By Cpl Leah Kite
IMAGINE if you could have a say in the way your unit does business, regardless of your rank or position.

Well JLU (NQ) have done just that.

JLU (NQ), as part of JLC’s initative, decided to apply the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) process to all of it’s business units – a team of people becoming ABEF facilitators in mid 2002.

The ABEF team set out to spread the word of ABEF to the members of JLU (NQ).

It was now they had to strike. Not unlike car salesmen, the team set a goal led by the CO, Lt-Col David Stevens, to have maximum involvement from all members across all levels and volunteers were accepted to embark on this journey of self discovery.

The ABEF is designed to help organisations assess their current performance as observed by the internal stakeholder – you – and to implement those results into their strategic planning processes, building the plan for future success.

The ABEF has based itself on the 12 principles of business excellence. Proven by both time and extensive research these principles, when employed correctly by an organisation, can uncover the pathway to business excellence and the constant improvement of organisational systems.

Refined from the 12 principles are seven categories, which form the Australian Model. These are the drivers of an organisation and it is essential that they work together for sustained success to be achieved.

Each of the seven categories is made up of several items – 22 in total. These items are the building blocks of the framework.

Organisations must analyse and assess each of these items in what is known as the Organisational Self Assessment (OSA) day.

The OSA day is the guts of the ABEF. It is where you have the opportunity to score the unit’s performance against the 22 ABEF items.

Each item is defined by the facilitator into real-time examples, specific to each organisation. Each item is dissected, analysed and then scored by you the individual via a remote keypad system.

The items are assessed on four dimensions – Approach, Deployment, Results and Improvement (ADRI).

This system encourages organisations to follow the practice of having an approach, deploying it, assessing its effectiveness and improving the approach across all aspects of the organisation.

When all 22 items have been scored against the ADRI, a gap analysis is undertaken. All scores are loaded into a matrix and are reorganised from lowest to highest scoring. It is here that ‘the writing is on the wall.’

The opportunity for discussion is given and from here you prioritise the items you believe need to be addressed. This is an opportunity to discuss issues that not all members of the unit may be aware of. These may be of both a positive and negative nature.

A priority order is now obvious and from here projects are created to improve the items that you have highlighted.

It is here where you are given ownership of making a change as the projects are planned and managed by the project team sponsors. Outcomes of the projects are always prosperous no matter how big or small they may be.

The biggest assest of an organisation is its people and who better to work on the improvement of the unit than those who work in it?

After all, without correct deployment, accurate results and constant improvement, all you have is a great plan.

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