Management Development Institute marks 25 years

Paul Schreiber

SBJ Reporter

pschreiber@sbj.net

The Management Development Institute at Southwest Missouri State University is celebrating 25 years of providing support to area businesses and businesspeople.

Formed to act as a liaison between SMSU's College of Business Administration and the business community, the institute is the university's "outreach arm to the business community to provide assistance as needed in terms of all types of management development activities," said Ron Bottin, PhD, dean of the College of Business Administration.

Established as a short-term instruction program in August 1979 with a $27,000 grant from the Missouri Vocational Education Department, the institute presented six courses and seminars that were attended by 246 people from 100 local companies its first year, said Director Marilyn Martin. In 2003-2004, the institute offered 270 courses and served 4,200 people from about 300 companies, she added.

The institute is funded through seminar fees and from a continuing vocational grant of $44,000 in 2003-2004, Martin said. It receives no individual or corporate contributions, or funds from SMSU, but the university does provide office space in Glass Hall, she said. The budget for 2003-2004 ran a little over $300,000, she added.

In essence, what is provided is a different type of instruction, said Virginia Mee, who was the director of the institute from its inception until 2002, and is now director of faculty services at Drury University. "The adult learner has so much to share, as well as to gain, from the additional knowledge of other people in the room, as well as the instructor," she said.

Workshops are grouped by topic areas, such as supervision, human resources, management and Six Sigma quality initiatives, which are further broken down into more specific areas so participants often take a series of classes, Martin said. The institute has six full-time employees and one part-time employee.

Half-day courses run $79 with full-day courses running $179 to $195, while specialty courses are typically two-day programs and cost $749, Martin said. Classes can either be public, or open enrollment, or conducted on site at a company location, she added.

Springfield businesses that have utilized the services of the Management Development Institute include Banta Foods, City Utilities, Paul Mueller Co., St. John's Regional Health Center, SRC and the Assemblies of God, Martin said.

About 160 Assemblies of God supervisors have been through the institute's "Essentials of Effective Supervision" program since August 1996, said Mari Bull, human resource training coordinator. Classes are paid for by the departmental budget of the person attending, she added.

Participants have told Bull that they have benefited from the institute's programs on hiring laws, employee workplace difficulties, on-the-job problem solving, motivational skills, teamwork, management conflict, and discipline and termination.

The educational partnerships the institute has established with organizations including the Office of State Court Administrators and Scholastic Inc. in Jefferson City, and Empire District Electric in Joplin, where numerous employees receive training, will be critical to the institute's future growth, Mee said.

"The teaching was practical and useful," said Mary Brennell, education programs specialist. "It was not just theoretical underpinnings of what supervision management is, but basically tools they could go back and use on a day-to-day basis," she said.

Meeting once a month over a yearlong period, Steve Berardi, warehouse supervisor for Scholastic, said his classes in business management were thorough, addressing issues of time management and employee discipline.

While the institute's original focus was Springfield and southwest Missouri, it has provided training to participants from Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Arizona, Martin said.

The fastest growing program the institute offers is the Six Sigma four-week Black Belt Certificate, Martin said, because it "is a quality initiative directly linked with financial results that can be documented. A Black Belt project needs to realize at least $50,000 in savings to the company," she said, and it focuses on business processes.

Michael Hunter, Management Develop-ment Institute's training and development manager, said verification of results comes from a "chief financial officer or someone in the company that can validate the savings."

Missouri businesses that have participated in the Black Belt program include Systems Electronic Inc. in West Plains, Schreiber Foods in Monett, Leggett & Platt in Carthage and Copeland Inc. in Lebanon, Hunter said.

Examples of company projects applying the Black Belt method have included a reduction in over-planned inventory levels, removal of unneeded engineering product designs and reducing the time it takes to process a customer quote, Hunter said.

To date, Black Belt participants have realized $1.3 million in total savings, with another approximately $2.3 million outstanding on works in progress, he added.