Application Processing (Corporate Training & Workforce ... · Data: Facts, details, statistics, and specifics about a particular subject. For example, the address of a student, the

Application Processing

(Corporate Training &

Workforce Development)

Continuous Process Improvement

WINTER 2015

Winter 2015 CPI – Corporate Training and Workforce Development

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

THANK YOU ................................................................................................................................................... 2

INTERNAL .................................................................................................................................................. 2

EXTERNAL ................................................................................................................................................. 2

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT TEAM MEMBERS .............................................................................................. 3

PROJECT STATEMENT .................................................................................................................................. 4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND PROJECT SCOPE ............................................................................................ 5

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS ........................................................................................................................ 7

CURRENT PROCESS .................................................................................................................................. 12

IMPROVEMENT THEORY AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN ......................................................................... 15

CAUSE AND EFFECT (FISHBONE) DIAGRAMS .......................................................................................... 16

RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM.......................................................................................................................... 18

RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................................ 19

PROPOSED WORKFLOW / FLOWCHARTS ................................................................................................ 26

FORCE-FIELD ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 28

MONITORING AND ENGRAFTING PLAN .................................................................................................... 29

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE ...................................................................................................... 30

STEERING COMMITTEE FEEDBACK ......................................................................................................... 31

FUTURE CPI TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................ 33

APPENDIX A – COURSE CREATION “BLUE” SHEETS AND COURSE COUNTS ......................................... 34

APPENDIX B – SAMPLE INSTITUTIONAL REPORTS ................................................................................. 36

APPENDIX C – PRE-CPI DATA ANALYSIS/COUNTS .................................................................................. 38

APPENDIX D – STUDENT BALANCE / PERC SCREENS ............................................................................ 41

APPENDIX E – SAMPLE COMPANY NOTIFICATION EMAIL ....................................................................... 43


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THANK YOU

The CPI Team would like to thank President Stanley Jensen and Team Sponsors Dr. Tracy Pierner

and Dr. Reginald Witherspoon for their guidance throughout this process.

We would also like to thank those individuals who took the time to share with us how they utilize the

various HFC systems. The input was invaluable to our goal.

INTERNAL Holly Diamond, Registrar’s Office

Elizabeth Gierada, Registrar’s Office

Kevin Culler, Financial Aid Office

Becky Chadwick, IME Office

Elizabeth Rutherford, M-TEC Office

Bryan Bame, Tori Hart, Denise Modrzynski, Winter 2015 CPI Team on

For-Credit Corporate Training and Workforce Development

EXTERNAL Schoolcraft College

Wayne County Community College

Macomb Community College


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PROCESS IMPROVEMENT TEAM MEMBERS

Team Co-Sponsor:

Tracy Pierner, Ph.D., P.E.

Vice President of Academic Affairs

[email protected]

Team Co-Sponsor:

Reginald Witherspoon

Interim Director, Workforce and Professional Development

[email protected]

Project Manager:

Brian N. Stewart, M.S-BIT

Business Intelligence and Reporting /

Adjunct Instructor, Business and Computer Technology Division

[email protected]

Team Scribe:

Michael P. Wells

Laboratory Technician, Business and Computer Technology Division

[email protected]

Team Member:

Guy F. Pizzino

Academic Coordinator, Industrial Technology / CIMED

[email protected]

Team Member:

Judy Georgic

Consultant, Corporate Training and Industrial Service

[email protected]

Team Member:

Arlicia Summerville

Administrative Assistant, Workforce and Professional Development

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]








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PROJECT STATEMENT

To improve the corporate training and workforce development application

process for "not for credit" students as measured by: more accurate data

collection and reporting, reduction in the application processing time, and a

more efficient course creation / student enrollment process.


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND PROJECT SCOPE

The Winter 2015 Continuous Process Improvement Team for Corporate Training and Workforce

Development, sponsored by Dr. Tracy Pierner and Dr. Reginald Witherspoon, was tasked with

identifying current processes within the application and registration portion of the respective areas.

Through discussion with internal and external stakeholders, along with research on how policies are

handled at sister Community Colleges, the team identified the following potential areas for

improvement:

Course creation (blue-sheets) and student rosters require no less than 4 handoffs before

being entered into the system. Historically documents have been misplaced, accidentally

thrown out, and keyed into HANK several weeks/months beyond the start of the semester.

Henry Ford College absorbs all costs associated with late-registration paperwork submitted

by third party sponsors on the for-credit courses; subsequently this was excluded from the

project scope but is important in the furthering of transparency.

Non-Degree seeking Corporate Training and Workforce students are unable to select a “non-

degree-seeking” program of study for their application process resulting in poor data integrity

and additional workload to collect required admissions paperwork from each student.

Students who are third-party sponsored are not consistently coded in the system which

results in accidental de-registration, and erroneous reporting of numbers to our

stakeholders.

There are no system codes which permit the finite tracking of a not-for-credit as opposed to

for-credit sponsored student. Similarly, there are no tracking records for Grant funded

students. These students are currently being maintained in a series of spreadsheets and

external databases within each department.

The registration process can be completed by a myriad of employees, not necessarily from

the Registrar’s office and who may have little to no training on the HANK system.

Often “mirror courses” are created to circumvent the system for students who are unwilling

or unable to provide the necessary documentation needed for admissions to the College.

Students who have an outstanding bill over $30 are not permitted to register for courses

even though they have a company sponsor who can guarantee payment of their current

class. This requires sponsors to either find alternate attendees or have a reduction in

workforce who are adequately trained.

There is a perceived disconnect in communication between the Registrar’s office and the

current point-persons in Corporate Training and Workforce Development as it relates to

finding out when data will be entered into the system.

There is a lack of accountability and lack of a tracking mechanism to identify where

paperwork is and when records can be expected to be updated.

