Alpha Textile Company

Alpha Textile Company is owned by Tom Slate, a craftsman who has a reputation for designing and producing a quality product. Tom has operated his business himself, but he now seeks your guidance in helping him reorganize and expand his operation. His business has grown dramatically over the past year, and he now has over 30 production employees, two supervisors, two quality control inspectors, a secretary, and a bookkeeper. Tom and his wife do all of the selling. Tom is planning to hire 20 additional production workers soon, and he expects to assign them to the two existing supervisors.

Tom's company is in a very competitive and changing industry, and he thus feels it necessary to produce two dozen different products. Every year each product comes out in a new model, incorporating color and texture changes. The production of each tile requires seven separate processes. "I used to handle it all myself," he tells you. "But things are moving so fast I can't keep trying to do all the things that need doing myself. Between designing the product, managing production, and handling sales in the fieldit's going to get away from me if I don't get organized!"

Alpha will grow to nearly 60 employees by year's end. Unless you can come up with a better plan, the production workers will report to the two supervisors, and these supervisors as well as all other personnel will report directly to Tom.

Instructions

1. Draw an organizational chart depicting your new organizational structure. New positions can be created but no new hires, aside from those already planned, will be allowed.

2. Discuss the type of departmentalization used including justification.

3. Discuss the number of staff and line positions in the organization and list all positions under each category.

4. Preparea job description for all positions.

5. Provide a justification for each position.

6. Provide justification for each promotion and/or movement.

7. Provide justification for the span of control for each manager/supervisor.

8. Discuss how each of the seven processes are being completed.

9. Discuss how each of the 24 tiles are being processed.

10. Discuss and provide examples for how motivation can be increased for all production level workers using vertical and horizontal job loading.