Open questions IOD with answers
Case 1
Bicycle factory “Springbok inc.” is located in a small town in the Eastern
part of the Netherlands. The factory produces two types of bicycles for the
Dutch market: an aluminium frame sports bike and an iron-frame city
bike. Each of these bike-types have 2 variants: an electric variant and a
non-electric variant. The Dutch market for bicycles is very competitive,
many (20+) different manufactures compete for an increase of their
market share, and they mostly rely on the same suppliers of raw material
and parts. Also, customers are very diverse and constantly demand very
different customizations that are hard to predict, ranging from people
requesting anti-theft options on their city bike or electrified sports bikes
that can carry children to electrified city bikes with easy step-on-step-off
options.
In the company, around 250 people work in the following departments:
- A “welding department”, in which steel and aluminium pipes are
transformed into frames.
- A “small material department”, in which all small parts for the bikes,
such as the steer and the front and back fender are made.
- An “electrical department”, in which all electrical wires for the bikes
are made.
- An “assembly department” in which all parts are put together to
make the bikes
- A maintenance department, that supports the other departments
when machines break down or need service.
In the factory, many problems arise in the production process. For
example, workers complain that the work that they do is too simple and
too monotonous. Also, between the welding and assembly department,
delays occur frequently. The welders have to work on all kinds of different
frames at the same time, which results in them not finishing in time. Also,
it is often seen as problematic that information on particular custom
orders of clients are not shared between the different departments. This
results in frequent errors such as the wrong bikes being assembled for
particular clients and failures in customization.
(1) For diagnosing and redesigning organizations De Sitter has developed
so-called structural parameters. Use the parameters of “functional
concentration” and “differentiation of operational transformations” to
diagnose the Springbok factory. To this end:
, a. Explain why the Springbok factory scores high or low on these
parameters.
b. Describe how the problems that the Springbok factory faces can be
characterized by De Sitter’s three outcome variables (3Qs).
Next to ideas on how to diagnose organizations, De Sitter has also
developed detailed ideas on how to redesign organizations. Try to come
up with an alternative design for the Springbok factory at the macro and
meso level of the organization. To this end:
c. What kind of “order flows” can be used to design the production
structure at the macro level of the organization?
d. Describe how you would make segments (meso level) within these
flows and describe what kind of activities you would assign to these
segments.
(2) What ‘type of job’ do the welders have based on the job demands-
control model? In your explanation, the reasoning how you come to this
conclusion should be very clear.
(3) Building on your answer, are welders’ jobs motivating? If not explain,
why and what Springbok Inc. can do to increase motivation. If yes,
explain why and what Springbok Inc. can do to maintain welders’
motivation. Give a concrete example when answering the ‘what’
question.
Case 2
Training Inc. is a consultancy organization that provides several
professional training courses for about 100 client organizations across
about seven different industry sectors such as national government
services, IT, financial services and steel industry. Also, Training Inc
operates in a market with many competitors (about 10), which results in
fierce competition on human resources and multi-million government
contracts. Furthermore, as they operate across the country in different
provinces and municipalities, Training inc has to deal with many different
rules and regulations. To make matters even more challenging, these
government rules and regulations, the actions of their competitors and the
availability of human resources impact each other extensively.
The process for setting up a training course can be described as follows:
first, based on potential leads in the market, a bid has to be made. In this
bid, a short description of the course is given and a price is suggested.
The bid is then sent to the client organization for approval. After approval,
, the training course has to be developed. Always, courses have to be
developed from scratch because client organizations constantly ask for
new types of training courses. After the course is developed, the course
has to be delivered by experienced trainers that provide in-company
support for the client organization. Lastly, after the course is performed,
an evaluation is conducted to capture opportunities for improvements.
These process steps are illustrated below.
These activities are performed by 50 employees in several departments
that are visualized in the organogram below. The experienced trainers of
Training Inc. work in a trainers’ department led by a manager responsible
for daily work within the trainers’ department. In the sales department,
commercial advisers actively contact possible client organizations to
acquire leads for selling training courses. Their department is headed by a
manager Sales. The leads that are acquired by the sales department are
communicated to the front office. In the front office, the bids are written
and prices for the training courses are calculated. During all training
courses, trainers are supported by project assistants from the support
office. The project assistants also take care of the evaluations.
Employees of Training Inc. complain that bids get lost between the front
office, the supporting office and the trainers. This means that client
organizations are often contacted too late, or are not contacted at all
about the courses that were sold by the sales department. Also,
employees complain about the huge amount of phone calls and emails
that are sent constantly throughout the organization. Many times,
information is lost and employees complain about the amount of stress
that this brings.
(4) Explain, in terms of the ‘fit’ approach developed by Burton et al,
whether there is a fit or misfit between the organization’s structure and
the environment in which it is operating. To build your argument, first
describe the kind of environment Training Inc. is located in by using the
