Family Support Operation example essay topic

I had little knowledge of operations management prior to this course, I think I had perceived it as something exclusive to manufacturing and industry. I linked it purely to oily machine shops and large, noisy machines producing goods. I discover that the principles and techniques of operations management apply equally to the effective running of services and although not there yet it is my intention to use this assignment to help me to develop a well managed, organised and planned work environment. The team I manage is the Family Support Team, which is part of Newcastle Social Services Directorate. Family Support Team.

The Family Support Team was established in April 2001. It superseded the Community Support Team, which had the remit to prevent accommodation of young people over the age of ten into local authority care and the Family Resource Team, who provided assessment for children under the age of ten within the child protection guidelines. The Family Support Team was an expansion of the existing services, as the City of Newcastle wanted to increase the resources to prevent reception into public care / accommodation and have a positive impact on the Child Protection Registration. The Family Support Team became part of the Children and Families structure instead of the Accommodation Services in which the teams had previously belonged.

The Family Support Team currently consists of 14 Family Support Workers, 1 Senior Family Support Worker, 2 Social Workers, 1 Family Support Co-ordinator, 1 Social Work Assistant, 2 Black and Ethnic Minority development workers, 4 full time Admin posts, and a partnership with Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland Mental Health Trust who provide 2 Paediatric Nurse posts. The team also has 2 workers based with a Sure Start project and a worker based with a community family health centre. The Newcastle Drugs Action Plan includes a Drug and Alcohol specialist midwife post based with the based with the team. A Social Work Team Manager (Dave Lally) manages the Team.

Key Objectives Family Support Team To prevent family break down and the placement of children in crisis To support the rehabilitation back home of children and young people To impact positively on Child Protection and Re registration rates, and reduce the time children spend on the register To offer a range of Family Support Services to vulnerable families and children in need To provide focused intervention with individual young people that will enable them to remain living with their family To provide Family Support to Asylum Seekers and Refugees To Network and build Partnerships to counteract the problems faced by families in Newcastle. For the purpose of this assignment the Family Support Team (FST) is the organisation, within which there are several operating systems and subsystems. The operational function of the FST as an organisation can be broken down into several activities: MARKETING: Promotional leaflet, road shows and Web site. ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE: Management of charities grants, monitoring of expenditure, pay staff, prepare and manage budgets. SERVICE DEVELOPMENT: Design new methods of working with families, focus groups, research and evidence based practice.

OPERATIONS: Referral process, case transfer, and reviewing, emergency response and duty system. PERSONNEL: Recruitment and selection of staff. Training staff and scheduling staff. PURCHASING: Support from external agencies, equipment and consumables.

TECHNICAL: Virtual Electronic Social Care Records. There are many definitions of operating systems all very similar: Organisations use their resources to change the state or condition of something to produce outputs. This process is known as transformation. I will use the transformation model to describe the operating system of FST. See Fig. 1. In the FST model there are two types of input: 1.

Transformed resources made up of Information and Customers; in this case the customer (family) is the dominant resource. 2. Transforming resources, including social work staff, admin support, the building Crag side House and its facilities. The FST transformation process involves customer processing where the parent, child or family undergoes a significant change, in this case in their emotional state, behaviour and physical wellbeing. The output of the FST transformation process is services to families and are best described as intangible as they can not be physically touched but the results of offering the service can certainly be felt and seen, e.g. changes in someone's psychological state. As a service FST is neither storable nor transportable.

The outputs of the FST can be described using a Service Delivery Model, (see appendix 1). I am using this model as an example because I used it as part of a Team Development Workshop in February 2002 with no knowledge of operations management but have found it helpful to identify the operation for this assignment. The model uses an axis. The operating system I am concerned with is associated with the direct work to the left of the vertical axis and is made up of two sub systems, above and below the horizontal axis. Like all organisations FST has a number of parts that can be considered to reflect the whole operation they are part of. The FST is itself only part of a the larger social services directorate and so on...

This Slack refers to as an ' operations system hierarchy'. The sub system or operation known as 'Duty' in Fig 1, produces outputs that are the input for the operation referred to as 'Family Support'. This arrangement is described by Slack as the internal customer - internal supplier relationship. The organisational aims and objectives are the same for both operations and it is essential that the external customer experience little or no difference between the two as they are transformed.

I am going to concentrate on the operation 'Duty'. When looking at this operation I first need to classify it, there are four generally accepted classifications for an operation: 1 Manufacture. 2 Supply. 3 Service.

4 Transport. Quite clearly if we use these classifications as sited by Wild we can see that FST is a service operation as there is a change in the state of the input. Wild further goes on to classify service operations by how the organisation plans to meet the expectations of the customer. By using Wilds classification model, we can see that when the FST first started it attempted to have a service that combined two structures into one. It attempted to have a fast immediate response to new customers on demand, whilst at the same time using a social work model of planned intervention based on appointments.

