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Achieving Change Through People
As J Franklin, you have seen clearly that the change required in Burke Engineering is a
fundamental one. It has involved, initially, the re organisation of the company structure
followed by a re-evaluation of the people that should fill the new posts.
Your aim is to achieve excellence in sales and customer support, production and research
and development. Your initial approach is to create groups of skilled individuals in each of
these departments that can carry out the tasks demanded of them. The necessary staff
numbers are listed in Table 15 in Appendix A.
Management numbers will have to be substantially reduced. More than half will become
redundant as a result of the proposed changes, with major reductions in production
department where the impact of new technology will be greatest.
It was apparent from the business plan that the company needed to concentrate on
customer service, a superior design and production system. You have decided to integrate
marketing and sales with technical support and logistics; research and development with
the production process. This will group all customer service areas in one department, and
ensure that there is a single unit that is dealing with all customer demands. Combining
research and development with the production department is important in your opinion to
achieve the speed of response that the company needs to have in the marketplace, with
new products coming quickly to production and new materials and processes being quickly
integrated into the manufacturing process. Finally the demands of control suggests that
finance and office management should be combined in one unit. You do not see the need
for any further specialisation and feel strongly that the company does not need either a
data processing department, as this has been subcontracted, nor a personnel department.
You are determined that managers in the new company are forced to concentrate on the
human dimension of management and ensure that those staff working for them are fully
involved and effective.
You are not exactly clear as to exactly how you should go about implementing these new
responsibilities. However, you are sure that unless you do so, the existing problems that
the old company faced will continue. You are particularly worried about the ability of
management to handle the ever more sophisticated technology which Burke will be using.
As part of the reorganisation you have decided that the company should decentralise as
much as possible.
To this end, most budgetary responsibility below €10,000 will be delegated to supervisory
management, directors will be able to authorise expenditure within agreed budgets up to
€25,000, and non supervisory management up to €5,000. Managers will have authority to
hire and fire, to appraise, and to arrange all relevant training. You have decided that
motivation will be centrally controlled and that as a result you will review all appraisal
reports. Such appraisals have been carried out for all management, as the initial step.
These are available in Appendix B for all departments.
You have decided that A Siddiqui and A Belinksi will be left to evaluate the new
responsibilities of their respective departments, whereas you, with your previous
experience in production, will concentrate on the reorganisation of that department in the
absence of Wellan. As it was becoming clearer that the production director was unlikely to
return to the company, there was a strong probability that you would have to appoint a new
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