Best Practices

Best Practices

Supplier Diversity Guides

Johnson Controls is committed to increasing the volume of goods and services purchased from diverse suppliers, particularly minority- and women-owned businesses. I reorganized and edited material from numerous sources to compile two CD-ROM guides – one for employees with purchasing authority, and one for diverse suppliers.

Six Sigma Yearbook

Like many large firms, Johnson Controls is employing the Six Sigma process to become more cost-efficient internally and to improve customer satisfaction. I wrote 16 one-page summaries of successful Six Sigma projects in North America, Asia and Europe for a special publication to further promote the Six Sigma program to employees worldwide.

Strategic Partners for Health Care Market

Johnson Controls has a dominant market share position helping hospitals reduce energy and operational costs. In recent years, individual Johnson Controls offices have partnered with firms that bring additional value to hospitals through the following services:

Reducing waste management costs

Bringing cost efficiencies to capital budget projects such as building new facilities

Conserving water, thereby lowering water and sewer costs

I explained each of these services and documented how Johnson Controls offices throughout North America should engage these firms.

Construction Sales Guides

I edited five sales guides to improve the company’s success rate selling to the new construction market. The primary challenge was developing a sense of unity for 180 pages of material written by over a dozen sales managers.

Utility Services Manuals

When Johnson Controls decided to offer services to help customers manage their total energy budget, including reducing the unit price they pay for energy, I was asked to coordinate the project. I wrote the Marketing manual, and edited the Sales and Delivery manuals to provide consistency.

Sales Resource Guides

Johnson Controls developed a series of booklets for new salespeople to understand the major issues affecting their market. I wrote sales resource guides for the Life Sciences, Higher Education and Local Government markets, each of which exceed 100 pages.

Health Care Sales Resource Manual

I overhauled an existing 200-page manual that walks salespeople through the various steps that will increase their chances of selling products and services to hospital executives.

Monthly Financial Report Cards

The Texas offices of Johnson Controls significantly improved their financial performance via a monthly report card, which tracks activities that impact the bottom line and shows employees at all levels how their actions relate to financial results. I documented this process by writing an overview, along with step-by-step instructions for managers and administrative personnel to enter report card data through Microsoft Access and Excel.

Performance Contracting Manuals

I was part of a team effort to document the process of selling and delivering major projects called performance contracts. A typical performance contract is a 10-year agreement with a school district, university, hospital or other large organization to install and service building equipment upgrades that will pay for themselves within 10 years through the energy savings they generate. My involvement was to write the overview sections and edit material written by engineers so the manuals would have a consistent, professional tone.

Automated Proposal Tool

Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are a major source of new business for the 200 North American offices of Johnson Controls. Over the years, each office had responded to RFPs in different ways, using language written locally or borrowed from other company sources.

The corporate headquarters of Johnson Controls decided to gather the best material from these local responses, categorize them by subject (Executive Summary, Capabilities, Experience, etc.), and make them available to all offices via an automated software tool. I sifted through a mountain of material gathered from various field offices and chose the best samples. I also improved the samples and organized them so that field offices can select individual sections when they are writing a business proposal.