The presentations and discussions on various "successful assignments" are
both very interesting and highly useful, and have already led to changes
in a course I'm preparing to start next week.
One of my favorite assignments has not yet, however, been presented on
this list. It's generally not thought of as suitable in "soft management"
courses, e.g. OB, OT, HR, MD, but my students have gained as much in those
areas as in any other. My example of a "successful assignment" is a
"plant tour" or "site visit" - which can be adapted for just about any
course or program.
(Warning - long description follows!)
Every student, every instructor, and every situation is different. What
"works" in one set of circumstances may not work in another. Some students
may learn "better" from a site visit, others from a video; thus, some
instructors favor one, some the other. However, there are two
fundamentally different "things" that may be learned: First, that sites
(factories, offices, any type of production or service facilities) can be
very complicated, very (apparently) messy, very noisy, and much more
involved than those who have never seen one could imagine. This sort of
multisensory impression cannot be adequately conveyed by a video. Second,
that videos allow focus on a particular machine, process, concept,
activity, etc., in a way that the multiple distractions of a "real live"
facility do not. the drone of a stock exchange floor or the clang of an
engineering job shop are not conducive environments for presenting
detailed explanations, diagrams, or even audible responses to questions.
Having used both tours and videos liberally for over ten years, at
undergrad and MBA level, in both the USA and New Zealand, I find that the
ideal learning situation is actually a combination of tours plus videos,
enhanced by discussions (Q&A and presentations) with workers and managers.
Where relevant, the video should actually be made in the facility which
has been (or will be) visited, drawing attention to particular aspects.
Physical props can also be used.
The total experience is what I term a "site visit" (or tour, if you
prefer). As a package, "site visits" offer students multiple benefits: A
connection between theory and practice ("reality"), insights into
complexity and systems, introductions to various industries (production
and service), a chance to see various professions and careers in their
native situations, arousal of curiosity with potentially immediate
responses (and therefore heightened future curiosity), and much more.
For example, we visit a local dishwasher and range manufacturer.
Prior to the actual plant tour, I show a short video (provided by the
company) which serves as an introduction to the company and its
facilities. This is relevant because 90% of my students have not lived in
this region prior to attending the MBA program, and 60% are from overseas
and aren't familiar with the firm at all.
In conjunction with the video, shown on the class day prior to the tour,
I assign a set of readings assembled from news clippings, magazine
articles, and company publications (newsletters and annual reports). I
circulate a kanban card (given to me by the plant's operations manager for
this purpose), and explain its features on the overhead projector. I tape
up a poster from the plant that highlights what "kanban use" means. I
show overheads of training materials from the company that explain the
"5S" and numerous other programs they're undertaking. The students have a
photocopy of all of the materials I show, allowing them to study them
before (and after) the visit. Introducing the company and its policies
generally takes an hour. (Sometimes a representative of the company gives
a preview in the lecture room on the class day before the tour, but most
often not -- it's the firm's option.)
The following Friday afternoon we go to the plant, located about 25
minutes away (the students car-pool). Following a brief "don't wear high
heels and listen to instructions" introduction, the class is split into
groups of about 8-10 students. The actual tour takes an hour to 1.25
hours, followed by tea and cookies in the staff cafeteria. We then shift
to either the board room or training room for a two-hour presentation and
Q&A session with all key managers of the plant -- general, production,
quality, design, HR, finance, etc. (from 6 to 8 attend, depending on their
schedules). Sometimes a few line workers attend, but in general the
students interact with them in the staff cafeteria or on the shop floor.
This particular plant is quiet enough that Q&A on the floor is possible,
as well as tour guides providing useful information without a bullhorn.
The company doesn't object to student-worker interaction at any time. The
total time frame for the tour is usually from 1 to 5 pm on Fridays (plus
travel) -- a time slot I have permanently reserved for that term, and
fortunately a slot very few other instructors would even want, given the
"end of the week" syndrome. However, it's ideal for tours for a number of
reasons.
Following the tour, students have a week to provide a written
report on their observations, focusing on a critique of the operations --
not a regurgitation of statistics. I expect them to link what they've
seen to the preceding conceptual material in my class, e.g., JIT, TQM,
kanban, pokayoke, HRM, SPC, process types, OSH, etc. In this, I don't
restrict their attention -- if they want to focus on finance, or customer
servie, or AGVs, or any subject from any of their courses on the MBA (not
just my courses), that's fine.
