Last year your company initiated a major effort to improve productivity throughout the

company. During the first few months, little improvement was made. Recently, however,

major gains exceeding 20 percent have been made in both the packaging and equipment

repairs departments. You would like to commend them for their achievements, and announce

to other departments that gains are possible. You are also aware that some employees believe

that significant gains in productivity means loss of some jobs, because the company will be

able to achieve the same output with fewer employees. Another local company laid off 5

percent of its workforce after announcing productivity gains. Nonetheless, you believe that by

achieving even modest productivity gains, your company will become more competitive and

therefore be able to capture a larger share of the market. You believe that increased demand

will more than offset productivity gains, and even require hiring more employees. Although

you cannot guarantee this, you are optimistic about the chances that this will occur.

Write a one-page memo to employees that covers all these points, also address the potential

issue of employee resistance in the memo.

2. Determine the productivity for these cases.

a. Four workers installed 720 square yards of carpeting in eight hours.

b. A machine produced 68 usable pieces in two hours.

c. Briefly describe five factors that affect productivity

3. You are the owner of Forget Woman Chop Bar. The eatery has an attendant who dishes out

the food and takes payment for food bought. In your attempt to improve service quality, you

put up a suggestion box at the entrance to sample customers views on the level service

quality. After a month, you observed that most of the complaints are concerned with slow

nature of the attendant, poor presentation of food, uncomfortable environment due to flies,

looks of the place, and lack of manners on the part of the attendant. This is causing the bar to

loss some of its loyal customers mostly taxi drivers.

a. Outline at least five quality characteristics with very brief descriptions relevant to

b. Explain how you would practically go about achieving improved services with

this case.

regards to the quality problems identified in (a) above.