Managing Supply Chain and Operations 1st Edition by Thomas Foster ,Scott Sampson,Cynthia Wallin,Scott Webb

Exercise 25

Although most of us are familiar with major public universities like Michigan. Ohio State, Florida State, and UCLA, we are typically unfamiliar with corporate universities such as Motorola Solutions, Intel University, and the AT…T Learning Center. Corporate universities are a fairly new concept, created to serve the needs of a particular company's employees and other stakeholders.
The term corporate university has been adopted by firms that have significantly upgraded their training and development activities by creating learning centers within their corporations. These learning centers are typically designed to prioritize a firm's training initiatives and to quickly share with a firm's employees the skills, techniques, and best practices that are necessary to remain competitive. For example, when a new quality tool or technique is developed, it is often the responsibility of a firm's corporate university to develop a plan to equip the firm's employees with the skills necessary to quickly incorporate the new tool or techniques into their work areas.
The following is a brief description of two corporate universities. After reading these descriptions, ask yourself the following rhetorical question: Are these corporations well-equipped to teach their employees the tools of quality?
Motorola Solutions: Motorola Solutions began in 1981 as the Motorola Training and Education Center. During the 1980s, the purpose of the university was to help Motorola strengthen its training efforts and build a quality-focused corporate culture. Through the years, the university has grown in both size and stature and now has a staff of more than 400 employees and seven facilities across the world. The stated objectives of Motorola Solutions are as follows:
• To provide training and education to all Motorola employees.
• To prepare Motorola employees to be best in class in their industries.
• To serve as a catalyst for change and continuous improvement to position Motorola Corporation for the future.
• To provide added value to Motorola in the marketing and distribution of products throughout the world.
To accomplish these objectives. Motorola Solutions does many things. For exam-ple, each of the company's employees is required to take a minimum of 40 hours a year of job-relevant training and education. The university also provides its employees con-sulting services in a number of areas, including benchmarking, cycle-time reduction, quality improvement processes, and statistical tools and problem-solving techniques.
One unique aspect of Motorola Solutions is that it reaches beyond the Motorola Corporation. The university provides training and certification programs for Motorola suppliers and also provides consulting services and training for other corporations on a fee basis.
Sears University: Sears University was established in 1994 with the ambitious goal of becoming an intricate part of the company's turnaround efforts. The university was opened with the idea of offering a wide selection of formal training and self-study courses for Sears' employees. In its first year of operation, approximately 10,000 of the company's employees participated in formal programs ranging from one day to one week in duration. Another 4000 employees completed self-study courses each month.
In addition to offering training programs in areas such as merchandising, opera-tions, customer service, and human resources management, Sears University also pro-vides the company's employees programs designed to help them function as change agents and strategic leaders within the corporation. For example, participants in financial management training programs use computer-based simulations to model to the effect of various financial strategies on business unit performance. Particular attention is paid to trying to help employees see the company's operations from the customer's perspective. The courses are taught by seasoned line managers along with professional facilitators and Sears University personnel.
Questions
1. Are corporate universities a good idea? If so, why or why not?
2. In what ways can a corporate university do a better job of teaching a firm's employees the "tools of quality" than traditional training programs?