Awards

2002 Quality & Productivity Awards

Sponsored by RBC Royal Bank, NORDX/CDT and Watson Wyatt.

RBC Royal Bank, NORDX/CDT, Watson Wyatt and Canadian Association of University Business Officers are pleased to announce the following winners of the fifteenth annual CAUBO Quality & Productivity Awards Program:

This year, fifteen universities have submitted a total of 23 projects to the CAUBO Quality and Productivity Awards Program. By region, one project comes from the Atlantic region, four from Québec, twelve from Ontario and six from the West. Although this represents a decrease in absolute terms over last year, the members of the selection committee all agree that the overall quality is improved. Of particular note is the fact that while this year's conference theme is "Collaboration and Focus", more than half of the projects are collaborative initiatives that involve more than one department in the university. While there can only be a few winners, all projects this year would certainly be worthy of local recognition as they definitely should contribute of the quality and productivity of the operations of those universities.

An important goal of the program is to encourage the transfer of knowledge and ideas. To this end, the winners will not only be showcased in University Manager and on the CAUBO web site, but will also appear, along with all other submissions, on the effective practices web site of the Council of Higher Education Management Associations, a consortium of all major associations such as CAUBO, NACUBO, APPA, CUPA, SCUP and many others. Look for the site at www.chemapractices.org .

Once again, our sponsors, RBC Royal Bank, NORDX/CDT and Watson Wyatt have contributed much to the program, through their financial contribution and their involvement in the selection process. We are grateful for their continued support.

Université Laval (First Prize)

"PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT BETWEEN UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL AND LE SOLEIL"

The agreement between Université Laval and Le Soleil (the oldest daily newspaper in the Québec City region) was implemented in September 2000. This unique and innovative partnership marks the first time that a Canadian or North American university concludes such a mutually beneficial agreement: it provides both parties with an opportunity to raise public awareness about themselves and to promote their commitment to their target market. The agreement can be summarized as follows:

• On Thursdays, Le Soleil is included as an insert in the Université Laval's weekly publication, Au Fil des événements, for distribution on campus;
• Université Laval students wishing to subscribe to Le Soleil benefit from preferential rates;
• For a nominal sum, the university offers its newly registered graduate students a one-session subscription to Le Soleil;
• The university distributes a copy of Le Soleil to all participants attending conferences organized by the university;
• Le Soleil offers the university preferential advertising rates;
• For every week that Le Soleil is inserted in Au Fil des événements, the university is provided with an opportunity to publish 2 pages of substantive articles in the national Saturday edition of Le Soleil;
• The printing and layout of Au Fil des événements is handled by Le Soleil at a preferential rate;
• The look, layout, and format of Au Fil des événements are modified and adapted to that of Le Soleil;
• Au Fil des événements withdraws from the external commercial advertising market-to the benefit of the various student media on campus.

University Objectives in this Partnership:

• To increase the university's visibility and to raise awareness about itself both regionally and nationally (circulation for the Saturday edition of Le Soleil is 125,000; this translates into more than 320,000 readers, according to a study conducted by EQIP PMB in 2000).
• To disseminate the achievements of its students, professors, and researchers.
• To play a leadership role in the development and prosperity of the region;
• To raise student awareness of current events and issues.

Le Soleil has the opportunity to reach 35,000 members of the university community, to increase its readership and, ultimately, its subscription rate.

University of Alberta (Second Prize)

"UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA / STANTEC CONSULTING LTD PARTNERSHIP"

During the 1998-1999 academic year, the University of Alberta initiated a $250 million capital construction program and a $30 million functional and infrastructure renewal program after more than a decade of very little construction activity. The University of Alberta realized the critical importance of these projects being completed on time, on budget and of lasting quality. On October 1, 1999, Stantec Consulting Ltd was awarded a partnership contract with University staff to develop a Project Management Office (PMO) charged by the Board of Governors with implementing "industry-best practices" for the development of capital construction, renovation and large maintenance projects on the University of Alberta campus. The PMO was created with nine project management staff members from Stantec, with clerical support, architectural and engineering technologists and accounting staff from the University.

Project Management is a well-defined and established discipline in professional engineering and strategic partnerships of this type are easily implemented at other schools involved in building or deferred maintenance programs.

This strategic partnership is unique in higher education. The depth and breadth of integration with all Departments supporting capital renewal and expansion is without precedent in North America. The University of Alberta has received requests for information on our project from other post-secondary institutions as well as provincial and municipal departments across Canada. The University of Alberta/Stantec partnership in Project Management has been awarded the prestigious Consulting Engineers of Alberta 2002 Award of Excellence in Project Management.

