Acme Omega

The separate plant, located in Cleveland, was purchased by investors and renamed Omega Electronics. The Omega investors hired a untried electric chair who had figureed in research and development for a bighearted computer manufacturer. Some new research engineers were hired and several Copernicus exponent remained with the company and in new positions. superlative degree and Omega lots competed for contracts to supply destinys to several large electronics manufacturing firms in the US. Both companies prospered in the mid-sass and primaeval sass as computerized electronics equipment boomed. tiptop had annual sales of over $170 one thousand million and employed 350 large number. Omega was somewhat weakeneder with sales of $140 million and ab aside 275 people. However, Acme was consistently more competent and profitable than Omega. Acme A close-up. Acmes president, Fred Taylor, attributed his companys success to the fact that he and his four-in-hands ran a tight ship. They retained the same basic structure that the division had when it was part of Copernicus because it was efficient for mettlesome volume intersection of electronics components such as switching devices and printed circuit boards.Taylor say that, Acme regularly undercuts the competition cause of their focus on efficient action. We are regularly the profit leader in this problem. Acmes structure is shown in Figure 1 . Workers are generally satisfied at Acme, but a few passenger cars recently left the company because of the lack of flexibility or variety in their jobs. One recently departed manager stated that Taylor knows one way of doing things -? his way. He went on to say, Frieds a advantageously manager, but he did not provide us with much knowledge or much freedom to make decisions. He makes all of the censorious decisions himself. Revised version based on J. F. Vega and J. N. Handouts, from The Dynamics of Organization Theory, 1979, 1 984, West Publishing Figure 1 Acme Electronics Organizational graph President Taylor UP Marketing UP Operations UP force UP Finance Controller Plant Manager business investigate & Development objective Purchasing Shipping Omega An inside view. Simon Herbert, cause head of research and development at Snell Computers, was chosen as president of Omega. Based on his research and development experience at Snell, he claimed that he did not believe in a formal organisational chart.Although he said that his people loud be fit into departments standardised to those at Acme, he felt that such departments formed artificial barriers amongst deferent functional specialists. Herbert stated that, we are small enough so that people can usually communicate face-to-face when needed. Instead, Omega utilize a team-based structure that was adapted to fit new count ons. Most of Omegas contracts were small and customized. Production runs were generally short. One manager noted that much of his quantify was taken up tryi ng to escort problems and communicate solutions.The Head of the Production convention Team noted, Simon sp removes too much fourth dimension trying to understand problems and communicate with everyone. Most important decisions get do by the vellicate management team. Part II In 1 993, the electronics component business began to change dramatically. Many of the old circuit boards disappeared from product externalizes and were replaced by increasingly complex buffalo snap offs. Miniaturization swept the electronics industry. Many complex office machines include on-board central processing units basically dedicated computers. Such was the case in the copier industry.In July 1 993, Global Xerography, the company that spun off Acme and Omega, name to the two firms requesting component production for a new generation of copying machines. The component was fundamentally a specialized processor and store Engineering unit that would power the copying machine. Once the copiers wer e in full production, the contract could be expense as much as ASS-$30 million per year. Both Acme and Omega bid on the contract for the initial 100 figure of speech processor memory components. Although Acmes bid was slightly lower than Omegas, XX mulish to award both companies contracts for 100 units each.Ex.s project manager told both Taylor and Herbert that look sharp in placement and production of the prototypes was essential. XX had already promised delivery of the new generation copiers by January 1, 1994. Customers were counting on the new products and once countersignature of the new intent got out, it would only be a matter of quantify before competitors began imitating the new program. Not only that, but investors were counting on the new design to add to Ex.s profits. These demands for urge meant that XX, Acme, and Omega would need to tie in simultaneous design. figure of speech of the components would need to begin before the concluding copier design was com plete.Acme and Omega would have no more than two weeks to introduce the first 1 00 prototype components or they would delay last(a) production of the copiers. Part Ill As soon as F-red Taylor stock the design specifications (July 6, 1993), he sent an email to Purchasing requesting that they reckon the necessary parts to be purchased and initiate purchasing. At the same time, Taylor sent the specifications to the Design Department for design and production rendering. Engineering was then given the job to take the output from the Design Department and create the production musical arrangement for the actual reduction of the prototypes.Production was to take the system and create the actual production facility and schedule production of the prototypes. Taylor sent emails to all department heads stating that speed of production was essential and that all departments should work as efficiently as possible. On July 9, Purchasing discovered that a particular verification supplied by their authorized supplier was unavailable and could not be shipped for at to the lowest degree two weeks. As on that point were few suppliers for this particular chip, the Purchasing manager assumed that Omega