Minimal, if any, technical advantages (email, scanning) are being utilized in the registration

and admissions process for not-for-credit students. Often multiple copies of documents exist

at various stages of completion and having no centralized storage of the completed

document in ImageNow.


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Based upon the above measures, the CPI team narrowed the project scope to include only the

following:

Focus solely on Not-For-Credit application and Registration – there is another CPI team

currently tasked with For-Credit application and Registration.

Ensure that all recommendations regarding system alterations do not affect existing

reporting, recommended system protocols, the registration process, or place the college at

compliance risks.

For purposes of this CPI team, the billing process and payment application to the student

record is outside of the scope of this project.

To ensure the success of this CPI team, it is explicitly tasked with meeting with our sister CPI team to

ensure that our recommendations, if any, on student tracking, establishing of point-persons, and

changes in procedure match what is best for the College.


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OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

ACS Code: Activities Classification Structure code. Activities Classification Structure is a set of

categories and related definitions which allows users to examine the operation of an institution as

they relate to the accomplishment of that institution's objectives. ACS Codes are part of the

Michigan Community College system and are applied at the course level, not at the program

level. An example of an ACS code would be 1.4 for "Psychology for Nurses." Each HFC course has a

single ACS code associated with it as determined by the Information, Marketing, and Effectiveness

Department.

Admissions Requirement: The necessary documentation, as required by both Federal Law and

Institutional Policy, to be admitted to Henry Ford College as a for-credit seeking student. In general,

such documents include a valid Social Security Card, High School Diploma/GED, and a State ID. For

foreign-students, this may include various visa paperwork in addition to the above.

Blue Sheet: Course and Section Data sheets. These are physical pieces of paper that are used to

submit the creation of a new course/ section being held at the college or at an off-site location

sponsored by the college. Blue Sheets are utilized solely by the Corporate Training and Workforce

Development areas.

BSTAE Hold: Business Sponsored Trade and Apprentice hold. The BSTAE hold was created with the

intention of being entered on a student record to prevent the student from being de-registered for a

course due to non-payment or other reasoning. BSTAE holds should be removed or set to an end-

date once the student's sponsor has applied payment for the course. It is possible that students

may have several BSTAE records on their account if they are sponsored over the course of several

years.

CIP Code: Classification of Instructional Programs. These codes were originally developed by the

U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics to provide a taxonomy for

programs of study. An example of a CIP code is 42.2813 which would be for “Applied Psychiatry.”

CIP codes only apply to programs of study, not to the courses themselves. CIP codes are assigned at

HFC by the department of Information, Marketing, and Effectiveness.

College Developmental Course: Any course numbered below 100, which does not count for

academic credit towards a program of study, but is required to gain the knowledge needed to

succeed at the College level. Such courses include English 081 – Basic Reading and Writing.

Continuing Education: Not-for-credit education provided for adults after they have left the formal

education system, consisting typically of short or part-time courses. Continuing Education courses

are based out of the M-TEC location and fall under the Workforce Development area.

Corporate Training Division: Established in 1986 as the College's economic development unit.

Corporate Training expands workforce skills, retrains employees in new work fields or new

technologies and supports economic development through the provision of educational services to

business and industry. The division responds to business and industry requests by designing learner-


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centered educational offerings that are affordable, flexible, and customer-specific. These work-based

educational programs are financed by contract with the employer or through private or public

sources. Corporate Training Courses can offer for-credit learning – often through Grant funding – but

often offer not-for-credit courses.

Course Prefix: The code which is used to specify the taxonomy or subject matter of a

course. Prefixes are typically acronyms for a department or program of study; an example being CIS -

short for Computer Information Systems

Customized Training / Custom Course: A session, or series of sessions, not-for-credit, that are

developed at the request of a third-party sponsor. These training opportunities are typically for topics

which relate to a direct business need and may not have long term sustainability to require a for-

credit course development. Customized training can also be a "mirror class" in the event a for-credit

course is created but has already begun or is not being offered at the time the sponsor requests.

Data: Facts, details, statistics, and specifics about a particular subject. For example, the address of

a student, the description of a course, and the classroom which a course has been assigned. Data is

information in raw, unprocessed form, from which business decisions cannot be made. For data to

become information, it must be consistent, accurate, and reliable.

Data Integrity: Refers to maintaining and assuring the accuracy and consistency of data over its

entire life-cycle and is a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which

stores, processes, or retrieves data. All characteristics of the data including business rules, rules for

how pieces of data relate. Dates, definitions and lineage must be correct for data to be

complete. Any unintended changes to data as the result of a storage, retrieval or processing

operation, including malicious intent, unexpected hardware failure, and human error, is failure of

data integrity.

De-Registration Process: Often internally referred to as "de-reg," this is an automated system

process which will remove students from courses for which they have not paid or are otherwise

incorrectly placed. The process runs between 4 and 6 times between the time classes are available

on WebAdvisor and the first starting date of the course. Students with the BSTAE hold are protected

from the de-registration process as per a HANK system parameter.

External Stakeholder (External Constituent): Individuals who are impacted by Henry Ford College’s

policies and procedures including but not limited to: prospective students, alumni, parents, and the

community at large.

FERPA: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA is a Federal law that protects the privacy

of student education records. Since the College deals with dual-enrollment with the potential to

have students who are under 18, and third-party sponsored students, FERPA permits and prohibits

what the Instructor can discuss about a student. Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory"

information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors

and awards, and dates of attendance, but not grades, HANK ID's, or other educational records (such

as course progress, exam scores, etc.).

For-Credit Course: A formally accredited topic of study recognized by the College as having the ability


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to further a student's program of study. For-Credit courses must meet prescriptive criterion and are

measured in "credit-hours." Letter grades (A - E) as well as transferability are given to for-credit

courses.

