Case study of Conifer Corporation
Conifer Corporation is a sawmill operation located in
Oregon. The corporation started its operations three decades ago. The machines
used in the corporation was upgraded five years ago. The corporation deals with
raw logs with which they cut and plan into building grader lumbering. The
corporation has six operational departments which handle different functions.
Each department has members with diverse skills and position to improve on
quality products. This write up analyzes the problems facing the corporation. It
also discovers the symptoms in and
effectively suggest solutions.
Symptoms that something has gone wrong.
The packaging department of the corporation has some
problems that need to be addressed. The efficiency of the packaging department
has been declining over the years. The departments show a decrease in productivity.
The decrease in productivity also indirectly affects other departments that are
interlinked with the packaging department. Generally, quality issues lead to a decrease in
productivity in any business or organization that has a packaging department.
Customers have opted to buy products from other consumers due to the low
quality of packaging. The packaging department shares supervisors with the
planer and sawmill departments. The location of the packaging department away
from other departments also contribute to the problems it faces. There is also
a decline in consumer ratings, use of outdated technology
Main Cause of the Symptoms
The symptoms exhibited by the packaging department in
Conifer Corporation implies some bad management skills that need to be
addressed. The Corporation’s vision appears to be long lost. Actions taken by
the department appears to be unconscious. Even though the management team is
not in denial, rewards are not executed. Additionally, the workers are not
motivated. The packaging department also shows no cohesion. The supervisors, do
not lead by example, for example, they prefer not to visit the department
because of its location. There is also promotion of ineligible employees for
example paying the packaging department more yet they are not delivering. The
supervisors do not take responsibility. Poor management is evident in the
corporation’s management team hence the need for the executive to take measures
that will improve the business.
Executive Actions to Solve the problem
Supervisors are very important people in any business or
organization especially if it is designed to meet consumers’ needs and make
profits in return (Corbire et al., 2019). Roles of supervisors are not limited
to the following, providing links between workers and management, maintaining
direct contact with workers, providing assistance, guidance and coaching to
workers, carrying out performance evaluation on work done and providing timely,
fair and constructive feedback towards the expectations of the department they
are heading (Fernandez, 2017). In the case of the packaging department, no
supervisor solely checks on the work they do. Supervisors from other department
are assigned the duty of checking on their performance hence high chances of
the inefficiency of production. to register some improvement within the
department, there is a need for a supervisor that exclusively work in the
department.
The employees feel isolated because no one pays attention
to them. Such isolation of employees is a breeding ground for laziness. The
employees will fail to communicate work challenges and their level of morale
will reduce. When a supervisor is around. The workers can air their grievances
and can also help in finding the solution to some of the problems the
department is facing (Astill, 2018). There is a need for more restriction
during the afternoon to ensure equally the same or more work is done to reduce
the backlog.
In the case study, it is indicated that the supervisors
seldom visit the department because of its location. Additionally, the sawmill
supervisor whose official department is further from the production department
opts not to deliver his or her mandate because of the distance. The executive should
realize that the supervisors appear overworked hence the need for an exclusive
supervisor for the packaging department.
The department should also be located in a strategic
place or where other departments are stationed to build cohesion between
workers. Work cohesion is not only required within the department but for all
workers. Once the workers are working towards achieving a common goal,
productivity in both the department’s increases (Marques-Quinteiro et al.,
2019). Team cohesion also increases motivation, improves the employee’s
satisfaction and leads to the success of the company. A strategic location of
the department will ensure close supervision and eradicate the sense of
isolation that broods’ laziness. Additionally, bringing the packaging
department closer to other departments also builds a connection with other
company employees hence accelerating motivation.
The consumer ratings are declining because of substandard
packaging done by the department. Generally, when customers start seeing the
poor quality of products displayed by them prefer dealers, they tend to shift
to other dealers (Cui et al., 2017). The executive should adopt Automated
packaging operations to subsidize the human labour already present. Manual
packaging tends to be time-consuming which is evident by the large backlog in
the department. When the executive adopts automated packaging blended by manual
labour under strict supervision, consumption of packaging materials will be
reduced and productivity will increase (Knoll et al., 2019). The executive
should also conduct a high level of packaging design review to improve the
packaging designs of their products. This can be done by examining the flaws
and rectifying them and also ensuring the efficiency of the packaging
materials.
