One major issue confronting Alicia Smithfield is that the lumberjacks, both cutting trees down and shipping them by truck or boat, differ on the best methods to perform these tasks. How can this issue be solved using the provided consultant's background and theories?
SMITHFIELD'S CUSTOM FURNITURE:
It is 1901. Alicia Smithfield, daughter of the founder of Smithfield Custom Furniture, just inherited the company. She is the only surviving heir to the furniture empire her father built.
Headquartered in upstate New York, the company has grown significantly over the past 60 years. Began in a shed built next to his log cabin, Jonas Smithfield's quality furniture developed a huge following among New York City's wealthiest residents.
After being educated in the best business schools in Europe and America, Alicia has run the business side-by-side with her father for the past 15 years. When there were many issues confronting the business, a tree being felled took an unexpected route and brought Jonas' life to a surprising end.
The company had just moved to a facility large enough to house its workers: 10 carpenters; 5 furniture designers; 5 wood finishers (varnish and dye experts); 10 machine operators to assist with the various equipment needed to cut the wood into various designs, polish and sand the wood; 5 mechanics to keep the vehicles (5 trucks) and boats (7) that transported wood from upstate New York and Canada to the work area in good repair; 15 lumberjacks who cut wood in nearby areas and moved it downriver by boat or over the rugged highway by truck; and 5 office personnel who assisted with filing, invoicing, drafting and responding to correspondence, handling customer inquiries, and performing other necessary office functions. More than half of these employees were hired in the past 5 years.
Consultant: Fredrick W. Taylor
Before the Industrial Revolution, most businesses were small operations, averaging three or four people. Owners frequently labored next to employees, knew what they were capable of, and closely directed their work. The dynamics of the workplace changed dramatically in the United States with the Industrial Revolution. Factory owners and managers did not possess close relationships with their employees. The workers “on the floor” controlled the work process and generally worked only hard enough to make sure they would not be fired. There was little or no incentive to work harder than the next man (or woman).
Taylor was a mechanical engineer who was primarily interested in the type of work done in factories and mechanical shops. He observed that the owners and managers of the factories knew little about what actually took place in the workshops. Taylor believed that the system could be improved, and he looked around for an incentive. He settled on money. He believed a worker should get “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”—no more, no less. If the worker couldn’t work to the target, then the person shouldn’t be working at all. Taylor also believed that management and labor should cooperate and work together to meet goals. He was the first to suggest that the primary functions of managers should be planning and training.
In 1909, Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management. In this book, he suggested that productivity would increase if jobs were optimized and simplified. He also proposed matching a worker to a particular job that suited the person’s skill level and then training the worker to do that job in a specific way. Taylor first developed the idea of breaking down each job into component parts and timing each part to determine the most efficient method of working. Soon afterward, two management theorists, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, came up with the idea of filming workers to analyze their motions. Their ideas have since been combined into one process (called time and motion studies) for analyzing the most productive way to complete a task.
Taylor designed his approach for use in places where the work could be quantified, systemized, and standardized, such as in factories. In scientific management, there is one right way to do a task; workers were not encouraged (in fact, they were forbidden) to make decisions or evaluate actions that might produce a better result. Taylor was concerned about the output more than worker satisfaction or motivation. Taylor’s work introduced for the first time the idea of systematic training and selection, and it encouraged business owners to work with employees to increase productivity and efficiency. And he introduced a “first-class worker” concept to set the standard for what a worker should be able to produce in a set period of time. Scientific management grew in popularity among big businesses because productivity rose, proving that it worked.
Problem:
One major issue confronting Alicia Smithfield is that the lumberjacks, both cutting trees down and shipping them by truck or boat, differ on the best methods to perform these tasks.
How can this issue be solved using the provided consultant's background and theories?
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