This did not work and certain metaphors come to mind like; 'blue arse fly' and 'headless chickens' It was at this stage that I decided the team needed a specialist group of staff to deal with the demand for rapid crisis response which I hoped would then allow the rest of the staff to get on with their planned case work. The planned work was suffering, leading to families experiencing more crises and there was then a vicious circle. Again I must emphasise that I knew nothing of operations management theory but can now use Wild's classification to explore the systems. In the case of FST ' Duty' the following structure applies, see Fig 2. Fig 2. Using this classification of function we see that Duty is a customer response model, there is no stock of input resource apart from the queuing of customers, in a pure version of this system the customer is the stock and described by Wild as the Stock-Customer-Operation or; S-C-O. In the case of FST we have no control over this aspect of our stock, the queue varies and appears not to be influenced by anything that can be controlled or measured as future demand.

Wild describes this classification as: In the case of 'family support' the system as represented in Fig 3 is one of efficiency, where customers access the service by appointment. S-Q-O or Stock-Queue-Operation. Fig 3. Having earlier defined the operation as customer processing, I found it interesting to futher classify the type of sevice process the FST used. Slack suggests there are three process types: 1 Proffessional services. 2 Mass services.

3 Service shops. This is based on the service process matrix proposed by Schmenner in 1986, which included's ervice Factory' in its classifications. Schmenner also goes on to point out the implications this has for operations managers, I have looked at this in relation to FST. The service requirements of the larger organisation, (social services) are that the FST is a targeted, high contact service, specialist assessment and planning service for individual customers and front office based with considerable discretion and auto mony for staff. This high level of customisation coupled with high labour insensitivity leads to a classification that FST is a professional service. However when I look at how the service is set up I have to challenge this.

FST was formed following a lengthy restructuring (ney rationalisation) process that ensured the most experienced and best trained staff transferred elsewhere. The new team consisted of those least 'marketable' and vacances were used to absorb redeployment issues. There is no dedicated training budget and the highest level of training offered to staff is the minimal standards set by the Department of Health. I have to conclude therefore that currently the service is not a proffessional service. It would appear from the resources put in to the maintainance of the team that we are resourced as a mass service being asked to do a proffessional task.

More likely this places FST in the position of a service shop, somewhere between professional service operation and mass service. The challenge therfore for me is how to maintain the high level of quality demanded, by developing the skills of the staff at the same time as managing a flat organisation with ever decreasing costs. As previously mentioned the customer is queuing for this service and internally the relationship between the two systems includes a queuing process. This means then that FST operates a Push system as the services are provided to the customers as soon as and only when the team is ready. At times this does not suit the customer as they have to wait for a service.

I believe this is inevitable in a service like social services, but we need to ensure that the staff operating the 'duty's ystem and the 'family support' operators meet each others internal requirements. It would be pointless to have one system ensuring a fast response if the customer then had to wait in an internal queue. As manager I need to ensure that staff do not take a heads down approach to their work and that workers relate to each others operations, are able to solve problems, communicate effectively and remain customer focussed. Managing this complexity is well sumer ised by Schonberg er and Know (1994) Design of Family Support 'Duty' process The response of the duty worker is often the first contact a customer has with FST, it is important then that we get this right.

By this I mean it needs to be designed to meet their needs and expectations, this includes both internal and external customers. It is necessary therfore to seek feedback from the customer and from other sources that may give you information on the needs of the customer. The non - customer feedback received by FST comes from two main sources: 1 Other professionals who know the customer and have identified what they believe to be the customers needs. 2 Research and evidenced based practice, this is often commissioned by government bodies. The service design can as Slack points out start with the customer and end with the customer. It is then the task of the service designers to interpret this information and create the specifications for the service.

In the case of FST that was my role, which I did with the team members. Unfortunately this role is not exclusive and at times external influences from other managers and departments have affected changes to operations. Designing FST 'Duty' There are two major aspects of designing a service: 1 Defining a service that best meets the needs and expectations of the customer, in manufacturing this is known as product design. 2 Organising and utilising the available resources to best deliver this service. This is known as process design or planning.

The real difference between service design and manufacturing design is the emphasis placed on the process planning. In services the customer is often as much a part of the process as the product they use, whereas in manufacturing the customer may never experience the process at all. Slack offers a model of design similar to this and describes three aspects to design that I feel fits the FST. The 'concept' of FST Duty is that families referred from social workers to FST receive a speedy, rela ible and customer focused service.

The belief about the concept is that families are transferred seamlessly rather than join yet another waiting list. The 'Package' is that there is an experienced / multi skilled worker available at all times to receive information (the referral), input data into Electronic Social Care Record, same day contact with family to arrange appointment or negotiate crisis response. The process is mainly a front of house activity, known internally as 'front-line' with some back room support, 'back-up'. See fig 4. Fig 4. There was a need to market the concept of having a duty operation, but not with our external customers.

