CASE STUDY
A large dry cleaning operation had a central production facility that was fed by 7 regional drop off Pickup locations. The busy seasons (i.e., spring and fall) resulted in considerable customer dissatisfaction and loss of business as product turnaround went from 4 and 5 days to 8 and 9 days. This project involved the use of Job Analysis techniques to improve individual productivity, eliminate bottlenecks in the flow of material, assign to specific people, and increase throughput.
We worked in small groups with employees and managers to brainstorm problems and methods for meeting customer expectations as we needed employees to fully buyin to the implementation. Along with cross training, quality checks at each station rather than at the final station, and proper maintenance techniques that eliminated breakdowns on machines, we were able to implement a production program that guaranteed a 5day turnaround time throughout the year or the cleaning was free. Most items were returned to the feeder stores in 3 days and the company was considering an additional advertising program for selected times of the year as a result of this new competitive advantage. We also created a series of flash reports for alerting managers to problems in the workflow.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Give an overview of the case.
Q2. Discuss how the flow of materials/ throughput was improved
CASE STUDY
The modern Corporation Limited produces and distributes packaged food products, such as cereals, spices, puddings, jellies, crackers, salad dressings, etc. The company sells nationwide and conducts a very large national advertising campaign. It has 75 plants located throughout the country and markets 65 different products, each under its own trademark. These are all food products, but are not otherwise closely related. They vary from long margin specialities with comparatively small volume to larger volume items with similar profit margins. Different raw materials and commodities are used in their processing. All products, however, have the common factor of being sold throughout retail grocery stores. Gross sales are Rs. 2,500 lakhs and total assets are Rs. 1,250 lakhs. Management is centralized. The chairman of the board, the President, and four Vice Presidents with responsibility for sales, production, purchasing, and law, make up the executive top of the company and operate as a committee on all general policy matters. Sales, advertising, and sales promotion are all under the jurisdiction of the sales Vice President. All plant operations, as well as research and engineering, report to the production Vice President. Purchasing is the responsibility of its Vice President, Who also governs traffic. Public relations, law and corporate functions are under the general counsel. Financial responsibilities are handled by the president, and employee relations are covered by each Vice President in his own area of responsibility. Each plant is operated by a superintendent whose authority is over wages, maintenance cost, output, quality, hiring, inspection and the other normal plant operation responsibilities. Superintendents report to 8 regional production managers who are responsible to the production Vice President. The volume of production in each plant is scheduled by the production control group reporting to the operating Vice President. Final Schedules are set after consulting the sales Vice president. Opportunities for increasing the line of products and expanding the business are being lost because of lack of executive’s time to study them to manage new products. In any business where specialties sold under trademark brands are the major business of a company, it is necessary for that company to continually bring out new products and to study old ones to determine, the point of no return with regard to promotion and advertising expenses. The Modern Corporation management feels that, in addition to lost opportunities for sound expansion, profit opportunities in present products are not being fully recognized. The business may have grown too big for the form of management.
Answer the following question.
Q1. How have changed conditions in this company affected the appropriateness of its organization structures?
Q2. What changes do you recommend to be made in the company organization structure?
CASE STUDY
Two of the leading manufacturers of high end mobile phones, Motorola, Inc. (Motorola) and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), had entered into an agreement in February 2008, whereby the two companies had agreed not to poach each other’s employees. In September 2008, Motorola sued RIM and claimed for damages accusing the latter of poaching 40 of its employees in Florida. In December, RIM countersued Motorola accusing the company of illegally preventing it from hiring employees who had been fired from Motorola though the original agreement between the two ompanies had expired in August 2008. While experts are still divided on whether talent poaching is ethical, there has been a steep increase in employee poaching lawsuits across all sectors as employers are concerned with protecting their trade secrets . In December 2008, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) sued Motorola Inc. (Motorola) for, what it called illegally preventing it from hiring employees that Motorola had laid off. According to RIM, the two companies had entered into an agreement in February 2008 on not hiring each other’s employees or the newly eparated exemployees. When Motorola announced layoffs in large numbers, RIM, attempted to hire and gain some engineers at a lower cost. RIM considered that the agreement had expired in August 2008 and prayed to the Chicago court for damages. RIM contended that despite the agreement having expired, Motorola had unlawfully extended the contract and prevented RIM from offering jobs to the fired Motorola employees.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Give an overview of the case.
Q2. Discuss talent poaching and give reasons why talent poaching is illegal
CASE STUDY
Bharat Engineering Works Limited is major industrial machineries besides other engineering products. It has enjoyed Market preference for its machineries because of limited competition in the field. Usually there have been more orders than what the company could supply. However, the scenario changed quickly because of the entry of two new competitors in the field with foreign technological collaboration. For the first time, the company faced problem in marketing its products with usual profit margin. Sensing the likely problem, the chief executive appointed Mr Arvind Kumar as general manager to direct the operations of industrial machinery division. Mr Kumar had similar assignment abroad before coming back to India. Mr Kumar had a discussion with the chief executive about the nature of the problem being faced by the company so that he could fix up his priority. The chief executive advised him to consult various heads of department to have firsthand information. However, he emphasized that the company lacked an integrated planning system while members of the Board of Directors insisted on introducing this in several meetings both formally and informally. After joining as General Manager, Mr Kumar got briefings from the heads of all departments. He asked all heads to identify major problems and issues concerning them. The marketing manager indicated that in order to achieve higher sales, he needed more sales support. Sales people had no central organization to provide sales support nor was there a generous budget for demonstration teams which could be sent to customers to win business. The production manager complained about the old machines and equipment’s used in manufacturing. Therefore, cost of production was high but without corresponding quality. While competitors had better equipment’s and machinery, Bharat Engineering had neither replaced its age old plant nor reconditioned it. Therefore to reduce the cost, it was essential to automate production lines by installing new equipment. Director of research and development did not have specific problem and therefore, did not indicate for any change. However, a principal scientist in R&D indicated on one day that the director of R&D, though very nice in his approach, did not emphasize on short term research projects, which could easily increase production efficiency by at least 20 per cent within a very short period without any major capital outlay.
Answer the following question.
Q1. . Discuss the nature and characteristics of the problems in this case.
Q2. What steps should be taken by Mr Kumar to overcome these problems? Explain.