Goodman Company Case Study

Case Study

The Goodman Company

I. Point of View

Mr. Robert Goodman – He is the President of Goodman Company which is a single plant manufacturing company which produces small rubber automotive parts; the company has a centralized, bureaucratic organizational structure. He foresees greater opportunities in the years ahead if output can be expanded to meet future demands. He decided to hire a production analyst to see greater efficiency could be achieved with the current equipment that the company bought.

Mr. Joe Smith – He is the production Manager who is reporting to Mr. Goodman directly. He has three (3) personnel supervising and reporting to him respectively to the three (3) shifts the company have:

Shift no. 1 – Mr. Cleverson Anthony

Shift no. 2 – Mr. Norm Leonard

Shift no. 3 – Mr. Bob Jackson

Ann Bennet – She is a graduate of a bachelor’s degree in finance in 1988. She earned her M.B.A with a concentration in production management. She did her graduate work in a very well-known university in which she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Before she was hired by Mr. Goodman she worked for a management consulting firm for 5 years and earning the position project leader for 3 years. She proposed to start a new process for the company to follow to cope with the increasing rate of demands.

II. Problem Statement

The sudden changes in a newly conceived production process which aimed to increase efficiency, affected production at the Goodman Company; this change caused the workers to decrease production.

Core Problem

After analyzing the case, it was determined that the core problem of the Goodman Company was resistance to change. According to Agboola and Salawu, change is one of the most difficult tasks for any organization to perform, which is done for the betterment of the organization.

When the plan was implemented, productions on two of the major shifts dropped significantly. This could have been because, a woman was the change agent instead of a man or because workers were accustom to doing the job one particular way. Likewise, because of the age of the workforce, most employees were in the mid-fifties and mid-thirties; at this age it becomes difficult to implement new strategies, because the employees are so accustom to one process. There are different reasons why there was a resistance to change and all of these reasons will be analysed.

Problems in every Shifts

Shift No. 1

• The employees did not enjoy communicating outside work.

• They went their separate ways after work.

• The new plan required teamwork to be successful.

• They work independently prior to the change and did not understand sharing responsibilities.

• No training was facilitated to this understanding.

• All of the above factors contributed to the decreased performance.

Shift No. 2

• The supervisor had no interaction to his employees.

• When he was supervisor, the group did not accept him and he did not socialize.

• He just believe that should do their work.

• They were hesitated to speak to him when there are problems that they face.

• They prefer to speak to Jim Fask who si a senior member of the group but has no formal