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Relevant facts
The company manufactures low price ladies’ shoes that change its styles frequently in order to have an advantage of the flexibility associated with a small firm. The change in style of the company’s products is to meet the ever changing customer preferences for shoes. However, conflict in the organization is a must thing due to the nature of the decision making process.
In this regard, the flow and pattern of doing work require re-examination and adjustment to achieve the required efficiency. The profitability of the company per shoe has been declining over the years. The company has different line of products enabling it provide 100 to 200 shades of products in its two factories.
Problem definition
The major problem is the management leadership style and the decision making process which fails to advocate for use of technology, lack of horizontal management style in the structure, failure to meet the emerging needs of the customers in the ever changing market due to poor channels of communication, there is a lot of interdepartmental conflict which delays the process of decision making and poor penetration of technological development due to resistance from employees, The external environment poses another problem as it is unstable calling for proactive measures.
Critical analysis of the problem
The organization structure of Shoe Corporation of Illinois (SCI) is characterized by functioning departments. “Large shoe houses hold the market for “stable” shoe market because of economies of scale, SCI offers trendy styles and their organization structure allows for them to be flexible for this” (Child 2008, p. 48). The environment in which SCI operates is so polarized that it leads to conflict between managers.
In the recent past, a new department headed by Olsen was established to cool down the friction between the employees. The e-commerce department did not yield the required results since the employees resisted any change in the organization and they are reluctant in adopting new technology.
The e-commerce was meant to ease communication between the employees through the use of the intranet as well as improving internet sales. As Olsen came to learn, this never happened as the process of designing new styles remained unchanged since 1980’s. Olsen was of the opinion that the improved technology was efficient in communication and creating effective product awareness while at the same time decreasing delivery and manufacturing times.
SCI has all along used obsolete methods when it came to making decisions on new styles and there have been confusing manufacturing procedures. “According to Allison, the average time from design to the pilot run is too long but could be reduced and there is too much conflict in the styling phase” (Child 2008, p. 98).Allison is involved in many departments.
His involvement in many departments leads to work overload which in essence is counterproductive. For example, there have been major delays in the approval of styles due to his bad judgment as a result of over involvement. Another problem on management is failure to honor its promise to employees. According to Lawson, an employee deserves motivation such as pay rise and bonuses if he has worked for the company for long.
This is because he will have gained experience like what Flynn has done. He was promised a pay rise in the previous year which he never received up to date. There has been lack of autonomy to employees as pointed out by Flynn. There is lack of motivation which leads to job dissatisfaction since there is no creativity.
Flynn would like to have more autonomy in the design of new styles but Lawson believes that the status quo must be maintained and that the process currently being used is the proven process. Also the design division has lacked autonomy in the process of finalizing their designs.
“The other problem on management and decision making is seen when Ferguson is bypassed in the process of maintaining historical statistics on shipments which subsequently leads to delay and ambiguity” (Child 2008, p. 50). The assistant to the superintendent of the Centerville plant has a friction with the manager of the styling department. There has been a communication breakdown and a misunderstanding between the two departments.
Recommendations
“The production process should be streamlined. This would be achieved by dividing the production department into two units that would work simultaneously to reduce the workload in the division during changes in style of the product” (Child 2008, p. 101). The outcome is that efficiency will be enhanced which will guarantee sufficient supplies.
SCI should develop and introduce an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERPS) system. It can be observed that, the process from the time Research and Development is instituted to the time the final sale is done is too complex. This should be broken down onto a platform that would help in capturing and recording tasks and generate reports that would be used to improve performance.
The ERPS would be efficient in harmonizing the intricate and mutually supporting workflow. This would be achieved by centralizing all the information concerned with product design between Lawson, Richards, Flynn; processing orders from the sales representative and production role between Robbins and Lawson.
There should be a committee that would act as an arbitrator with full representation from all the departments, that is, production and styling divisions. This would help remove differences and facilitate smooth running of the company. The structure of the organization should also be restructured with top managers overseeing the processes in the organization.
Works Cited
Child, John. Organization: A Guide To Problems and Practice. New York: SAGE, 2008. Print.
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