They had driven and pushed the development with their feedback which confirmed the theory that as such the activity of design is itself a transformation process. The layout had to be considered carefully, the office set up was originally based upon individual choice, and had staff in groups of four it was my decision that the four duty workers should sit together to give duty a firm base. This involved the movement of about 12 people in all. One of frustrations for the workers is that they have to share computers and it did not go down well that I insisted on the duty workers had there own but it was accepted that this was necessary to enable them to respond quickly. The operation had to be set up using already hard pushed resources, and it was this reassignment of resources that some staff objected to, it was pushed through with the understanding that the remaining staff would not get tied up with unplanned work and therefore will be more efficient. It was important that I built in a reviewing process into the design.

This evaluation process links directly to the performance of both operations as they are interlinked. Quality management Old school management talks soley of productivity or rather the limits to productivity as the way to judge how well an operation has performed. However it is generally acknowledged that this can only be used in conjunction with other factors and that quality and its control is a priority for any business. As the President of Hewlett-Packard said in 1985: The main criteria used for evaluating operations according to T hannigan 1998 are: cost of the transformation process; quality of the service; delivery. Speed and reliability of the service; flexibility of the process.

Slack et al, 1998 adapted this to define five major performance objectives: doing things RIGHT the QUALITY advantage. doing things FAST the SPEED advantage. doing things ON TIME the DEPENDABILITY advantage. CHANGING what you do the FLEXIBILITY advantage. doing things CHEAP the COST advantage. Quality of FST Duty is imperative as the resources are so tight that we can not afford the time spent correcting mistakes, we need to get it right first time. Speed; traditionally people have been made to wait for health and social services and common to all the customer feedback we have done indicates that families most appreciate not having to go through this waiting process and that a speedy response makes them feel important and worthwhile. Dependability; the impact of work done by FST is affected by how trustworthy customers find us, many have had poor experiences of social work it is imperative that we constantly prove we are dependable. Flexibility; Although we are a standardised process, the actual package for each family is unique.

This is only possible if the operation is flexible. The Duty operation itself is designed to operate 9-5, however the whole service operates out of hours and 7 days per week. The duty staff also work these hours which allows for a great deal of flexible working. Cost; Financial cost is a major factor for the service as a whole but only in relation to operating within budget. The real cost of the duty operation is in staff time as the staff who operate this had to be taken from the Family Support operation. The FST Duty priortitises, speed, dependability and flexibility, see appendix 1.

This is reviewed each week during the Thursday Duty meeting. Most definitions of quality accept that high quality is a measure of excellence taken from the customer's point of view, no matter how we feel we are doing, we need to gain the customers perceptions. If we use the customer focused model similar to that used during the design of the operation then we see that the customer requirements are taken into account, research is done to get information on what others believe the customer needs and that this process is reviewed. See the customer focus model in fig 5, adapted from 'Management, Concepts and Practicies'. As businesses have strived to become more customer focused in relation to quality, they have used methods such as Total Quality Management (TQM) in an attempt to achieve this.

TQM employs a value based approach to quality management, a goal that an organisation aims to achieve or one that organisations may strive too but never achieve. Similar approaches to quality accept this, e.g. Strategic Quality Management or SQM which as well as being value based, it is also systematic and sees quality improvement as having maximum strategic effect on the future of the organisation. This framework allows for the drive to improve quality being sustained without making the claim that it is total quality. TQM or SQM can be defined as: TQM provides an 'umberella' under which an organisation can use a variety of tools to improve quality. It is said that Japanese companies have moved away from having a framework to manage quality and simply have a corporate ethos that quality will be attained. Strategically FST must steve to achieve the quality inline with Social Services Directorate and with Newcastle Local Authority corporate objectives.

For this purpose the government has introduced its own Performance Assessment Framework, see appendix 2. This was highlighted in the latest Department of Health Annual Report in which it restates the government's aims and objectives for Social Services, sets out the targets to be included in the Public Service Agreements and clarifies the expected performance in relation to those targets. The aim of this is to help councils develop their own performance management processes, compare this to other councils and priorities improving their own performance. The targets for the FST form the basis of our Key Objectives, are reviewed annually by the D of H and quarterly by ourselves. One of the concepts that build on quality control is the 'just-in-time' JIT principle. This principle is concerned with improving efficiency and reducing waste, however it is more appropriate to use this if your operation is a 'pull' operation, we have already classified Duty as a 'push's ystem.

