Goodman Company Report

Situation Analysis

Goodman Company is a single plant manufacturing company which produces small rubber automotive parts; the company has a centralized, bureaucratic organisational structure.

A dramatic increase in sales would force Goodman to make some changes; however, since money for an additional expansion was not available, a new system was needed in order to meet the need of customers. Mr. Goodman decided to hire a new production analyst to see if greater efficiency could be achieved with the current equipment, to meet the so that the demands of customer’s under a new system. Ann Bennet is a competent analyst and has been hired based on her previous achievements in University as well as her experience.

Ms. Bennet proposed a plan involving same equipment but in mass production. Each worker will not handle the whole process, instead they will be assigning to different parts of the job process. Also all production workers will be compensated on a piece rate pay system. This approach is used to increase motivation and production. After the plan was proposed and implemented, its implementation faced many challenges.

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 (Agboola& Salawu, 2011).

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.

Satalite Problems/Marshall Analysis

It is clear that the primary problem in the Goodman Company is a resistance to change in the production format and change in payment system. Problems included decrease in employees motivation, increase in diversity, attitudes and behaviours and challenging leadership within the company.

After the introduction of Ms Bennett, her plans were astonishingly presented, leaving a great persuasion on Goodman and the members of the board. As a result, the plan was immediately implemented. Consequently, this plan introduces the company first problem; simply because, the company took a risk by rapidly transforming and changing the way things were done. There was no careful planning and analysis of employee reactions to these changes, likewise supervisors were not involved in the decision making process of this problem.

Secondly, employees are traditionally paid an hourly rate but however, after Ms.Bennett intervention, employees were compensated under a piecework system, performing a section of the production rather than being involved in the entire process.

Shift 1

The first shift aka “the employ controlled shift”. Before Ms.Bennett plan was implemented in this shift, there were signs of improper supervision of both supervisors and employees.

This shift was the most productive before the plan. The shift supervisor is Cleverson Anthony, Joe Bob Haymaker the first press operator, John (fireball) Malone the second operator, Nancy Pearson the time keeper and other employees. They were all fully satisfied with the flow of the operation, having privileges of taking extra vacation time, squandering time by holding small conversation during work hours and workers would also assist Nancy Pearson in planning the intended work schedule every Monday. Although Ms.Bennett