Sustainability
and triple
bottom line
reporting
8 weeks
wise
The technological advances which are used for capturing, storing and reporting of performance
information is assessed through performance management software such as Zenefits, Namely,
APS and Icims Talent Platform and so on.

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Incorporate areas for improvement in the continuous improvement
The managers should run continuous improvement sessions in order to continue the plan and
keep stability in the performance of the employees. The critical procedures for team sessions
includes:
Clear objective must be delivered in the meeting.
Proper training and development to the team
Knowledge management must be adhered in the organization.
Building commitment and motivating the team.
Getting the team involved in managing the resources.
The managers may include anti-discrimination policy in the organization to promote diversified
work culture. The Equality Act contains all the provisions which forbids the indirect, direct the
associative and perceptive discriminations based upon ethnicity, sex, race, belief, religion, sexual
orientation and age.

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TASK-2
PART-A Plan and participate in a continuous improvement session (role-play)
The role lay is between the continuous improvement consultant and manager.
Manager: Good Morning, How you doing?
Continuous Improvement Consultant: Hello sir, good morning I am doing great sir.
Manager: So how the continuous process improvement is going?
Continuous Improvement Consultant: The continuous improvement approach is going well but
still there are certain areas we need to focus on. There are number of areas where the system
needs to improve such as sustainability across the organization. The approaches which will
improve the sustainability across the organization are life-cycle analysis, lean manufacturing,
ISO Standards and closed-loop product design. The revenue per customer interaction must be
enhanced through customer retention, increasing the frequency of transaction per customer. In
order to enhance revenue per customer we need to raise our prices and value as well.
Manager: As far we are concerned the root cause is observed to be customer service cycle time
of the process. What do you think about that?
Continuous Improvement Consultant: Yes, you are correct sir for that purpose we proceeded
with value steam mapping. The customer cycle time is reduced and quick feedback will be noted.
This will also enhance the customer service satisfaction across the various products.
Manager: The above approaches sounds good and profitable.

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Continuous Improvement Consultant: With these approaches, it is highly essential to record the
performance of the team as well. We have been observing some performance issues of the team.
The new software will helps us to record, store and maintain the performance of the team.
Manager: Yes you are correct, so all the improvements need to be assessed as soon as possible in
order to get the desired result.
PART C: Written reflection
The planning process which was undertaken to run the session and follow-up
communication was to be effective. The continuous improvement session delivered the
importance of organizational goals and the ways to maintain quality in the organization. The
session provided certain feedbacks which will be beneficial for the future improvement. The
communication procedure is highly applicable to deliver effective message to the stakeholders
and employees. This type of planning process will aid the company to lead knowledge
management in the organization. Since, the planning process would identify the business issues,
build a dedicated team, evaluating technological needs and prioritizing them. This would
facilitate knowledge management in the organization. The continuous improvement facilitation
that I have learnt in the session was very helpful for ensuring a well-run meeting and engagement
process. The continuous improvement session has driven us with competitive perspective to
maintain good quality and consistency in the organization.
My role as continuous improvement facilitator gave a chance to actively participate in defining
and implementing projects while managing the overall process in the organization. It helped me
to critically understand the importance of continuous improvement and how to assess in the
organization. It also ensured how effective communication plan helps to deliver proper
information to the stakeholders. The whole process is highly beneficial to reach organizational

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goals and performance in the organization. The process ensures maintaining good quality and
working as team is very crucial for the organization and to make appropriate decisions as well.
Reference
Mitra, A., 2016. Fundamentals of quality control and improvement. John Wiley & Sons.
Pearce, J.M., 2017. Emerging business models for open source hardware. Journal of Open
Hardware, 1(1), p.2.
Groomer, S.M. and Murthy, U.S., 2018. Continuous auditing of database applications: An
embedded audit module approach. In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application (pp. 105-
124). Emerald Publishing Limited.