The reports can be written by individual students or by small groups; both
systems work, and accomplish different objectives. When requiring
individual reports, I generally ask students to pick three sites on which
to write a report, to minimize their total workload while retaining a
diversity of other assignments in the course. Small groups are a feature
of our MBA program, and the students often prefer to work in them; when I
require group reports, every group prepares a report on every site visit
(except the last one in the term, to avoid conflict with examination
week). In general, the group meets for one to two hours after the tour to
discuss what they've seen, learned, and considered. One person is
designated to write the report; invariably, this is done by rotation
through the group, with people voicing a preference for the business type
they're most familiar with.
These reports, following my evaluation, are passed to the company for
their information. (This places an obvious added onus on the students to
prepare a professional report. I advise them to focus on content rather
than presentation, which would appear most appropriate to them anyway
following their down-to-earth interactions at the site itself.) Sometimes
there are useful suggestions which the firms apply; sometimes not
(some plants are already world-class, and I use them as an example of
'best practice', while other tours go to places where improvements are
more obviously needed).
In the class session following the tour, we spend upwards of half an hour
discussing what was seen and learned.
Of my 25-40 students, generally only two or three miss each tour. There
are usually five to seven site visits in the term, with representation of
a variety of businesses: brewery, rope factory, dishwasher/range factory,
knitwear, yarn maker, grocery stores, medical clinic, restaurant, printer,
chocolate factory, port, airport, cheese packer. In the case of the
grocery stores, we visit two in one afternoon, walking five minutes
between them; a fascinating dual perspective, with numerous inter-company
contradictions that really get the students thinking (and prove
challenging for managers at the second site visited!) The brewery is the
last tour of the term, on the last day of the term, in the afternoon
--with libations provided in the boardroom with the brewery's managers.
"Service" site visits, e.g. accountants, lawyers, airport, banks,
consulting engineers, etc., proved in the past to be more difficult than
"factory" visits because there isn't as much to "see". However, when a
lengthy talk (1-2 hours) by the general manager or a functional manager is
provided, in the classroom or on site, prior to the tour, the results are
noticeably more beneficial (and the visit more interesting for the
students). The site visit that benefitted the most from this treatment
was the local airport, where the relatively whirlwind tour covered air
traffic control, ground traffic (taxis & shuttles & parking) control,
luggage and cargo loading, small plane servicing, engineering, security,
customs, leased shops (car rentals, cafe, book shop), and strategic
planning. Without a preceding coordinating talk by senior management, the
students on the tour would have "seen" relatively little of what was shown
to them. The resulting reports ranged in focus across every possible
topic, based on the interests of the students, from maintenance to
training, customer focus to governmental regulatory controls,
environmental impacts to scheduling. Every one of the students had been
to this airport before (most were frequent fliers), yet all had their
"eyes opened" by the coordinated experience they received, from managerial
talk through tour through class discussion, completed by the analytical
and synthesizing efforts needed to write their reports.
In general, the tours are often considered the most valuable part of my
course (which includes everything else as well -- videos, guest speakers,
student presentations, lectures and discussions, computerized simulation
games, experiential exercises, textbooks, readings, etc.)
As it is probably not possible in a typical undergrad or MBA course to
spend as much time on site visits as I do in this particular course, I
would suggest an interdisciplinary approach: Explain the site visits in a
"business" perspective rather than focusing on just one ("your") course
subject, despite the obvious dominance of "Operations Management" topics
in what is actually visible in a factory. Get the entire faculty, or
department heads, or course/degree coordinator to buy in on the concept.
Then, set up the site visits as a separate course, outside of any one
course, in a reserved time slot, as a for-credit course if politically
necessary. (Six tours at four hours each plus an estimated 1.5 hours
prep/followup gives a regular-length course of 33 hours.) An alternative
is to schedule one site visit per term, over four terms per year, or two
site visits in spring and two in fall semesters. Deciding which students
to bring, how to rotate among available facilities, or how many times to
run each site visit in each term, are further concerns. There are clearly
administrative and bureaucratic hurdles to overcome, but in my experience,
this is a truly worthwhile addition to the curriculum for all
business/commerce students. It "opens their eyes" in a way lectures and
videos alone can't quite accomplish.
A very interesting article entitled "Why (and How) to Take a Plant Tour"
appeared in the Harvard Business Review, 75:3, May-June 1997, pp. 97-106.
(If anyone has any suggestions of ways to enhance site visits, or link
them to other activities, or derive other assignments from them, please
bring them to light! Thank you!)
- Andre' M. Everett (PhD), Advanced Business Programme, University of Otago -
------ Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand; tel 64 3 479 8047/8046; fax 8045 ------
----------------------
aeverett@commerce.otago.ac.nz