Farthing West's new Advanced Diploma of Business Management has addressed this problem, providing a diploma that caters for an organisation's specific needs and can be completed in the workplace.
The diploma, developed in partnership with the Australian Institute of Workplace Learning, is based on the Lean Six Sigma principles, which take an enterprise-wide view of work activity and focus on better coordination of “value streams”, or inter-relations within the company.
It is designed for students in a wide variety of industry sectors, including mining, manufacturing, logistics, service, banking and health care services.
The program is designed for four to seven students, and is generally conducted part-time over 20 to 30 weeks, including 20 four-hour "problem centred group work" sessions and 20 four-hour "group mentoring" sessions.
By conducting an on-the-job program, Farthing West said it is able to assess people on practical results, dealing with the specific people and issues involved in a business and eliminating "meaningless written reports".
Participants will be involved in:
- Mapping the present state flow of value in a workplace value stream;
- Identifying wastes in the value stream;
- Using data to quantify the nominated wastes in the value stream;
- Constructing a “future state” map that will reduce wastes in the value stream;
- Implementing changes named in the future state map; and
- Auditing the changes and measuring their effectiveness.