GRTXX Code: Grant PERC screen codes. To enable the College to track the progress of cohorts and

other Grant-sponsored students, the PERC screen code of GRTXX, where XX is a 2-letter acronym to

identify the grant. An example of this PERC code is GRTM2 where the M2 is for the MAT2 students

who were awarded the sponsorship under the guidance of the Associate Dean of Industrial

Technology. As additional Grants are awarded, more GRT codes should be created. Similar to the

other codes, there should be one GRT record for each semester that the student receives a

sponsorship. If a student has a GRT record, there is no need to create an associated NC record.

HANK: Henry Ford's Automated Network of Knowledge. HANK is the primary system, founded on the

Ellucian (formerly Datatel) platform, for which HFC stores all of the data. Internal synonyms for HANK

often include: Colleague, Datatel, and Ellucian, but all are the same entity. Registration, student,

Human Resources, Payroll, and employee data are all stored in the HANK system. Course and

Program information are stored externally in a Drupal-based system via courses.hfcc.edu.

ImageNow: A software-based utility developed by Perceptive Software that enables the organization

of content from many different sources, including paper documents. Once imported, files can be

processed and stored in an easily accessible database, or to a HFC networked drive.

Information: Data that is (1) accurate and timely, (2) specific and organized for a purpose, (3)

presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance, (4) has minimized variability, and (5)

can lead to an increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty.

Internal Stakeholder (Internal Constituent): All Henry Ford College students and employees including

but not limited to: currently enrolled students, student workers, support staff, full-time and adjunct

faculty, administrators, cabinet members, and HFC President.

Mirror Class: A non-credit class that meets the same date, time, and location as a for-credit class. A

mirror class is currently being used as a "work-around" the registration process when potential

sponsored students that do not meet the college's admissions requirements are asked by a third-

party sponsor to take a course. Examples of when a student doesn't meet the standard admission

requirements include not having a diploma on file, not having taken the COMPASS exams, and not

having a proper address on file.

NCCCE Code: Not For Credit, Continuing Education code. This code is a proposed PERC screen entry

to correlate with NCWDR to help identify those students taking not-for-credit courses who are self-

pay as opposed to those who are sponsored. A student may have multiple NCCCE records on file

with start and end dates of the continuing education course; not the dates of the academic

semester.

NCCTR Code: Not For Credit, Corporate Training / Company Sponsor code. This code is a proposed

PERC screen entry to help identify and track students that take a Not-For-Credit course in their

academic career, but are sponsored by a company. A student may have multiple NCCTR records

with the start and end dates being those of the semester for which they are sponsored. If a student


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is sponsored across multiple semesters, there should be multiple NCCTR codes on that student

record.

NCSTU Code: Not For Credit, Student Pay code. This code is a proposed PERC screen entry to help

identify and track students that take a Not-For-Credit course in their academic career, but self-pay for

the course. A student may have multiple NCSTU records with the start and end dates being those of

the semester for which they have taken a course.

NCWDR Code: Not For Credit, Workforce Development Corporate / Company Sponsor code. This

code is a proposed PERC screen entry to help identify and track students that are taking a Not-For-

Credit Workforce Development (or mirror) course, but are sponsored by a company. This code will

help to create unique tracking between Corporate Training and Workforce Development not for credit

offerings. A student may have multiple NCWDR records with the start and end dates being those of

the semester for which they are sponsored. If a student is sponsored across multiple semesters,

there should be multiple NCWDR codes on that student record.

Not-For-Credit Course: A topic for which a student can enroll to further their interest and knowledge

but has not been formally accredited or recognized as having the depth or meeting time

requirements to grant college credit. Continuing Education courses are considered not-for-credit.

PERC Codes: Personal Restriction Codes. PERC Codes are used in the HANK system on the student

record to add additional tracking details about a student. A student may have no PERC codes or may

have several. PERC Codes have the ability to apply for a duration of time (start and end date) or may

be placed on an account indefinitely. Examples of why HFC uses PERC codes include: preventing de-

registration in a corporate training or Workforce Development course (BSTAE code), indicating

whether the student is banned from campus (B, and R code), and for identifying if a student is third

party sponsored (our proposed series of codes). Institutional Reporting and the Registar's office

utilize these codes when reviewing student records, however the codes themselves are the

responsibility of the Corporate Training and Workforce Development offices.

Point Person: An individual who is accountable for a particular task. Point persons are chosen by

Director's, Associate Dean's, and Vice President's with the added responsibility to ensure proper

protocol and communication is followed. Point persons are expected to be empowered by their

supervisor to address questions and concerns.

Policies: Sets of rules and regulations that help standardize work done at HFC and when followed

reduce data integrity issues. This CPI team does distinguish between College Policies (passed by

governing bodies), and procedures (typically set up by departments). Our CPI team does not concern

regulations (imposed by outside entities) as part of Policies.

Procedures: The sequence of actions required to carry out a policy

Program of Study: A path for which a student becomes prepared to earn a Certificate of

Achievement or Academic Degree. Institutional policy at Henry Ford College mandates that each

student must choose a program of study if they take a for-credit or not-for-credit course. Continuing

Education students do not have to declare a program of study.


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Sponsored Student: A student who has their tuition paid for by a third-party entity; typically an

agency, employer, or grant. Sponsored students should have a PERC code on their account to

prevent the de-registration process. Sponsored students can take for-credit, mirror, and not-for-

credit courses provided that they have the necessary documentation on file.

Stakeholder: An individual or entity that has a vested interest in Henry Ford College by being

involved in or affected by a course of action.

Third Party: An employer or agency that is sponsoring a student via paying for tuition at the

College. For purposes of this project, Grant funding is considered as Third-Party-Sponsorship,

however Financial Aid assistance and scholarships are not considered as third-party but rather as

"awards."

WebFOCUS: A program developed by Information Builders that allows for reports to be created

based upon data within the HANK system. Institutional Reporting has the sole responsibility of the

creation of reports which can then be run with real-time information by various departments and

other stakeholders. The primary language behind WebFOCUS is SQL.

