Introduction Joe Hinrichs, a recent Harvard Business school graduate, was hired in February 1996 to run the General Motors’s the Fredericksburg Torque Converter Clutch (TCC) manufacturing plant. At 29 years old, Hinrichs was GM’s youngest plant manager. Hinrichs was inheriting a poor performing plant that continually underachieved, losing money year after year. Improvements were desperately needed to increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process and reduce operating costs. GM had considered shutting down the plant; however, when a new bonding process, using carbon fiber, for the TCC was approved in 1995, GM instead invested thirty million dollars into the Fredericksburg plant to incorporate the new process. …show more content…
He knew that if he could reconfigure the plant away from assembly lines and into individual work stations, workers would be able to take more ownership of their work, producing better quality parts and be self-motivated by being able to measure their individual output, increasing job satisfaction. The new cells turned out to be a hit. Workers were excited about having more control over their output and being part of the new process. Hinrichs’s active management of change within the factory and focus on worker satisfaction and buy-in resulted in a lot of small victories that he used to win over the workforce’s trust and respect. In the process, Hinrichs transformed the plant from one that was resistant to change to one that embraced and was excited for change. Process Improvements One of the biggest needs for improvement was the assembly process. Although several changes were made throughout the years, quality and efficiency still fell below expectations. Hinrichs implemented the newly developed assembly which consists of two separate work stations that allowed operators in the adjacent stations to share the expensive balancer machine. These assembly cells were much more efficient as workers were no longer forced to wait for another person or machine in the process. Each cell was built like the other with quick turn set-up which created flexibility in the process while also reducing tooling inventory by almost a half. Now cells
Developing work attitudes is by reducing imprudence that was between the hourly workers and their mangers and increasing job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It is clear that workers at this motor company have the lowest job satisfaction in order of various negative influences that impact their life. First, mangers at this company did not treat their employees as a human, they treat them as machines, that should rich the demand by the end of the day, and called them by numbers not their name. Second, workers have intrinsic value, extrinsic value, and ethical values that ford would not respect. Third, Stressful work without any reward and the work environment that was not save, clean, or regulated at the plant. Finally, week bonds between mangers and workers that create week work energy and losing trust between employees as results the work has turned down frequently. In addition, at Ford Motor Company the physical and psychological
Mr. Browning was well aware that that employees and managers were reluctant to change therefore he’s first objective should be is to create a feeling of urgency for
During the summer of 2012, Marcus Jeter, an African-American male, was arrested by New Jersey police officers, Orlando Trinidad and Sean Courter, due to the reason of “eluding police, resisting arrest and aggravated assault on an officers” (Goldstein). Some of the interaction was recorded on the dashboard camera, but not much of it could help prove Jeter’s innocence. Jeter consistently argued that the officers had used excessive violence during his arrest even though he was compliant and did not act out of turn. After listening to Jeter’s testimonial, the Bloomfield Police Department conducted an internal investigation, but reported no wrongdoing in the officer’s actions. Jeter’s case then proceeded and he contemplated accepting the plea deal
One of the valued but demanding customer, who had considered Engstrom as a certified supplier, was requesting a large order but Engstrom was unable to deliver on time due to the low productivity problem. The plant manager along with his assistant were already dealing with the troubling numbers when this happened. While the task was a tough bone and not easy to tackle, and there were a lot of factors needed to be taken in to consideration. The leadership started to analyze and break down the main causations other than the overall economic trend that dragged the company into the turmoil, as it turned out, it was the low, frustrated employee morale and diminished work satisfaction.
