Littleton Manufacturing Case Study PowerPoint - Speech or Presentation Example

These changes coupled with increased competition in the market affected Littleton manufacturing through Brooks industries dwindling financial performance (Whiteside, 1994). To address this issue, the management at Littleton manufacturing got concerned with addressing the deep lying problems that affected the company. The company decided to compute a human resources process improvement team-PIT, to outline the issues and second a corrective course of action. This paper will aim towards identifying the problems at Littleton and providing solutions that will help consolidate the company’s position in the market.

Problems identified and their symptoms Complaints at different levels of the company’s plant arose over the issue of poor organizational communication at the company. With this as a sign of organizational problems at the company, the management sought help from students at a nearby faculty to asses the organizational communication at Littleton (Whiteside, 1994). The PIT team collected the results from the students and conducted an in-house analysis that identified six critical problem areas that the company was to address.

The six problems get discussed below in separate paragraphs. The first problem identified was a lack of organizational unity at Littleton. The apparent lack of organizational unity got viewed through the disquiet shown by the workers who believed the fabrication side got overlooked over the newer components side (Whiteside, 1994). The components side had newer machines while the fabrication side had older machines that required frequent servicing yet they never got replaced. Workers also mentioned of the stringent working conditions in the fabrication side of the plant compared to the components side.

The workers viewed the management of the components side as stringent while that of the components side appears flexible and relaxed. The workers observed that the two sides of the plant appeared to have different management styles. The second problem cited was a lack of consistency in the enforcement of rules and procedures within the different sides of the plant. Complaints arose from workers about the differences within the department and sides at the plant when enforcing rules and procedures.

Evidence of this appeared when workers complained that some supervisors in the components side gave longer breaks compared to other supervisors in other departments. In the very components side, some supervisors allowed workers to leave as early as twenty minutes before quitting time (Whiteside, 1994). Inconsistencies also got cited in terms of application of punishments. Fighting in the plant would result to automatic dismissal, but there were two incidents where the culprits never got punished.

Some employees mentioned of an incident where someone was caught smoking marijuana within the plant, but only got a written warning for such a misdemeanor. A lady also got suspended from work for three days for missing work due to doctor appointments for her child. However, an operator got no punishment for missing work regularly due to suspicions of drug or alcohol abuse. Another example of inconsistency in applying rules and procedures got viewed through the absenteeism levels from either side of the plant.

The fabrication side had less than one percent absenteeism compared to the 2.2% recorded in the components