Work-Around: A method of circumventing policies in extreme circumstances where the College

reputation would be potentially harmed. A primary example of a work-around is the creation of

"mirror courses."

Workforce and Professional Development: A division of the college that works with various agencies

and employers to provide short term training to those seeking better employment or who need

additional training to maintain employment. Workforce and Professional Development courses are

not credit-earning courses.


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CURRENT PROCESS


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IMPROVEMENT THEORY AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

As seen in the current flowcharted process, there is a significant amount of variability and

opportunity for paperwork to become lost or sent back due to missing data. The course blue-sheets

required approval by an executive level director, two Vice Presidents, and finally by the Registrar’s

office. In addition, several portions of the process took place in paper form and were often sent via

inner-office mail, alongside hundreds of other envelopes that traverse the Registar’s area.

A second concern which the CPI team identified in the process was that third-party sponsored

students, whose bills are paid in full by a legal corporation, were being denied admission due to an

outstanding balance. By doing so, several workarounds were put in place which compounded the

current issue.

The CPI team also noted that the transition from the main grounds to the Welcome Center along with

significant workforce changes contributed to a general lack of accountability and communication.

Concerns of unanswered messages, drawers of existing paperwork, and resistance to change is seen

in the delay for which a blue sheet was created as compared to the time all students were entered

into the system for the course to run.

Outside of the flowchart, additional opportunities for improvement were found in the lack of

communication between the areas who were responsible for creation and entering of the data.

System privileges and lack of training also contributed to radical duplication of effort and inability to

report on students that were sponsored by a third party for not-for-credit course offerings.

To establish a baseline of root cause analysis, several discussions across multiple internal

departments (Financial Aid, Cashiers, Registar, Information, Marketing and Effectiveness) as well as

external sister Colleges (Schoolcraft, Wayne County Community, and Macomb) were consulted as to

their ‘best practices’ so that an improvement theory could be established and the plan taken

forward. The next series of charts helped lead to the ten (10) recommendations proposed by the CPI

team.


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CAUSE AND EFFECT (FISHBONE) DIAGRAMS

As seen in the Relationship diagram (pg. 18), one of the primary causes of issues within the

application processing and registration for Corporate Training and Workforce and Professional

Development is a lack of communication between various departments and third party sponsors.

The CPI team was able to further extrapolate that the lack of an identified “point-person” as well as

inconsistent communication regarding procedural and process changes resulted in a growing

number of errors.

Therefore, some of the areas that the CPI has identified as being key to the success include the

establishing of a “point-person” within the Registar’s office who is accountable for the receipt, entry,

and follow-up for all not-for-credit processing, and a more effective use of system parameters to

track and report on these students. Furthermore, having fewer handoffs of paper documents via the

implementation of a color coded folder structure and a reduction in the required signatures will

directly contribute to a more expedited registration process and clearer identification of which

students are taking not-for-credit courses as opposed to for-credit courses. Reports will be utilized

as a primary source of communication between external stakeholders and the Corporate Training /

Workforce Development offices to monitor and identify trends in how the College can better adapt to

the needs of our customers.


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Similar to the previous fishbone diagram, the CPI team explored the possibility of how improving and

more clearly articulating a defined process would improve the registration and admissions process

from within the not-for-credit realm. While in discussion, some of the major areas identified were

that so many changes in processes have taken place over the past few years (e.g, semester codes of

/T and /P, users removing PERC records instead of letting them expire, additional system

permissions being granted or employee repositioning without reviewing the revocation of existing

system privileges), it was logistically difficult to provide training and written processes to the

necessary departments.

The CPI team also noted that the increase in student registration, along with the need to re-centralize

portions of the student enrollment process may add to an already cumbersome amount of work that

the Registrar’s office has been tasked with. While the CPI team is not explicitly recommending

additional staff or reassign time for that office, it should strongly be considered as part of the

continuous effort to improve our services to students. Lastly, there were several steps which the CPI

team identified to having been defined differently between departments which caused repetition of

work and added costs to the College. The recommendation of re-centralizing portions of the data

entry along with re-evaluating the student billing hold will contribute to a clearer and more student-

driven process.


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RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM


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RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Alter the Course Creation process to only require the signature of the Associate Dean / Director

of Workforce and Professional Development before ACS codes are given and the Registrar

enters the data into the system.

Rationale: The CPI team has identified that there is significant delay in processing of courses due to

the number of signatures required. The current process includes the signature and approval of: the

Associate Dean/Director of Workforce and Professional Development, Vice President of Academic

Affairs, Vice President of Information, Marketing, and Effectiveness, and the Registrar’s office.

Because these documents are done in hard-copy form via inner-office mail, each handoff accounts

for a 1-2 business day delay.

By only requiring the signature of the Associate Dean/Director of Workforce Development before

being keyed into HANK, we anticipate a savings of 4-6 days with a significant reduction on lost

paperwork. The proposed flowchart, indicated in the next section, would be to obtain ACS/CIP codes

electronically with a maximum 4 hour turnaround (agreed upon by the Vice President of Information,

Marketing, and Effectiveness) and the document would then be sent electronically to the Registrar’s

office who in turn would enter it into the system within 2 business days. Having an electronic

process, with point-persons being identified and accountable, the reduction in lost paperwork and

extra employee hours will account for significant savings. The CPI team recommends that where

applicable, the documents are scanned and emailed to the proposed Registar email mailboxes, but

in cases where that is not feasible, the adoption of color-coded inner-office envelopes will help

facilitate a more streamlined process.

Lastly, the Corporate Training and Workforce and Professional Development point personnel will

create the necessary PERC record(s) on the student screen.

Upon the completion of the process, electronic documents will be stored to the G:/ drive until which

time they can be scanned into the ImageNow system by the department where the request was

originated.

2. Purchase 250 Red and 250 Blue inner-office envelopes to color code the priority of Continuing

Education / Workforce Development course creation and student enrollment.

