Many of you by now may have heard that MDMC is working on a Strategic Plan and may be wondering what it’s all about. 

Simply put Strategic planning is a management tool. As with any management tool, it is used for one purpose only: to help an organization do a better job - to focus its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future.  A new approach to strategic management was developed in the early 1990's by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton. They named this system the 'balanced scorecard'. 

Recognizing some of the weaknesses and vagueness of previous management approaches, the balanced scorecard approach provides a clear prescription as to what companies should measure in order to 'balance' the financial perspective.

transforms strategic planning from an academic exercise into the nerve center of an enterprise. 

The balanced scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives (Learning and Growth, Business Process, Customer, and Financial), and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives:

1.    The innovation and learning perspective. An organization's ability to innovate, improve and learn ties directly to its value as an organization.

MDMC’s initiatives for this perspective follow:

Enhance recruitment and retention - We will speed up and refine the quality of our recruitment practices to quickly hire quality people, and enhance programs to retain them.

Enhance our training and education - We will ensure strategic skills acquisition and cross-functional learning through a systematic, lifelong learning program for our people.

Enhance technology insertion for new weapon systems - We will focus investments in technology on emerging weapon systems repair requirements.

Balance efficient layout with flexibility - We will improve plant layout for both efficient and flexible production and materiel handling processes.

Improve quality of life and safety initiatives - We will enhance our people’s safety, morale, and productivity through effective facility upgrades and other programs.

Enhance IT - We will acquire IT, which enhances our key processes, and provides accurate, useful information for use and our customers.  We will enhance the reliability of our IT and the ease of data capture.

Enhance testing and process efficiencies with automation and technologies - We will acquire technologies that automate our troubleshooting and analytical capabilities, as well as our production and materiel handling processes for components and PEIs.

2.    The internal business perspective. Managers need to focus on those critical internal operations that enable them to satisfy customer needs.

MDMC’s initiatives for this perspective follow:

Show customers our current, future capabilities – We will actively promote our customers’ understanding of our capabilities.

Enhance our ability to provide feedback, information - We will proactively provide our customers easily accessible, accurate, timely cost and schedule information.

Solicit Customer Feedback on Performance - We will better understand our customers’ perceptions of our meeting their expectations.

Enhance our “Forward” capabilities - We will establish enhanced pre-deployment personnel preparation and planning capabilities in order to facilitate our timely response to forward contingencies.

processes efficiency by evaluating and streamlining them, taking opportunities to reduce scrap and rework, and to enhance overall product quality.

Reduce materiel delays - We will reduce materiel shortages in order to reduce delays in production by enhancing our overall supply chain performance.

Continuously improve quality - We will consistently meet or exceed the customers’ quality expectations through continuous application of quality processes.

Optimize throughput - We will increase the production velocity and decrease schedule variance in order to enhance productivity and meet our customers’ expectations.

3.    The customer's perspective. Managers must know if their organization is satisfying customer needs.

MDMC’s initiatives for this perspective follow:

Respond to my changing requirements - We will provide timely, flexible effective solutions by balancing our customers’ requirements with our capabilities, and understanding their impacts.

Provide me cost, schedule, performance - We will earn our customers’ trust by meeting or exceeding their expectations for fair price, on-time delivery, and quality.

MDMC’s initiatives for this perspective follow:

Exploit capital opportunities  - We will seek out and obtain new sources of capital and maximize use of existing capital in order to maximize reinvestment in our plant and people.

Maximize financial results - We will expand our revenue base in order to maintain an optimum ratio of fixed to variable costs.  We will balance revenues and costs to achieve positive cash flow in order to moderate our rates and provide capital for reinvestment. 

A Strategy Map is a diagram that describes how an organization creates value by connecting strategic objectives in explicit cause-and-effect relationship with each other in the four BSC objectives (financial, customer, processes, learning and growth). See MDMC’s map on the right.  Strategy Maps are a strategic part of the Balanced Scorecard framework to describe strategies for value creation.

As part of the MDMC Team you are encouraged to provide your input to our Strategic Plan.  Your Supervisors and Managers have all been trained and help developed this plan.  This is a living document and we welcome your input. 

 Sources of information: Internet Nonprofit Center, The Balanced Scorecard Institute, and Value Base Management Net.