L. J. Watkins Company

Harvard Business Review case, The Nuclear Tube Assembly Room, is an excellent example of how managing and leading a team effectively can make a substantial difference in terms of results and goals achieved, all the while creating new ambitious expectations for workers. This particular case revolves around Ralph Langley, general foreman of the process department at American Radiotronics Corporation. Within the first 24 months of being promoted to general foreman, Langley has swiftly changed the mentality and efficiency of the workers in the nuclear tube assembly room. He has changed their terrible reputation into one of the most

The company, Austin Wood Products (AWP), was founded by Michael Price. Michael realized the opportunity for custom-manufactured doors during the 1980's and was able to ride the fast-growing building industry during that time in developing his business initially in his home garage. As the company grew, the company was able to relocate to a number of places (such as Belton, downtown Austin, current location- Guadalupe Road in Austin). The current plant site composed of 90,000 sq.ft. now facilitates production,

As already discussed in Section 1, business productivity and change cannot occur without effecting people’s psychology to effect change. I initially felt that supervision would be fundamental to addressing and identify issues to allow reflection to plan a way forward to address issues, such as, performance management, productivity, effectiveness and understanding the views of the individuals to effect and improve individuals and team goals, and linking this to the business plan. This approach I

The course project text discussed the Savannah Engineering, Inspection and Insurance Company (SEIIC) is one of the oldest American Inspection and Insurance companies. During many years, it has been a well-recognized and administrated business. Lately, the Savannah Engineering, Inspection and Insurance Company is decreasing its services. Fortunately, there are many strategies that the SEIIC may apply to reestablish its services. Accordingly, it may renew its system by updating the economic and financial; legal and political; social and cultural and global and technological tendencies.

While working for the department, it became very apparent that the practices and management style of the Department Director significantly affected the culture and daily activities of the individual sections under his leadership. First, he would set objectives and standards for the individual sections. These objectives usually looked good on paper but were often unrealistic when applied to daily operations. These lofty ideals, set as goals to middle management, seemed overwhelming and out of touch with the reality of hands on field operations. As a result, middle management would frequently choose to either change or completely disregard the given directives. This disconnect in the chain of command would often cause confusion and inconsistencies at the operations level. Additionally, lack of follow-up meant the Department Director assumed his set objectives were being carried out while lower level employees remained uninformed.

Levitt and Sons needed to find building solutions that would suit the taste of their buyers, would be cost efficient thus resulting in an inexpensive price, and could be produced rapidly and in high yield. To solve this challenge Levitt and Sons designed a single level, four-room home based on the traditional American Cape Cod style.7 This simple design was modified to form four basic designs that were to be replicated. To produce the homes as quickly as possible Levitt and Sons based their construction strategy on the automobile assembly line of Henry Ford. Instead of moving the parts down an assembly line, Levitt and Sons move the labor along the product line.8 This method, along with the incorporation of off-the-shelf products, allowed for the rapid production of homes. The money and time saved on production and design allowed homes to sell at a lower price. These small homes

Arnold and Kunzler will meet on August 4 to search for an agreement about the wage

Palladium Door, Inc. wants to increase 2003 sales by 36% in 2004. There is concern whether the current distribution strategy used by Palladium would be adequate to achieve the goal. Although Palladium's growth has been steady over the past 10 years the market share was only at 2.6%. The firm's senior executives were firmly believed they justified this lofty sales goal because they had to attain a larger sales volume to preserve its buying position with suppliers. Palladium, during its growth, has exceeded the industry growth. There are three new plans on how to reach the goal. There are four different viewpoints on the marketing decision.

CCC’s build-to-order custom manufactures do not have to be sold through big-box stores in order to be successful. The company is able to underprice their replacement antique style doors and still be profitable even while working with lower volumes; thus, they are using a differentiation strategy. However, recently it has been brought to our attention that the company is facing multiple internal and external issues. They have selected our team of HR managers to solve the underlying problems.

Columbus Custom Carpentry (CCC), a family-owned company founded in 1964, operates in a niche market that produces semi-custom doors for the residential market. The company has taken the non traditional approach of not competing with mass manufactures, nor selling their products through popular market stores. The company finds their success and profitability through the development of various jigs and specific tools that aid them in the production of replacing antique-styled doors for the restoration market. They also have a relevant source of business in a line of contemporary doors that have a more distinct and dynamic style than someone would find from mass-market competitors. The company’s tools and systems that are used to

IKEA’s products like the PAX wardrobe, the BILLY bookshelf, the LACK table and the SULTAN bed, sold in IKEA store are to a large scale sourced from a global network of suppliers. To take the sliding doors of PAX wardrobe as an example, IKEA just sourced different parts of the door form different countries but within consideration of total cost. Table 1 shows an overview of 8 major component of the

1. The main Organizational Behavior problem in “The Overhead Reduction Task Force” case is in creating a leading an effective team, specifically “Office of the President” team. Williams is fretting nervously and rightly so. Our take on the situation is that Dixon just “threw him under the bus”, by putting him in charge of the team and leaving for much needed two weeks vacations after being on the job for one week.

Gore's competency to attain innovation can be traced from the company's culture where employees are encouraged to feel free, collaborate through self-motivation, and communicate among themselves. Gore's innovation stems from contributions made by flexible working schedules allocated to employees. Gore has granted all employees one day off per week in order to pursue their personal commitments (Hamel & Breen, 2007). New employees at Gore are put into wider roles, which include business development leaders or R&D engineers and not other narrowly defined jobs. In order to assist the new recruits to be at their best, each is allocated a guide who gives the newcomer guidelines on the norms of the organization. Instead, bosses are teams, which are made by associates. In this case, tasks are only accepted and are never assigned, but associates dedicate and commit themselves because this is the only way they are measured. This is a voluntary commitment, and many find it hard to keep up with it and opt to leave (Deutschman, 2007).

CMR Enterprises is confronting an issue with one of its most valuable clients, Blackstone. Blackstone as one of the biggest customers in the area, giving CMR an opportunity for immediate market share and his volume supported its goals to standardize its processes into flexible cells. They approached CMR looking for a new partner to work on a business that represented 25% of CMR’s residential business during the first year of this relationship. Sam Marcus was counting on further growth with his customer to pay his debt and fund expansion efforts. But relationships with Blackstone had become increasingly intense on residential construction.

Bob fashioned a management team based on trust and openness. He wanted his managers to be committed to eliminating hostilities that lingered between the stamping and components operations within the plant as well as between hourly and salary employees. He was also looking for people who would support his informal and highly participative management style and who would work to increase the level of involvement among Parma?s hourly employees. Bob was successful in keeping weekly floor board meetings so that union officials and superintendents discussed plant floor issues and by doing so, engaged them as active and productive in decision making. He also kept biweekly meetings with his staff and the Shop Committee chairman, the president of Local 1005, the Shop Committee members to continue and keep a high level of team work, communication, decision making and as a vehicle of power for this group to exercise change at Parma.