Rationale: To help identify and prioritize course / student creation within any inner-office mail, the

CPI team is recommending a color-coding system for envelopes. The color coding process designed

by the “7-Steps-to-Enroll” CPI team was the foundation of this recommendation due to the high level


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of success with correlating colors to tasks. The CPI team feels that the small investment ($120.00)

would ensure that items sent from Corporate Training / Workforce Development would be

immediately addressed and given to the assigned point person. Also – this would allow for inventory

control and tracking since the balance of envelopes around campus are the standard yellow. Blue

folders would be items from the Workforce and Professional Development Office, and Red folders

would be from the Corporate Training office.

Furthermore, to ensure that other departments have the ability to perform similar operation, the CPI

team has researched and found that there are several other colors available for choosing in the

event this recommendation were to be adopted by others.

3. Establish a unique cashier’s and registrar’s electronic mailbox and assign a full-time ‘point

person’ to each.

Rationale: As seen in the Cause and Effect Diagram, one major area of weakness is the lack of

accountability when course and student sheets are sent and received. The CPI team has worked

with the Vice President of Information, Marketing, and Effectiveness as well as the Director of

Registration to establish necessary point-persons and backup staff who will be responsible for the

receipt, management, and completion of all course/student creations within HANK. By having a

direct line of communication with individuals that physically enter the data into the system, and by

limiting the number of persons who are able to perform such tasks, there will be a reduction in

variability which will contribute to better data accuracy and more consistent reporting.

The CPI team recommends that there is a dedicated e-mail address as well as a dedicated physical

mailbox for both the Corporate Training, and Workforce Development areas so that the document

workflow can be accurately tracked. The proposed email addresses would be [email protected]

and [email protected]. The mailboxes would be monitored by the Registrar’s office. The physical

mailbox would also be located at the Registrar’s office so that the newly implemented procedure of

having color coordinated envelopes would be kept separate from normal mail.

To measure the success of this initiative, it is proposed that all Corporate Training and Workforce

and Professional Development course and student creation sheets are addressed within a 48 hour

window, excluding holidays, with an automated system response once the data has been created in

HANK (see recommendation 6).

4. Implement procedure to permit company-sponsored not-for-credit students to register for

classes regardless of if they have an outstanding balance on file provided the company is in

good standing.




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Rationale: As discussed in the Executive Summary, students who have an outstanding balance on

record above $30 are not permitted to register for classes. This policy puts the College at an

undesirable position in that companies who are willing to pay the monies for them to return to

college, are being told that those students cannot attend. For each student that cannot attend, the

College is losing between $400-$1,000. Also, companies have to scramble at the last minute to find

other employees they deem trainable at the last minute or end up with a reduced workforce who we

can train.

The recommendation of this CPI team is to permit all students to enroll in courses regardless of their

outstanding personal balance provided that the company who is sponsoring them is in good financial

standing. By instituting this policy, the College stands to increase its revenue with no dollar

investments required. Supplemental advantages to doing so include having direct access to that

student to obtain an updated mailing address, distribute form-letters, or request that the student

speak with the Cashiers office to settle or implement a payment plan on their balance. The CPI team

was unable to find any weaknesses with this policy and furthermore supports the For-Credit Winter

2015 CPI team who are recommending a similar measure. Financial Aid, the Registar’s office, and

the Cashier’s office have all provided support for this recommendation.

5. Re-Establish the non-degree seeking program of study in HANK to permit not-for-credit students

to be more accurately tracked and enroll without the normal admission requirements.

Rationale: Currently in the HANK system a series of program codes exist for degree and certificate

seeking students, but there is not an efficient methodology for tracking not-for-credit non-

degree/certificate seeking students. The CPI team, with assistance from the Registrar’s office, was

able to identify that at some point in time, there was a code which could be utilized to track non-

degree seeking students. This code is rarely, if at all, used in the system to identify students who

take only Continuing Education courses.

The recommendation of the CPI team is to utilize the following system codes to help identify students

that are not-degree-seeking and within the scope of this team project: NODEG.CORPT (Corporate

Training), WRKFDEV.ND (Workforce and Professional Development). These codes, which do not

require a CIP code nor have any academic implications for Financial Aid, etc., would be an ideal way

to assign a more-accurate program of study. Also, since these codes exist in HANK currently, no

additional system programming would be required.

6. Create an automated system process to notify all point-persons when a Corporate Training or

Workforce Development course has been created and for when a potential student de-

registration is soon to occur.


22

Rationale: A perceived lack of communication exists between the Corporate Training and Workforce

Development offices and the Registar’s office – likely due to turnover, additional workloads, and lack

of defined point-personnel, so there are no mechanisms in place other than manual checking, to see

when a course has been entered into the system. Therefore, if the Registar’s office entered a course

on Monday April 6th and there is no follow-up by the Corporate Training or Workforce Development

office until April 20th, there have been 14 days for which students could have been enrolled into the

course.

Therefore, the CPI team recommends that either a Report-Caster daily report is created, or the HANK

Communication module is utilized to notify all point personnel upon the creation of a course with

either a CT or WTWD course prefix.

Furthermore, to prevent accidental de-registration of a student, the CPI team proposes that an

automated report is e-mailed to all point personnel with a copy to the Assistant to the Associate

Dean of Industrial Technology with has a listing of third-party sponsored students who are at risk of

being de-registered from the system. This preventative measure will ensure companies are not

erroneously notified and students are not inconvenienced. Historically this process has been a

manual checking from student registration forms by Denise Modrzynski who has checked each

student one-by-one and placed a BSTAE hold on the student record. The automation of this process

will allow Denise to focus on other tasks while point personnel can review and enter in the necessary

PERC screen data.

7. Post not-for-credit CPI approved changes (admissions requirements, information on outstanding

balances, etc.) to the HFC public site including the tuition-and-fees page.