The setting of this case study was the Texas Plant. The Texas Plant produced excellent quality goods, but it was not competitive because of its slower speed of product changeovers, higher costs, and environment of “bureaucratic status quo” (Pryor et al., 2011, p. 111). In addition, the plant’s union leaders, management, and employees lacked positive, working relationships. Corporate leaders hired a new, aggressive vice president, David, to transform the plant by empowering employees and establishing continuous improvement processes (Pryor et al., 2011). David, in turn, bypassed the plant’s Human Resources (HR) and hiring director, Harvey, and hired Paula
everybody in the organization knew that the change had commitment from the very top. I
There had been several rough quarters at the Engstrom Auto Mirror plant in Richmond, Indiana, a privately owned business that manufactured mirrors for trucks and automobiles and employed 209 people. For more than a year, plant manager Ron Bent and his assistant, Joe Haley, had focused their Friday meetings on the troubling numbers, but the tenor of their May 14, 2007, meeting was different. Both men sensed that they now faced a crisis at the plant. Bent was talking animatedly to Haley: “This is the third productivity problem in, what, two weeks? We can’t climb out of this downturn with performance like that.” He scowled as he signed the
In 2009 MARS Inc. has been faced with new challenges in their buying process of their diesel engine due to changes with their Columbus supplier. The D-342 diesel engine market is in jeopardy which is why the supplier dropped production and left MARS Inc. with only one option in suppliers. Having to now deal with only one supplier Tom Sosa, the purchasing manager, has had to figure out what this change means to MARS Inc. in terms of transportation cost, inventory and storage costs, and continue the enforcement of MARS INC.’s implementation of lean manufacturing.
Not only were the leaders impressed by the employees insights, they took action to address all of the problems. As a result, participation increased, communication improved, relationship between employees and management improved, and access to training and development opportunities were wide-spread. But most importantly, once the original change initiatives were introduced, employees embraced the initiatives, offered insights on how to improve their outcomes, and ensured their success.
Automotive Builders, Inc. (ABI) is a company that consistently changed its production lines and strategic goals relative to the needs of the times, starting out producing diesel engine parts for tractors in the 1940’s, switching over to the production of parts for military vehicles during World War II, and then, after the war, settling into its current placement in both the automobile and tractor industry. Due to the downturn in the economy and stiff and superior competition in both quality and price rising up from the Japanese who had recently entered into the industry, ABI is trying to find productive and innovative ways to improve sales and guarantee placement as the number one company in its
In 2002 for AM General's Hummer H2, a sport utility version of the 4-wheel drive vehicle popular with the U.S. Armed Forces—was so strong, the company was struggling to keep pace. It was a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. The company needed to boost production by 25 percent, but its factory, built in a joint venture with General Motors, was designed to operate more efficiently than conventional auto plants. That meant less inventory was on hand (Wasserman, 2004, p. 1).
While this may not be an exhaustive list of the issues at the Lima Plant, they are primary in the overarching problem of job dissatisfaction and low morale. By understanding the nature of the problems, a plan of action can be recommended by Ashley. The involvement of the line foremen will demonstrate the respect they desperately need. This is what Collins (2001) describes as the making of a “Level 5 Leadership that has a fierce resolve to do whatever is needed for the company” ( p. 20) to produce repeatable results and sustain.
Boeing made use of lean techniques in their production system and increased its production by 50% and also reduced its floor space by 40%. Assembling a Boeing 737 is a typical job. Workers should take 367,000 parts, an same number of bolts, rivets, other equipment and 36 miles (58 kilometres) of electrical wire and then keep them all combined to make an airplane [2]. Engineers to machinists were involved in lean (reducing waste) in the factory. By creating an assembly line, aircraft will pass through the workers were they going to concentrate on assembling. Allocating all employees in the factory building and organising special teams helped a lot to solve the errors in the assembly line [2]. In the assembly line, there are eight beacon lights which reflect the production status. If everything is good it shows green colour. If an error occurs, the worker will press a button and the green light will changes to yellow and the panel board will shows the category of the problem(which category it is related to). The worker will pass on to a computer and writes about the problem in a brief manner and the problem should be assigned to special team to solve it within 30 minutes if not, the light turns to purple and the assembly line will shuts down. This moving assembly is the icon of factory’s lean strategies.
Here the employees deliver more than what their contracts demands them to – Harrods encourages its employees to work in different departments (job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment) which leads to greater productivity