would face the same problem and he did not Reese to scratch an alternative supplier.He withal informed Taylor of the problem who in tip over decided that the company should go forward with production without the missing chip. The chip could be chisel ined once the other production processes had been completed. The Design Department was instructed to design the component in such a way that the missing chip could be inserted later. On July 1 1, Design informed Taylor that the missing chip and would substantially increase the time necessary to assemble the completed components. Taylor saw no alternative and gave approval to go forward with the design and production.The Design Department then gave purchasing specification for the condition that would hold the memory and p rocessor unit. Since this was a small prototype production, the companys standard procedure was to find an outside source for the metal work. On July 14 Taylor asked for a get along report and was dismayed to learn that Purchasing was still waiting for the chips and for bids on the chassis. Taylor was shocked by the lack of progress and demanded that Engineering begin fabricating the chassis internally. By July 17, all of the necessary parts (except the chip) were available and Engineering had begun producing the hashish.Production had already designed the manufacturing process, so once the parts began flowing production of prototypes began. In their haste to begin production, the Production Department and the process engineers had not consulted extensively with the Design Department or Engineering (who produced the chassis that held the memory and processor unit). The result was a production system that was rather awkward and inefficient. However, there was not sufficient time to stop now and rework the manufacturing process.Taylor and the manufacturing tribal chief both agreed that the kinks in he system could be worked out after the production of the prototypes. One concern voiced by the Design team was whether the missing chip could easily be inserted at the end of the production run. That was not clear. On July 18, at about the same time that the first batch of prototypes was coming off the production line, the missing chips arrived. The interior decorators were crystallise to raise concerns about inserting those chips. The process required technicians to partially disassemble the units and insert the chips. The process was messy and time-consuming.As the last of the 100 units was assembled on July 20, Taylor received a call from the project manager at XX informing him of a design error that the engineers at Omega had discovered on the forward day. Apparently, the original specifications from XX had reversed the installation of a voltage transformer. The XX engineers checked the information from Omega and found that a mistake had been made in the original design. Taylor said that the Acme units were completed and ready to ship. The designer explained that the error had to be corrected first. The prototypes that Acme had produced would not work.The new design pacifications would be emailed later in the day. When the new specifications arrived, Taylor met with the Production manager to plant what needed to be done. It was determined that the units would once again need to be partially disassembled. The transformers would need to be removed and reinserted. This required substantial crowd and re-soldering of the transformers. All of the disassembly and reassembly of the units caused damage to the chassis and some components. The in the long run reassembly, packaging and shipping of the first 50 units was completed on July 29.However, no(prenominal) of the units were inspected or tested. The final 50 units were shipped on August 2. At Omega, Simon Herbert called a meeting department heads on July 6 after receiving the email of specifications from XX earlier in the day. He told the department heads that they should look over the design specifications so they could begin production as soon as possible. The next day the department heads met to discuss the project and form a project team. At the end of the morning time meeting the department heads had designated engineers, designers, production people and a purchasing agent to the new component design-production team.The team began to work closely to determine the necessary components, identify suppliers, and create a production system. Purchasing determined that one particular chip would not be available locally for two weeks. One engineer suggested that they search for alternative suppliers. At the same time, the engineers also determined that it would be faster to produce the chassis internally rather than sending specifications out for bids from contrac tors. The team also determined that they could modify the design for installing the missing chip at the end of the production process if they were unable to find an alternative source.On July 9 purchasing reported that they found an alternative source for chip in Thailand. The chips would be shipped by express mail on July ID and would arrive at Omega on July 13. Although the chips from Thailand were somewhat less expensive, the cost of shipping resulted in the final cost being about 15% higher. The purchasing agent made the decision to purchase the Thai chips without consulting with other team members or with Herbert. By July 17 the production team assembled five sample units to determine if the assembly process would work correctly.The manufacturing process irked flawlessly, however when the units were tested on the bench, they did not work. When the engineers and designers inspected the five sample units, it was obvious to them that the transformers were installed incorrectly. Th e units were disassembled the transformers were removed and re- installed and the units were reassembled. The resulting sample units performed up to specifications. Herbert called the project manager at XX to discuss the problem. On the morning of July 1 8, the project manager confirmed that the original design specifications were in error and that the Omega team was correct.