The organization that I will focus on in this analysis is a supplier of oilfield equipment. This particular location houses the manufacturing facility, the engineering department, and the administrative departments of the organization. The company is in the middle of a project tasked with performing a major upgrade to its machining tools and related software. This obviously involves some significant growing pains as the new equipment is brought online. The result is an almost totally new way of doing business. In the old way, equipment was typically expedited through, as the automatic systems were inefficient and unreliable to ensure on-time delivery. The new systems are based more on real-time data and expected to not require this expediting.
In this analysis, the players involved in the controversy are more groups of people than individuals. First of all, the manufacturing group is responsible for installation and implementation of the new equipment and systems. Secondly, the administrative group is responsible for interfacing with customers and ensuring that the equipment is delivered on time and under budget. Finally, the senior management group has invested millions of dollars in the upgrades and is responsible to the board of directors to show why the project was needed in the first place.
The problem can be described rather easily. The company has suffered severely with late equipment delivery over the past year. This coincides with replacement of the old tools with new ones. Senior management feels that the new tools are the solution to these problems in the long run, but in the short term, the problems have actually been worse. They are focused on long-term be ...