Since October 1999, the PMO has overseen the completion of more than $158 million in major capital projects. Since April of 2000, the PMO has managed the completion of 539 renovation projects totaling $26.8 million. With very few minor exceptions, all projects managed by the PMO are currently on budget and on time. Where variances have occurred, detailed business cases are developed and proper approvals are developed for funding exceptions.

Knowledge transfer and community involvement are critical success factors in the University of Alberta/Stantec partnership. A Partnership Advisory Committee oversees the work of the Project Management Office. The PMO works closely with all University of Alberta departments involved in supporting capital renewal.

York University (Third Prize)

"IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO 9001:2000 QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM STANDARD FOR YORK UNIVERSITY'S FINANCE DIVISION"

The Finance Division at York University has recently achieved ISO 9001-2000 certification. This is a significant accomplishment as it marks the first successful application of a quality management standard for a finance division at a Canadian university.

The scope of this project affected critical business processes including: Budgets and Budget Planning; Accounts Payable; Research Accounting; Reporting; Project Management; Purchasing and Contract Administration; Cash Management; Trust and Endowment; Accounts Receivable.

The Finance Division has adopted the ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management Standard to give the York University community the augment that our organization has process controls that lead to consistency in the quality of services we deliver. In addition, through the implementation of this standard, the Division has:

• Placed greater focus on our core business processes including the definition and monitoring of quality objectives;
• Defined customers' requirements and expectations;
• Adhered to documented legal and industry requirements affecting service;
• Achieved management confidence in our ability to deliver quality services;
• Received an independently audited attestation to the effectiveness of the quality management system we have developed;
• Achieved process accountability through clearly documented procedures for core business processes;
• Defined staff and management training plans, positional training, competency requirements, work responsibilities and authorities.

Regularly scheduled Management Review meetings allow us the opportunity to review and improve our quality management system to ensure that it remains relevant and that those economically viable improvements are assessed and implemented. Through Management Reviews, Internal and External process audits, and the use of the Opportunity for Improvement protocol, the quality management system incorporates several well-defined mechanisms for continual process and service improvement.

Our quality management system is embedded in the existing management structure, but places greater emphasis on formalized work process planning and input from both staff and customers. As a result of this integrated approach, each of the Division's departments have a deeper understanding of "how all the parts fit together" to deliver quality services to its internal and external customers.

Dalhousie University (Atlantic Regional Award)

"STUDENT ACCOUNTS WEB PAYMENT SITE"

July 4, 2000 marked the successful launch of a Student Accounts Web Payment Site at Dalhousie University. One of the impressive factors of this launch in addition to the innovative approach was that the entire operation from beginning to end was completed in 6 weeks. To the best of our knowledge, there were no other student payment systems like this available at any other university or educational institution in Canada at that time.

The Student Accounts Web Payment Site was developed primarily to accept and authorize credit card payments of various student fees over the Web. The intent was to have the payments authorized in real time to ensure a simple and secure delivery of funds to the university with little maintenance commitment by the university staff.

The project was a huge success, with students discovering the site days before it was officially launched and using it to pay their tuition fees. In the first term, the site had little to no advertising due to time constraints. It has continued to grow in popularity and during the past year over 55% of all students have now used it at least once to make a payment. In the last 12 months 15,000 transactions were processed through the site. Today, over 56% of all credit card payments are paid online.

The objectives for the site were to improve student service by allowing payments to be made over the Web 24 hours a day and to reduce the amount of staff time required to process payments by automating the process as much as possible. The site accepts payments for registration and residence deposits, payments to overall account balances, and payments that can be credited to the DalCard, which is a Dalhousie ID debit card that can be used for purchasing many items and services within Dalhousie University by students, faculty and staff. The reason a new system had to be built from scratch is because Dalhousie's ERP, which is SCT's Banner, was not equipped to handle the requirements for taking admission deposits. Due to this limiting factor, Dalhousie's Administrative Computing Department, lead by Bill Marshall, worked with José Marshall Manager of Student Accounts, and Darrell Cochrane, the University's Controller to design an online payment system.

One of the goals was to change how students paid their fees. Prior to having the online system, students could only pay in person or over the telephone, and Dalhousie had a toll free number to facilitate telephone payments. Today, the students' payment pattern has been successfully changed. The number of students who now pay by credit card in person has dropped from 39% to 27%. The telephone credit card line, which is very labour intensive, has dropped from 31% to 17%. In addition, Dalhousie was able to discontinue the toll free number for long distance and encouraged those students and parents to use the Web site.

There were several advantages to having the payment system independent from Dalhousie's ERP system. First, there is no requirement to login to the student's account in the Web for Student system, therefore allowing parents and other third parties to pay accounts without requiring the student's login and password. Additionally, this system allows payments to other accounts, such as the DalCard.

