Question - What action would you advise the president to take to “achieve some degree of excellence in project management”?
CASE STUDY
Article: Macon, Inc
Author: Harold Kerzner
Macon was a fifty-year-old company in the business of developing test equipment for the tyre industry.
The company had a history of segregated departments with very focused functional line managers. The
company had two major technical departments: mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Both
departments reported to a vice president for engineering, whose background was always mechanical
engineering. For this reason, the company focused all projects from a mechanical engineering
perspective. The significance of the test equipment’s electrical control system was often minimized when,
in reality, the electrical
competition.
Because of the strong autonomy of the departments, internal competition existed. Line managers were
frequently competing with one another rather than focusing on the best interest of Macon. Each would
hope the other would be the cause for project delays instead of working together to avoid project delays
altogether. Once dates slipped, fingers were pointed and the problem would worsen over time.
One of Macon’s customers had a service department that always blamed engineering for all of their
problems. If the machine was not assembled correctly, it was engineering’s fault for not documenting it
clearly enough. If a component failed, it was engineering’s fault for not designing it correctly. No matter
what problem occurred in the field, customer service would always put the blame on engineering.
As might be expected, engineering would blame most problems on production claiming that production
did not assemble the equipment correctly and did not maintain the proper level of quality. Engineering
would design a product and then throw it over the fence to production without ever going down to the
manufacturing floor to help with its assembly. Errors or suggestions reported from production to
engineering were being ignored. Engineers often perceived the assemblers as incapable of improving
the design.
Production ultimately assembled the product and shipped it out to the customer. Oftentimes during
assembly, the production people would change the design as they saw fit without involving engineering.
This would cause severe problems with documentation. Customer service would later inform engineering
that the documentation was incorrect, once again causing conflict among all departments.
The president of Macon was a strong believer in project management. Unfortunately, his preaching fell
upon deaf ears. The culture was just too strong. Projects were failing miserably. Some failures were
attributed to the lack of sponsorship or commitment from line managers. One project failed as the result
of a project leader who failed to control scope. Each day the project would fall further behind because
work was being added with very little regard for the project’s completion date. Project estimates were
based upon a “gut feel” rather than upon sound quantitative data.
The delay in shipping dates was creating more and more frustration for the customers. The customers
began assigning their own project managers as “watchdogs” to look out for their companies’ best
interests. The primary function of these “watchdog” project managers was to ensure that the equipment
purchased would be delivered on time and complete. This involvement by the customers was becoming
more prominent than ever before.
The president decided that action was needed to achieve some degree of excellence in project
management. The question was what action to take, and when.
Question - What action would you advise the president to take to “achieve some degree of excellence in project
management”?
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