Positions

• Founder and Head of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research www.coer.org.nz, Massey University. This is a Centre that undertakes research projects into business excellence and benchmarking. It operates a number of Doctorate Programmes.
• CEO of the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research Limited, www.coer.org.nz. COER Ltd undertakes consultancy projects in business excellence and benchmarking, and provides benchmarking training.
• Commercial Director and founder of BPIR.com Ltd. The www.bpir.com is a leading internet resource for sharing best practice and benchmarking information.
• Chairman of the Global Benchmarking Network www.globalbenchmarking.org. The GBN is a membership based organisation for those organisations that promote and support benchmarking within their country. Currently over 25 countries are represented.
• Associate Dean of TQM and Benchmarking at the e-TQM College in Dubai, www.etqm.ae. The e-TQM College aims to become the leading educator of TQM in the Arab world through innovative, affordable and accessible means that is focussed on e-technology.

Qualifications

• PhD in Total Quality Management - University of Liverpool, UK.
• Master of Science in Technology for Manufacture - University of Warwick, UK
• Bachelor of Science with Honours in Management Sciences - University of Lancaster, UK.
• New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation Evaluator (Baldrige Criteria)
• UK Quality Award Assessor (EFQM Criteria)
• Lead Assessor of Quality Systems

Areas of expertise

• Business excellence (Baldrige & European Business Excellence Model)
• TQM
• Quality Management
• Performance Measurement
• Best Practices
• Benchmarking

Experience overview:

Dr Robin Mann received one of the first PhD’s in Total Quality Management worldwide, prior to working as a Process Improvement Manager at Burton's Biscuits in Edinburgh. Robin founded and managed the Food and Drinks Industry Benchmarking and Self-assessment Initiative in the UK involving over 500 organisations. In 1998 Robin moved to New Zealand and established the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research at Massey University.

Robin has assisted over 300 organisations to undertake self-assessments using a variety of business excellence self-assessment tools. Robin is a trained assessor of both the EFQM Excellence Model and the Baldrige Criteria. Robin has written 20 refereed journal papers for leading journals, written over 100 non-refereed papers and reports, written 6 short books, given 100’s of professional presentations and is frequently a keynote presenter (invited to present in 11 countries during 2006). For a list of publications for download click here.

Sample of recent work completed

Founded the New Zealand Benchmarking Club. The Club was founded in May 2000 and ran for four years with 18 member organisations. The Club provided a number of services that were designed to accelerate the progress of member organisations to world-class performance (including benchmarking training, benchmarking studies, workshops, conferences and research services). It achieved great success as member organisations improved their Baldrige score by an average of 50 points per year (assessed by BPES).

Facilitated four regional benchmarking programmes in New Zealand through working with Gosling Chapman ( Auckland ) and the Business Development Centre (Hamilton) involving 40 SME’s in 2005, 2006 and 2007. All organisations used BPES.

Robin is the lead consultant of a business excellence programme in Ras Al Khaimah (United Arab Emirates) for the government from 2005 onwards. This project involves assisting 17 government departments towards business excellence (through helping them to apply the EFQM excellence model and identify best practices through benchmarking).

Reviewed and updated the Australian Business Excellence Framework and advised on its deployment on behalf of the custodians of the model (SAI Global) in 2004/5. This project had the involvement of 16 countries and was endorsed by the Global Excellence Model Council. It was a unique project in that it is not only looked at the design of the framework but also how best to deploy it on a national basis. The project was of major international significance – most countries participating used the findings as an input to their national business excellence strategy.

Provided business excellence and benchmarking programme advice to a number of countries including Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Taiwan.