Hot Off The Press: Customer-Driven Operations Management

Christopher Ahoy, associate vice president for facilities planning and management at Iowa State University has released his latest book, Customer-Driven Operations Management. In the book, Ahoy explains how to combine Six Sigma, Baldrige, Balanced Scorecard, and other popular management tools into a fully integrated system that will increase productivity and profits, making it possible to deliver products and services better, cheaper, and faster.

Customer-Driven Operations Management walks readers through the steps of creating a world-class organization, which include:

  • Mapping processes to target weak points;
  • Realigning management systems from functional to process-focused;
  • Setting benchmarks throughout the process to help quantify levels of success;
  • Establishing a system of knowledge management for the seamless alignment of teams and departments; and
  • Creating a sound strategic planning initiative to eliminate future surprises.

In today’s increasingly competitive global economy, operational excellence is absolutely essential for any organization that seeks to thrive, not just survive. This means enacting measures to defragment existing processes and putting into place a system that facilitates continuous quality initiatives and systemic improvements.

Customer-Driven Operations Management provides the tools you need to locate the weak operational links in an organization and offers prescriptive measures for building a world-class enterprise. With optimized customer-focused operations in their sights, facility professionals can target all levels of operations to create an effective organization with operational excellence.

An internationally recognized expert on quality initiatives, Ahoy is responsible for having his organization become a three-time recipient of the state of Iowa’s annual Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence Silver Achievement award.