Rationale: In a continued effort to provide transparency, the CPI team recommends that all tuition

rates and approved changes appear on the public-facing website (https://www.hfcc.edu/tuition-and-

payment) no more than two weeks after the approved structure change. Currently there are varying

rates charged to each sponsor (omitted from the CPI report for security purposes) with no

information being shared with external or internal stakeholders. Adding the sponsored tuition rates

can be done at no additional expense to the College.

An additional third-party “portal” page could be added to include such frequently addressed

questions as: what pieces of identification are required to attend a not-for-credit course at Henry

Ford College, or the process of articulating a not-for-credit course or life-experience to a for-credit

equivalent. This initiative would support fixing one of the root causes as seen in the Relationship

Diagram (pg. 18) of poorly or non-established processes. Publically posting this information would

also help clarify how departments and divisions should handle certain third-party sponsor inquiries.

https://www.hfcc.edu/tuition-and-payment



23

To provide additional transparency, the CPI team recommends that each third-party sponsor is

contacted via email or registered mail informing them of the CPI team and the newly created

mission, visions, and values statements. A proposed letter is contained in Appendix E.

Furthermore, the CPI team recommends that a CPI team is formed to review the marketing efforts

done for Corporate Training, Workforce Development, and Continuing Education as the current web

presence of these entities do not contain video testimonials, student success and employee

placement information, nor are they easily located from the HFC homepage.

8. Re-assign a point-person within the Corporate Training and Workforce and Professional

Development offices to include the job-responsibilities of monitoring document workflow and

indexing documents on the G:/ drive.

Rationale: While the position of Assistant to the Associate Dean of Industrial Technology is key to the

success of this CPI team in that there needs to be a point-person who closely monitors the workflow

of the transition to having the Registrar re-absorb the keying process, we also understand that the

additional responsibilities would add to an already exhaustive list. Therefore, the recommendation

of the CPI team is to establish a point-person within Corporate Training and a separate point-person

in Workforce Development who would have the additional job responsibilities as acting as liaisons

between the Registar’s office, Cashier’s office, and the third-party sponsor. These persons would not

be responsible for the keying of student and course data into the system, but rather would manage

the PERC screen tracking records and could escalate any communication issues as needed to the

Assistant to the Associate Dean.

The CPI team is aware that the Assistant to the Associate Dean of Industrial Technology position has

previously gone through a failed search and would emphasize the importance of filling this position

for the following reasons: 1. Provide the Associate Dean of Industrial Technology more opportunities

to apply for Grant opportunities, 2. Permit the Assistant to the Vice President of Academic Affairs the

opportunity to dedicate their full time resources to that position, and 3. Ensure that the Industrial

Technology and Skilled Trades area have a full time resource to manage student inquiries, greet

guests, and attend conferences on behalf of an area which there is significant market demand.

The recommendation of the CPI team could be fulfilled via either re-assign time to existing

employees: Kathy Edwards for all Grant application and registration, Leanne Campbell/Judith

Georgic for Corporate Training application and registration, and Arlicia Summerville for Workforce

and Professional Development application and registration, or the addition of more staff. The

Assistant to the Associate Dean could then attend to the daily duties as required by the position but

in the event of a repositioning of workforce could assist in the training of replacement point-persons


24

identified by both the Associate Dean and the Director of Workforce and Professional Development.

9. Develop additional PERC codes to track not-for-credit Corporate Training, not-for-credit

Workforce Development, and Grant sponsored students.

Rationale: To ensure the alignment with the project statement of more accurate data collection and

reporting, the CPI team recommends the implementation of additional PERC codes at the student

record. One of the major concerns at the onset of this project was that there are no mechanisms in

place to accurately track the progression of a student through a series of not-for-credit courses.

Similarly, there was no way to code a report to accurately identify a count of not-for-credit students

based on a particular reporting period. Unlike for-credit students who have clear and unique codes

on their record with minimal variance in protocol, not-for-credit students do not.

The creation of the following PERC codes, with effective start dates of the date received and end

date of the last date of the academic semester are proposed by the CPI Team:

NCSTU – Not For Credit, Student Pay

NCCTR – Not For Credit, Third-Party Pay

NCWDR – Not For Credit, Workforce and Professional Development Third-Party Pay

NCCCE – Not For Credit, Continuing Education (Student Pay)

GRTXX – Grant Sponsored Student, where XX is an agreed upon abbreviation to represent

the Grant. For example GRTM2 would be a PERC code assigned to Grant Sponsored

Students currently in the MAT2 (MAT-Squared) cohort

The CPI team was initially de-briefed by the Registrar’s office that there is a cohort field in HANK, but

the team feels that unlike for-credit students where you want to track progress, retention, and

persistence, the not-for-credit students would want to be tracked each time they are sponsored in a

given time frame. Therefore, the PERC screen was identified as the ideal solution.

One item to note is that to prevent de-registration, the BSTAE hold must still reside on the student

record and then get removed once the semester has started. The BSTAE hold and M-TEC hold

perform the same function, so the CPI team recommends the simplification to just utilize BSTAE.

This hold would initially be the responsibility of the Registrar’s office when they create the student

entry, however the auditing of this code and subsequent removal would be the responsibility of the

Division/Department to which it falls.

Lastly, to ensure ownership, the point person at the Division/Department level would be tasked with

assigning and moderating these codes; it would not be the responsibility of the Registrar’s office nor


25

would it be the responsibility of Denise Modrzynski who currently does these codes.

10. Develop Reports to monitor and track newly implemented PERC Codes – perform bi-annual

audits.

Rationale: To ensure the accuracy and consistency of data in the HANK system, the CPI team

recommends that WebFOCUS reports are created to track the newly implemented PERC codes and

to report more accurate enrollment data to HFC stakeholders. The reports can be run on demand by

the Associate Dean of Industrial Technology, Director of Workforce Development, all cabinet level

members, and by members of the CPI Team. Furthermore, it is recommended that in the Summer

2015, Fall 2015, Summer 2016, and Fall 2016 (see project development schedule) that reports are

pulled to compare against the blue sheets to verify enrollment and course offerings. Future audits

should take place in alternating Fall and Winter semesters.