Since the packaging department is the last department
that all the goods have to pass through before reaching the market, a lot needs
to be done. The company appears to be using outdated technology because the
last time its machinery and equipment were upgraded was five years ago. Poor
technology contributes to the poor quality of finished products. Additionally,
poor technology slows down packaging for example due to continuous breakdowns
and the inability to produce both high quality and quantity packages (McEwan et
al., 2020). The executive should consider continual updating of its machines
and equipment on a timely basis to ensure high-quality production.
According to the case study, the number of workers in the
packaging department are outnumbered by the combined products that are
channelled from sawmill and planer departments. The executive should consider
hiring more people to balance the products input for faster packaging.
Furthermore, adding more workers will only bring efficiency if the supervisory
role is elevated. The packaging department is known to extend their lunch by
ten minutes daily which is a loss of both time and money because the targeted
packaging objective is not achieved. They are also known to leave before the
official time yet no one bothers. Such behaviour needs to be addressed because
sooner it will be adopted by other workers. Effective methods need to be
outlined through the workers’ union to deduct some percentages of wages when
workers fail to adhere to the regulations of work at the company.
Employees brought from other department tends to adopt an
informal schedule of packaging department employees. The packaging department
employees extend their lunchtime and leave work before the official time. The
underlying issue that when employees from other departments are brought and
instead end up adopting the informal schedule of the packaging crew can be
stopped by strict supervision and punishments through the worker’s union in
form of salary deduction. The company should also cultivate its objectives
goals and aims to the workers to ensure they develop a drive that will be
reflected in their productivity (Alferjany et al., 2018).
In conclusion, Conifer Corporation is continuously losing
its potential customers which translates into sales. The problem appears to be
contributed majorly by the packaging department due to poor supervision,
negligence, absence of motivation, poor technology, lack of cohesion and
isolation. Furthermore, Backlog evident in the packaging department increases
inventory costs and increases the risk of damage of already finished products.
The executive has the mandate to ensure that the company gets back to shape
before all consumers shift to their competitors’ products. The company needs to
ensure fast, quality and effective packaging is done to meet the consumer
needs. The company can revive its initial operations by strengthening
supervisory role in the packaging department, improving on technology,
increasing the number of qualified workers and motivating workers
references
Fernandez, M. M. (2017). What Is the Relationship Between Conflict Management
and Employee Empowerment? A Message Design Logic Perspective and its Importance
for Managers and Supervisors.
Rochester Institute of Technology.
Astill, S. (2018). The importance of supervisory and
organisational awareness of the risks for an early career natural hazard
researcher with personal past-disaster experience. Emotion, space and society, 28, 46-52.
Corbire, M., Villotti, P., Dewa, C. S., Sultan-Taeb,
H., Fraccaroli, F., Zaniboni, S., … & Lecomte, T. (2019). Work
accommodations in Canadian social firms: Supervisors’ and workers’
perspectives. Canadian Journal
of Community Mental Health, 37(4),
37-56.
Marques-Quinteiro, P., Rico, R., Passos, A. M., &
Curral, L. (2019). There is light and there is darkness: On the temporal
dynamics of cohesion, coordination, and performance in business teams. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 847.
Knoll, D., Neumeier, D., Prglmeier, M., & Reinhart,
576-581.
McEwan, A., Marchi, E., Spinelli, R., & Brink, M.
(2020). Past, present and future of industrial plantation forestry and
implication on future timber harvesting technology. Journal of Forestry Research, 31(2), 339-351.
Alferjany, A. A. M., Salama, A. A., Amuna, Y. M. A., Al
Shobaki, M. J., & Naser, S. S. A. (2018). The Relationship between
Correcting Deviations in Measuring Performance and Achieving the Objectives of
Control-The Islamic University as a Model. International Journal of Engineering and Information
Systems (IJEAIS), 2(1),
74-89.
Cui, L., Wu, K. J., & Tseng, M. L. (2017). Selecting
a remanufacturing quality strategy based on consumer preferences. Journal of Cleaner Production, 161, 1308-1316.
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