Ben turner is the plant manager for Rice Printing Company, a medium sized printing firm (300 employees) that publishes regional editions of Time, Us, People, and Sports Illustrated magazines. The plant runs three shifts a day, five days a week, and the organizational structure is composed of a senior management staff of 6 people who work the day shift and 20 supervisors and 60 lead operators who are split among the three shifts. Each lead operator has 4 to 10 employees directly under his or her supervision.

Recently Ben listened to a speech on management by objectives at the local university by a renowned lecturer and management consultant. He was inspired by MBO and returned to the plant intent on installing such a system at Rice. He was confident it would make performance evaluation easier and improve employees' productivity.

Ben spent several days of working on the over-all output goals he wanted the company to meet for the year and then called in his senior management team. He issued written copies of the goals in each functional area to each management member and requested that each person review the goal, ask questions for clarifications, and then prepare specific operational plans, strategies, and quotas for her or his respective departments, supervisors and lead operatorsIs this a workable MBO system?What would you do differently? Why?If you were Ben, what goals would you set for the company?