The reports which the CPI team recommends are: Student Count by Semester, Student Detail by

Semester, Student Detail by Sponsor, and Late Sponsor Transactions. Student count by Semester

would provide summary data grouped by the sponsor code; for example, “Ford Rouge sponsored 344

students during Fall 2017.” The Student Detail by Semester would provide a breakdown of each of

the courses that sponsored students took in a given semester. The Student Detail by Sponsor would

allow the College to identify which courses sponsors are routinely requesting along with leading and

lagging indicators on opportunities to offer similar courses to other sponsors. Finally, the Late

Sponsor Transactions would permit the College to identify additional revenue streams and provide

sponsors notification that they would save funds by registering on time. This initiative has no related

costs as there are existing system reports which can be slightly modified to provide counts of all new

PERC codes. Appendix B shows sample WebFOCUS logic for one of the four proposed reports along

with the results of a test-environment extract.


26

PROPOSED WORKFLOW / FLOWCHARTS


27


28

FORCE-FIELD ANALYSIS

Application Processing

(Corporate Training & Workforce Development)

To improve the corporate training and workforce development

application process for "not for credit" students as measured by: more accurate data collection and reporting, reduction in the application

processing time, and a more efficient course creation / student enrollment process.

DRIVING FORCES RESTRAINING FORCES

1. INCREASED ACCOUNTABILITY 1. EMPLOYER RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

IN TUITION STRUCTURE

2. WELL DEFINED PROCESS 2. LACK OF UNDERSTANDING FOR NEED OF PROPOSED CHANGE

3. DELAYS AND LOST PAPERWORK 3. TENSIONS BETWEEN DEPARTMENTS

4. UTILIZING DEPARTMENTAL SYSTEM

KNOWLEDGE 4.

INCREASED JOB RESPONSABILITIES WITHOUT ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL

5. CENTRALIZED TASKS TO REDUCE

DUPLICATION OF EFFORTS 5.

COMPETITION WITH SISTER SCHOOLS FOR SIMILAR SERVICES

6. INCREASED DATA INTEGRITY 6.

7.

LOOPHOLE IN BILLING –

CHARGING INCORRECT RATES 7.

8. CONSISTENT AND ACCURATE DATA

COLLECTION 8.

9. NEED TO TRACK STUDENTS FOR

REPORTING 9.

10. NEED TO INCREASE ENROLLMENT

VIA MANAGEMENT OF STUDENT DEBT 10.

11. INCREASED COSTS DUE TO LAST

MINUTE CHANGES 11.

12. COMPETITION WITH SISTER SCHOOLS

FOR SIMULAR SERVICES 12.


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MONITORING AND ENGRAFTING PLAN

The proposed flowchart represents an ideal workflow with minimal variability in the creation of a

Corporate Training or Workforce Development not-for-credit course. This is due to the elimination of

multiple handoffs by now only requiring a single signature; the Associate Dean of Industrial

Technology or the Director of Workforce and Professional Development. Also, the process to obtain

ACS and CIP codes has been automated to eliminate the delay in processing of an inner-office

envelope. A final measure is to ensure a clear line of communication for any changes in procedure

by the creation of point personnel within each respective Division/Department.

Alongside a reduction of efforts, time, and costs, the increased opportunity for accurate data and

reporting via the creation of PERC codes and establishment of the Non-Degree program codes.

Students will continue to be protected from de-registration via the BSTAE code entered by the

Registrar, but now will also have the ability to be reported upon should Henry Ford College Cabinet

request summary or detail information.

Finally, the proposed flowchart creates a new level of transparency in both reporting and job

responsibilities. The CPI team wanted to ensure that each layer of the process was clearly defined,

had a trustworthy and responsible employee to ensure the integrity of the data, and occasional

audits were done by the Associate Dean of Industrial Technology / Director of Workforce and

Professional Development to make sure the highest level of service is offered to the not-for-credit

third party sponsored students.


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PROJECT DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE


31

STEERING COMMITTEE FEEDBACK

CPI Team: Not-For-Credit Admissions and Registration

Date: April 17, 2015 Sponsors: Tracy Pierner / Reginald Witherspoon

Recommendations for Improvement

Support

Yes Yes with

changes

No

1. Alter the Course Creation process to only require the signature of the

Associate Dean / Director of Workforce and Professional Development

before ACS codes are given and the Registrar enters the data into the

system

Cost: $0

2. Purchase 250 Red and 250 Blue inner-office envelopes to color code the

priority of Continuing Education / Workforce Development course

creation and student enrollment.

Cost: $57.00 / box of 100

3. Establish a unique cashier’s and registrar’s electronic mailbox and

assign a full-time ‘point person’ to each.

Cost: $0

4. Implement procedure to permit company-sponsored not-for-credit

students to register for classes regardless of if they have an outstanding

balance on file provided the company is in good standing.

Cost: $0

5. Re-Establish / Implement the non-degree seeking program of study in

HANK to permit not-for-credit students to be more accurately tracked

and enroll without the normal admission requirements.

Cost: $0

6. Create an automated system process to notify all point-persons when a

Corporate Training or Workforce Development course has been created

and for when a potential student de-registration is soon to occur.

Cost: $0

7. Post not-for-credit CPI approved changes (admissions requirements,

information on outstanding balances, etc.) to the HFC public site

including the tuition-and-fees page.

Cost: $0


32

Recommendations for Improvement

Support

Yes Yes with

changes

No

8. Re-assign a point-person within the Corporate Training and Workforce

and Professional Development offices to include the job-responsibilities

of monitoring document workflow and indexing documents on the G:/

drive.

Cost: $0

9. Develop additional PERC codes to track not-for-credit Corporate Training,

not-for-credit Workforce Development, and Grant sponsored students.

