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Dick O'Brien: Children's Services Inspector, Cumbria Social Services Inspection Unit
Susan Irving: Administrator, Cumbria Social Services Inspection Unit
Departmental purpose analysis (DPA) originated at IBM under the title "Departmental activity analysis". Different organizations and writers have given different names to what is essentially the same tool, i.e. departmental improvement review, sectional functional analysis, departmental task analysis.
Definition
DPA is based on the premiss that all departments take inputs, process these inputs, and provide their customers with a product or service. In many organizations this customer-supplier relationship is defined in terms of external customers.
DPA has links to this outlook but focuses on departments by clarifying who the internal customers of the department are, and whether the department is meeting their needs etc. TQM philosophy highlights how interdepartmental problems are crucial in quality. It is therefore designed to incorporate the following:
(1). It must analyse the task and role of a department by defining:
- the major workload elements;
- the time taken for major tasks;
- the degree of current customer satisfaction.
(2). That identification is then used to:
- test the departmental purpose for alignment with the overall aims of the business;
- expose any elements of wasted work;
- improve performance.
(3). Its major outputs are:
- identifying who the department's customers are;
- developing performance measures;
- identifying value-adding activities;
- developing a project-based improvement plan.
Benefits
Some of the benefits claimed for DPA have been:
- ensuring that the mission of the department is aligned to that of the organization;
clarifying if the way the department is actually spending its time is aligned with the identified major tasks of the department;
- giving data concerning internal customer requirements, levels of current satisfaction and so helping create performance measures;
- developing internal suppliers;
- involving non-manufacturing sections in quality improvement activities, especially since such departments may lack contact with external customers;
- involving all members of staff in quality improvement;
- assisting in process improvement by identifying value-added activity and waste, possibly as part of a quality costing exercise; (in the purchasing department at Grace Dearborn non-value added time was reduced from 17 per cent to 7 per cent[1]);
- clarifying skills requirements from the definition of the task and the performance...