1. The operations focus category of the Baldridge award is geared mainly towards an organizations ability to design, manage, and improve systems and processes that help the organization to work in the deliverance of consumer value as well as attain success and sustainability within the organization. The first section involved in operations focus is work systems this is where organizations focus on designing, managing and improving work systems. Operations focus is even broken down into a grading scale to see where your company ranks in operational focus. The categories consist of Work system design, work system management, and emergency readiness. Work system design involves aspects including designing concepts, and working system requirements. Work system management includes system implementation, along with cost control. Another important aspect involved with operations focus is emergency readiness which involvespreparing the workplace for disasters or emergencies. Work systems are known as how the work of an organization is come to be accomplished. They usually involve a company’s workforce, the key suppliers and partners, contractors, collaborators, and other components within the supply chain of the company. When pertaining to emergency readiness this may relate to weather, utilities, security, or national emergencies for example pandemics. The second section to rating how a company’s operations focus is measured includes work processes which include designing, managing and improving key work processes. This section is broken down into two categories which include work process design, and work process management. Some simple objectives that a company can measure work process designs include again designing concepts, as well as how to determine key work process requirements. When assessing the work process management there are four sub phases to consider. These phases include implementation of key work processes, expectations and preferences of consumers, supply chain management, and improvements of processes. Key processes are the most important for the value creation processes and the key work processes involve organizations workforce as well as produce consumer value. When designing concepts it is important to produce projects that are unique to the work process within an organization. In order to improve process performance and reduce variability organizations may implement systems and process to include Lean Enterprising systems, Six Sigma, PDCA, or other process improvement tools.
2. Strengths- TL has the ability to design and innovate processes by implementing action plans. The SPT evaluates work developed during an action plan and determines if the processes is aligned with their core competencies and support the strategic objective of TL. TL also conducts a make/buy analysis to determine whether a process should work within their current work system or should be outsourced. This is core strength because it ensures that value is created and maximized. The Baldrige mandates that regulatory requirements and standards are designed to meet workforce processes. Next is TL’s ability to be prepared for emergencies. They have strict guidelines to guarantee they have themselves covered in case. They have emergency drills; testing and action plans to make sure that everybody are safe. They have a disaster plan which includes prevention plan as well as staff backup and