Cost: $0

10. Develop Reports to monitor and track newly implemented PERC Codes –

perform bi-annual audits.

Cost: $0

Team Feedback Meeting – Date: ____________________


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FUTURE CPI TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Establish a team to review the process which requires that a student take a not-for-credit

course and later articulate it to a for-credit for a fee – internally called a “mirror course”

process. (Recommended Sponsor: Arlicia Summerville / Reginald Witherspoon)

2. Establish a process to automate the synchronization between the Drupal courses.hfcc.edu

site and HANK. (Recommended Sponsor: Micah Webner / David Maier)

3. Establish a team to re-centralize accounts payable and accounts receivable from the

Corporate Training Division into HFC’s Billing Department. Currently Corporate Training

performs all of their own internal transactions in a system not currently backed up on

network, nor with any oversight of a certified CPA. For auditing concerns, no department or

division should be able to accept and enter any financial transactions without the guidance

of HFC financial professionals and without the transaction being directly linked to HANK.

(Recommended Sponsor: John Satkowski / Bryan Bame)

4. Establish a team to review the web presence of Corporate Training, Workforce Development,

Continuing Education, and other Skilled Trades programs to implement student testimonials,

employee placement rates, and student success stories. Prior to the 2011 conversion to the

new HFC website, there had been a more easily located and richer presence that highlighted

programs like Digital Electronics, Automotive Technology, Plumbing, Welding, and other

Skilled Trades. (Recommended Sponsor: Mark Siedlik / Gary Erwin)


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APPENDIX A – COURSE CREATION “BLUE” SHEETS AND COURSE

COUNTS


35


36

APPENDIX B – SAMPLE INSTITUTIONAL REPORTS

1. Student Count by Semester

2. Student Detail by Semester

3. Student Detail by Sponsor

4. Late Sponsor Transactions

Student Count by Semester


37

Above is the sample WebFOCUS code and a single sample report screen. Once the CPI initiatives

have been put in place, the balance of the reports will be created by Institutional Research in the

Winter/Spring 2015 semesters. Audits will take place during the Fall 2015 and Fall 2016 as

indicated in the Project Timeline / Gantt chart. The above report correlates to a summary of

students organized by PERC code to provide counts on the number of students in each for a given

semester.


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APPENDIX C – PRE-CPI DATA ANALYSIS/COUNTS

The above example report, which pulls student schedule’s by the sponsoring party, at one point the

integrity of the data permitted it to be tracked. In this example, we see that there were three

students taking Trade and Apprentice (TAEL prefix) courses in the Fall 2010 semester who were

sponsored by Ford Motor Company, Dearborn Tool and Die.

While the data on this may look accurate, it was found that not all students were coded similarly, so

this ends up to only be a sample of a larger recordset. Unfortunately due to the lack of defined

procedures and consistent coding, there is no current methodology to pull third party sponsored

students with accurate results (see below).


39

As seen in the above example, due to the numerous procedural changes and lack of defined data

collection, the same report is unable to track and count the number of students by a given Company.

Upon further research the CPI team that this was found to occur due to more than 5 unique changes

that were not communicated between the departments.


40

To provide further documentation to support the establishment of the PERC records and re-

initialization of the Non-Degree programs of study, above is a report which should pull all sponsored

students by company, but instead pulls all 14,000+ students registered at Henry Ford College.

Again, this is due to the lack of consistency in coding along with changes in procedures that were not

clearly articulated over the past five years.


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APPENDIX D – STUDENT BALANCE / PERC SCREENS

Screen identifying student balance (ARAI). Current process is to prevent this student from registering

in a third party sponsored course due to a $751.00 balance. CPI recommends that the student is

permitted to register and that the student profile record is updated with more current contact

information.


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Departmental Point-Person would enter associated PERC record for each student. End Dt would be

the end of the academic semester.


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APPENDIX E – SAMPLE COMPANY NOTIFICATION EMAIL

Dear [Company Name],

Henry Ford College would like to personally extend our sincere thank you for sponsoring students to

be trained at our institution. This past Winter semester, a Continuous Process Improvement (CPI)

team had been established to help identify areas in third-party-sponsorship which could improve how

we can service you and your employees/our students. As part of this initiative, we wanted to

establish additional transparency and contact each of our partners to ensure we are providing the

highest level of ethical conduct, honest dialog, and sustainable practices.

We first invite you to review our newly established Mission, Vision, and Values statements

(https://www.hfcc.edu/about-us/mission) which we feel communicate our dedication to all

stakeholders and to our community. Our new mission will ensure that you, our partner, receive the

highest level of service and that those to whom you entrust our educational services continue to be

top-level industry performers.

Secondly, we have established an additional layer of transparency as it relates to tuition rates and

additional charges, which may impact how you are billed by Henry Ford College. We have posted,

and will continue to ensure accuracy, all tuition rates for students and sponsors at our Tuition and

Fees page, available at https://www.hfcc.edu/tuition-and-payment. We encourage all sponsors to

review these pages on a regular basis to ensure that any Board of Education approved changes are

viewable to you, our partner. Any changes to tuition structures reflect only the need to stay

competitive in a demanding market and to ensure that the equipment, materials, and training

provided to you are the best available.

Lastly, we are implementing changes to our internal system to better provide you, our customer, with

more accurate and timely reports. These reports will allow us to track and identify trends to more

closely work with you on establishing courses and potential programs to better suit your needs. We

are excited at the opportunities ahead and welcome all feedback.

Again, we thank you for continuing to entrust Henry Ford College as your First Choice…Best Choice.

Respectfully,

[HFC Vice President of Academic Affairs]

cc/SJ

https://www.hfcc.edu/about-us/mission


Documents

Application Processing (Corporate Training & Workforce ... · Data: Facts, details, statistics, and specifics about a particular subject. For example, the address of a student, the