CAPACITY and SCHEDULING Slack defines the capacity of an operation as: Managing capacity requires two major elements; the insight to determine the 'steady-state' or average levels of demand and the ability to be flexible at those time when the demand levels fluctuate. Slack refers to this as' forcast' which determins the level of demand, 'level capacity' which allows you to control demand by appointment, 'flexible capacity', that allows the operation to react to changes in demand and 'established level of capacity' Which enables the operation to balance it's activities to avoid bottle necks, e.g. queueing theory and work study. Wild identifies six similar stages: Demand estimation. -estimation of demand. Aggregate capacity planning- aims to develop a medium to long term statement of capacity requirements. Master operations schedule (MOS) - this is a breakdown of the aggregate plan, showing when the operations are required for each item of demand. Rough-cut capacity planning-this is the analysis of the MOS to test out its feasibility.

Detailed operations schedule (DOS) -If the MOS is feasible then a detailed schedule for all operations is completed. Short-term rescheduling and prioritising and controll-allows the operation to react to changes in demand. Wild defines capacity management as: and describes scheduling as being: The management of capacity will be influenced by the objectives of the organisation, which determins what needs to be achieved and the structure of the operating system which will determins what can be achieved. FST Duty was set up because we were unable to cope with the amount of work the team inherited along with the new work it was expected to do. Inorder to satisfy current and future demand we needed a different system.

The expected work output of the FST is set externally by people / systems that have little or no knowledge of how the team functions, it is my role to manage this and meet targets. This poses certain problems for me: What is the capacity of FST? How do I control the keep the capacity level? Can I forecast demand?

Can we deal with fluctuations in demand? How do we avid bottlenecks? The directorate or some senior manager decided that unqualified staff and health staff can carry the same case load level as a fully qualified social worker, 10 cases. Using their model for deciding capacity: FST has the resource of 17.5 staff that gives the potential capacity to work with 175 cases at anyone time. The target set per annum is in excess of 400 families. This allows each staff member to meet the needs of a maximum of 33 families per annum- (23 pa + current case load of 10 = 33) Staff are available to work approx 46 weeks per annum, therefore each family will receive 1.5 working weeks support.

This a monts to 55.5 hours per family per annum, however as one worker has 10 cases at any one time then we need to divide this roughly by 3 giving each family a total of 18.5 hours. This method clearly does not work as it pays little attention to the needs of the customer apart from time. How do I then control the demand, the duty was set up with mainly this in mind. The Duty function, operates on speed with an emphasis on the assessment and planning stage of the service rather than the intensive support stage, this requires fewer resources than the family support function as it is seen as short term and will and will provide the inputs for family support. Therefore the Duty system operates 4 times more efficiently than the family support, but can not meet any of the long term expectations this emphasises the interdependency of both operations. The duty system also allows some control over the capacity level in the sense that it can filter out less urgent cases and deal with them direct.

This also reduces the queue of families waiting for the family support operation. The forecasting of demand is difficult, there are some seasonal variations e.g. September and October are always busy because of the reemergence of schooling problems, Febuary is always a time of hightenned stress in families due to loan implications of the financial cost of X-mass. (loan sharks not TSB) One way I have forecast is to look at historical data. This entailed extrapolating data from several old data bases in an attempt to identify issues for the future. This is known as quantit ive forecasting and differs from qualit ive forecasting which involves surveys and questionnaires etc... and depends on making judgments about the information.

Fluctuations in demand are delt with by the flexibility of the operation, although operating 9 am-5 pm the workers are contracted to be available 8.30 am-8 pm, seven days per week. This enables the working day dedicated to Duty to be extended at any time with no added financial costs. The workers are empowered to adjust this time themselves, it does not need the operational manager to decide. The issue of bottle necking is a frequent concern at the FST, if cases can not progress from Duty into family support because family support does not have the capacity then the whole operation becomes constrained. Strategically it would be beneficial to increase the resources for family support but this is not always possible. Scheduling in service opreations is not as clear as in manufacturing, where Gantt charts have been used for many years as a method of control, with time charted on a horizontal axis and actions / tasks on a vertical axis.

Horizontal bars represent planned schedules and the time required for each task. I have never attempted to schedule for Duty or family support using tools such as Gantt, but feel confident now to try and will include this as a possible improvement. Most of what I have discussed in this assignment is based on maintaining the operation and micro-operations that I am responsible for. There are areas that can be improved and this reflects the complete absence of any theoretical backround when these operations were first established. However it would be wrong for me to simply leave it at that as it would be tantermount to complacency which could be the end of a relatively new service like ours. In fact this could give me the edge as I am convinced that few managers in soca il work have this background or if they do they appear to place little value in implementing it. suggestions for improvement Accurate information from customers updated regularly.

Schedule both operations using Gantt chart. Improve monitoring inorder to speed up the output from the family support system to prevent bottle-necking. Stop fire fighting. Review the operations by asking: 1 Where should we be? 2 Where are we? 3 What are our objectives?

4 How do we meet these objectives? 5 Has the environment changed? 6 Has the competition changed?