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Ramrod Stockwell

Benson Metal employs 1500 people and has been in existence for decades. It makes specialized steel which is produced in small batches of 100-1000 lbs (45-450 kg)

The technology for producing the product is well known but there is still skill and guesswork involved.Small changes in the ingredients going into the melting process such as adding a small amount of expensive alloying material produce the varying types of specialty steels. There are also variations resulting from the types of equipment used to produce the steel. Competitors can analyse each others products and can generally produce the same product without much difficulty. Benson and their competitors were steadily moving into more sophisticated and technically difficult steels, mostly for aerospace applications. These were far more difficult to make requiring more delicate handling at all stages of production. The marketing of these products was also quite different. They were produced to specifications of government contractors and stages of production were often monitored by the customer. Therefore, one company may be able to produce one type of steel that other companies could not produce even though they tried to produce them. These products are significantly more expensive than others and failure to meet specifications results in significant losses. About 20% of Benson's business is in these steels.

The company hierarchy is quite family oriented. Fred Benson, who was company president is now chairman. Although elderly, he is strong willed and highly regarded within the company.The present president, Tom Willis, has worked with Fred Benson for years. Tom is expected to retire in 3 or 4 years. His assistant is Jill Craig, who had been a sales manager at a smaller office. She is viewed as promising and is being developed for a higher position in the company.Dick Benson, Fred's son, vice president and general manager, is generally competent but is considered weak and is not considered up to the job of running the company as president.Barb Benson, daughter of Fred, is vice president of sales. Ramsey Stockwell, an experienced engineer, is vice president of production, a job he assumed after a rapid rise in the company over six years. Finally, Alan Carswell, vice president research, is a metallurgist who has several patents to his name.

An issue has developed regarding Ramsey Stockwell. He was widely regarded as an outstanding person, able to keep an old plant running at or above capacity. Stockwell as several capable people who report to him as production supervisors but there has been significant turnover of supervisors over the last couple of years.The production staff also appear to be knowledgeable and capable with most employees being with the company for a number of years. In the production department, however, Stockwell runs the show. He is the person who knows the orders, schedules the production runs, talks to other departments and customers. This is a huge issue for the production department as everyone, including supervisors, are kept totally in the dark regarding all production matters.Often they will contact the vice president of sales, Barb Benson, to find out what is happening in their own department as Stockwell tells her which order production is working on and which order is coming up next. Unfortunately, Barb Benson does not have the time or interest in monitoring what is happening in production and in helping the production people keep track and understand what is happening in the production department. Over the last few days, there have been two complaint from customers regarding orders that were late or which were produced to the wrong specifications, issues that people thought were due to Stockwell trying to do too much at the same time. This follows on several instances of errors that were caught and corrected by supervisors before product was shipped to customers over the last few months.

While most managers in Benson operate in an individualistic fashion, they realize that the organization must work together and that they are a management team and the people reporting to them must work together for the company to succeed into the future. Under the direct of the president, Tom Willis and Chairman, Fred Benson, all senior managers have been encouraged to participate in team building workshops and activities. While they initially thought that this activity was unnecessary, they now believe that they have learned a lot that they will apply to their positions. However, Willis and Benson did not participate in these sessions and Stockwell, who initially signed up for the events, did not attend, stating that he had far too much work to do and that team training is a distraction from what really needs to be done at Benson Metals.

Benson and Hollis are worried. Annual financial statements just prepared confirm what they have been seeing in their ongoing monitoring of the company. While their sales are up, the margin on sales is dropping and their cost of production are too high and increasing.They cannot afford any errors, they cannot afford to lose any customers, they cannot afford excessive downtime in their operations but most of all they need their company to operate in a far more efficient fashion.

They know that if they don't do something, the competition will take over and they will be out of business.

Adapted from "Ramrod" Stockwell, Charles Perrow in Jones, Gareth R. Organization Theory Design & Change, 6^th ed. Prentice Hall

Q:Recommendation/Plan of Action ? (select best alternative and produce a step by step plan to implement it, including all tactics and timeline):