One of the most innovative aspects of the online system is that it is fully integrated with the Dalhousie ERP Student system. This means that the Student Accounts Office does not have to manually enter the data into the student's accounts. The system also includes a safety measure to help students if the service provider is offline. In this case, the Student Accounts staff activates an "off switch" preventing students from starting the process of paying their accounts. Students can then submit their email address for notification, and they will receive an announcement when the server comes back online.

The site also contains answers to frequently asked questions such as information for the students about the various fees, payment options, and payment due dates. Having this information available on line makes the information accessible to students and helps minimize the time required from Student Accounts staff to answer these questions on an individual basis. Student Accounts can update this information themselves so that it is always up to date and answers to commonly asked questions, which can be added as they come up.

To minimize the financial costs of accepting credit card payments for tuition fees, the university issued an RFP for credit card processing discount rates to ensure that the Internet discount rates were not significantly higher than the previous fees for regular credit card transactions. By asking for competitive bids, a much more favourable discount rate was obtained.

McGill University (Québec Regional Award)

"PAYROLL WEB SERVICES"

McGill Payroll took the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system as the opportunity to revise radically how the university processes the over one-hundred thousand casual salary payments it makes to staff and students annually. The new process eliminated paper documents, authorizing signatures, and electronic approvals and substituted pre-authorization, automated notification, and convenient review mechanisms. Payroll's One-time Payment System (POPS) employs web-services and Microsoft's .Net framework to provide secure document delivery and business intelligence services between the departments creating the payment requisitions and the central payroll system.

Departments typically repeat payments to individuals or make similar payments to many individuals. POPS offers a desktop system that allows a department to manage its own data-sharing and payment policies and provides to its users the simplicity of drag-and-drop requisition creation. The desktop system communicates with a central server through Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to deliver requisitions and ID-PIN authentication to a payment collector. Web forms are also available for departments that make casual payments infrequently and consequently do not need the templating features of the desktop system. The web forms and the desktop system use the same web service, which is the single point of interface to the ERP Payroll system. Changes to business policies have been implemented through the web services without redistributing upgrades to the desktop system. The ERP Payroll system updates the Payment Collector Table as payments are issued. This Collector Table then serves as a web-based reporting tool and a data repository for other university processes such as Student Aid's Workstudy Program, which uses student payment data to determine reimbursements to be issued to departments.

Simplifying the process, simplifying access to information, and the use of Simple Object Access Protocol has totally eliminated paper requisitions, reduced the requisition-to-payment process time by up to 30%, reduced manual intervention time spent by Payroll by 25% and provided new opportunities for payroll services such as automated "wake up call" payment reminders and other subscription services.

Brock University, Carleton University & University of Windsor (Ontario Regional Award)

"PENSION CONSORTIUM"

The University of Windsor was given notice by its pension software supplier that its pension administration software product would no longer be supported. The University soon learned that at least two other universities were in the same situation with this supplier and that two additional universities were searching for pension administration software for other reasons. After several preliminary meetings, four universities agreed to form a consortium for the purposes of exploring all alternatives relating to pension administration. A RFP was produced with all options considered including full third party pension administration (full contracting out) and the acquisition of software for in-house administration.

As a result of the RFP three universities, Brock, Carleton and Windsor formed a partnership to purchase and implement a pension administration software program. This partnership has already generated large savings to all three universities in the cost of acquiring this software. It is also producing savings in implementation costs and has begun to show streamlined administration of pension procedures. It will generate large savings in third party costs while providing enhanced employee service. Employees may now perform on line financial planning.

University of Saskatchewan (Western Regional Award)

"CFI ADMINISTRATIVE AND REPORTING STRUCTURE"

The University of Saskatchewan administrative structure for research funding programs is structured in a relatively traditional form, with the Office of Research Services providing pre-award and post-award administration, Financial Services Division providing financial reporting and project proponents providing technical reporting. Like most universities, this structure was established to primarily deal with standard operating grants and research contracts. After the first round of competition of Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) awards, it became very apparent that this structure was not appropriate for the CFI program and that more coordination and hands-on management was required.

The funding for each CFI project is complex, in that matching funding can come from a variety of sources and in a variety of forms. In addition, with the size of most of the CFI awards, relatively small percentage variances could result in large dollar-valued over-expenditures. The CFI projects require strict adherence to the proposed infrastructure acquisition. Any significant deviations from the proposal must be approved by CFI. The final report at the end of the project must include a detailed schedule comparing the proposed infrastructure and actual infrastructure obtained.

The University of Saskatchewan implemented an institutional focus for applying, administering and reporting on the CFI awards and research activity by establishing a central office to coordinate and manage the administration of all CFI projects. This seemed appropriate given the complexity and magnitude of the awards and their institutional nature. This is perhaps the most significant departure from "business as usual" in administration of research funding. The major CFI projects tend to cut across many academic departments and colleges, resulting in non-traditional lines of academic and financial responsibility.