In 1994, UCI participated in its first NACUBO Benchmarking for Process Improvement in Higher Education survey. Eleven benchmarking survey instruments and two process costing questionnaires were completed.
The benchmarking results were evaluated by each participating unit manager, and findings were discussed with counterparts within the UC system and other universities. Linkages between survey results and campus initiatives (defined in Administrative Productivity and Service Goals, Productivity Targets, and Business Process Innovation Team projects) were analyzed.
Four survey instruments were identified as being particularly meaningful to our campus initiatives. Tracking year-to-year progress in the Human Resources--Hiring Survey and the Purchasing Survey will help to evaluate the impact of changes implemented as a result of Business Process Innovation Team recommendations. We also anticipate that the Accounts Payable benchmark results will be a welcome resource for the Accounts Payable Business Process Innovation Team being formed in 1996.
Another set of benchmarks that will be of great importance are those evaluating the Payroll function. For the past four years the campus has been involved in implementing a new Payroll/Personnel System. The system allows distributed access and update. As described in Section 4.3, the goal of the system is to eliminate delays between action approvals and execution. A great deal of energy was dedicated to system planning and implementation in order to assure that the desired improvement would be realized. The last major implementation, on-line time reporting, will be available to the campus in 1996. The impact of this system on operating costs and operational efficiency in the payroll function will be tracked using the NACUBO survey results.
The functional manager in each of these areas has identified two or three key benchmarks that they consider meaningful indicators of process improvement. These nine benchmarks are available for viewing via the World Wide Web, and will be the focus of ongoing analysis in each unit.
|
Accounts Payable |
2 A |
Number of Vouchers Processed per Departmental FTE |
|
Accounts Payable |
2 B |
Departmental Cost per Voucher Processed |
|
Human Resources |
18 C |
Number of Non-Faculty New Hires per Departmental FTE |
|
Human Resources |
18 E |
Departmental Cost per Non-Faculty New Hire |
|
Payroll |
27 C |
Departmental Cost per Paycheck |
|
Payroll |
27 D |
Departmental Cost per Employee Paid |
|
Payroll |
27 G |
Number of Employees on Direct Deposit as a % of Total Employees |
|
Purchasing |
29 A |
Number of Purchase orders per Departmental FTE |
|
Purchasing |
29 F |
Departmental Cost per Purchase Order |