SUPERVISORS CHALLENGES - Coursework Example

Management: Supervisors’ Challenges Number Typical Manufacturing Supervisors Challenges, Frequently Created Due To No Fault of Their Own Some of the typical manufacturing supervisors’ challenges that may not be their fault may be negligence, underperformance (the failure to achieve the performance target) and superimposition of duties (duplication of roles). Negligence on the side of the employees may inflict serious harm or/ and injuries and may force the manufacturing firm to demand for the supervisor’s explanation before vicarious liability is taken.

The same case applies to underperformance and duplication of roles which prevent the plant from achieving its goals and raise the cost of production, respectively. How These Problems Can Be Reduced Under Newer, Nontraditional Manufacturing and Operations Methods These problems above can be reduced by having every officer in the manufacturing plant and operations methods have specific duties, roles and responsibilities specified, limited and applied to him. In this light, all employees must be made aware of what is expected of them.

This means that the plant will have to take division of labor seriously. As the firm specifies the role, duties and responsibilities that every employer should assume, the director and supervisor of the manufacturing plant must equally spell out the powers and privileges every officer should assume. Just as Cousens and Szwejczewski (2009) recommend, job specialization will also have to be effected in the plant so as to curtail the shortfalls being exhibited by the personnel. The crux of the matter herein is that although the director and supervisor of the manufacturing plant may be interested in parrying away undue blame for employees’ failures, yet there is a significant problem that is being ignored: employees are failing, regardless of the target of the blame.

Assigning employees duties and roles in line with their area of professional specialization, skills and talents will enforce diligence, motivation, love for work, dynamism and self-initiatives. An employee trained in chemical engineering is less susceptible to blunders if he is assigned laboratory duties as opposed to when he is transferred to the metal work or assembly department. The director and supervisor of the manufacturing plant should also set performance targets for every officer.

This will ensure that every employee in the manufacturing plant is answerable. In the event that performance gap is sustained, every employee becomes answerable for himself, instead of the director and supervisor taking the blame. The manufacturing plant should draw its hierarchy well to further facilitate answerability and accountability. An individual worker should be answerable to a group leader who is in turn answerable to the supervisor. The supervisor should be answerable to someone else.

In the event that some tasks in the manufacturing plant cannot be broken down into simple units so that group work is required, the group can be accorded collective responsibility and accountability (Swink, Narasimhan and Wang, 2007). The director and supervisor of the plant can also use the law to enforce efficiency and abate the aforementioned problems. In this light, employees will be informed about the extent to which the director or the plant will assume vicarious responsibility. The corollary to this is that employees re to be informed that vicarious responsibility will not apply when a grievous mistake emanates from an employee’s willful negligence.

Training will also come in handy, when the need to seal performance target and to have employees understand the scope and limits of vicarious liability arises. Workshop drives and training programs will suffice to this extent. ReferencesCousens, A. & Szwejczewski, M. (2009). A Process for Managing Manufacturing Flexibility. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 29 (4), 357 – 385. Swink, M., Narasimhan, R. & Wang, C. (2007). Managing Beyond the Factory Walls: Effects of Four Types of Strategic Integration on Manufacturing Plant Performance.

Journal of Operations Management, 25 (1), 148 – 164.