Scenario

Since you first met Sun City Boards owner Tom Wilson, he has made lots of changes and plans for his business. Sun City Boards has continued to expand and extend to markets via an Internet presence and e-commerce. The company is now taking advantage of the "branded" sports promotion surfboards market, offering customers completely customized surfboard designs.

The new offering includes the promise to "communicate directly with an in-house designer, to draft the design and branding of the board." Sun City promises full customization of the design, size, and shape of the product, incorporating client-specific logos, colors and other design elements. The offer also guarantees positive results for the customer's brand.

The basic production process Tom Wilson envisions follows these steps:

Customized Surfboard Production Process

Design

Customer collaborates with a Sun City designer to draft the design and branding of the board, as well as the positioning of brand logos or information.

Board Production

Once the customer has approved the design, the production team creates the surfboard following these steps:

1. Shaping the blank - dense foam is cut to shape using a CNC machine.
2. Glassing - laminating resin is spread over fiberglass cloth.
3. Placing the design inlays - printing onto polymer mesh fabric and placed on to the board according to customer design specifications.
4. Sanding and finishing
5. Quality control

You have been hired as the Director of Manufacturing and charged by Tom Wilson to "make this happen." Here's a roster of the current Sun City staff members:

• Owner/CEO - Tom Wilson (Designs the boards, sets their selling price, and establishes sales channels with local surf shops)
• Bookkeeper - Sarah Balanced (Sarah also doubles as order-taking clerk, cash register attendant, and customer complaint listener)
• Board Maker - Jack Ovalltrades (If Tom invents it, Jack can make it!)
• Board Making Assistants - 3 Jills (Assignments change almost daily as Jack decides what needs to be done next)
• Sales Associate - Kelly Dude (Named after famed surfer Kelly Slater and a business icon for Sun City Boards; visits surf shops and occasionally closes a sale)
• Part-time Associates - Hired as needed for inventory management (cleanup), promotional events, etc.

Some of these staff members will be helping with the customized surfboard production process. To help you get started, Tom Wilson has provided the following production staff information, gathered from recent personality and values tests.

Staff Profile Information
Employee	OCEAN	Myers-Briggs	Schwartz basic values
Nancy	O=76, C=50, E=15, A=20, N=56	INFP	Conformity, Security
Jill	O-26, C=80, E=75, A=25, N=20	ESTJ	Achievement, Benevolence
Jack Ovalltrades	O=26, C=80, E=77, A=25, N=56	ENTJ	Self-direction, Stimulation
Jamie	O=63, C=65, E=82, A=76, N=63	ESFP	Benevolence, Security
New Hire
New Hire

• Who will you assign to each of the anticipated steps in the process? What factors went into your decision?
• What characteristics will you look for in the two planned new hires? How will the new employees fit in with the existing team?
• Does your initial reaction to the staff lineup indicate a potential bias? How will you deal with your bias?
• What additional resources or models will you use to guide your decisions? How will you handle the top job satisfaction factors at Sun City?