CASE 01: WALKER WIRE PRODUCTS COMPANY The Walker Wire Product Company is a small firm manufacturing a wide

assortment of resistance-welded wire products. Of the companys average annual business of $500,000, approximately fifty percent is accounted for by racks for holding dishes and glassware in commercial dishwashing machines, forty percent by point-of-purchase advertising display stands, and ten percent by miscellaneous special orders for many different purposes. The companys plant consists of two floors of an old manufacturing building. The building is so laid out that, the first floor being suitable only for storage; the second floor is used for all manufacturing operations. Equipment includes a wirestraightening machine to straighten and cut to size the coils of wire that supply ninety percent of the raw materials needed; two forming machines to bend the wire to desired shapes before fabrication; ten spot- and butt-welders for fabrication; and miscellaneous equipment used in doweling, painting, and crating the finished products. The personnel of the company, exclusive of salesmen, numbers about forty people. Most of the management functions are handled by Mr. Brown, the owner of the company, and his secretary. All production management, from the time a work order is transmitted from the office, is under the supervision of a salaried foreman, who has almost complete supervision of the work force of thirty-five men. The foreman is a man of the old school, who carries a heavy work load but does not believe in modern production-management practices. At times he has been reprimanded by the owner for unfair treatment of the workers in trying to increase production in rush times. He is, however, a valuable man who knows the business well. No logical successor to him has been found, and no assistant foreman is being trained. Operations are, for the most part, handled on a job-order basis. For example, when an order for dish racks is received, the secretary date-stamps the order and places in in the Order Pending basket. Shop orders are written up daily by Mr. Brown, usually after the morning mail is received. Because of the varying sizes and the types required for different washing machines, some technical knowledge is required to write up the orders. Moreover, customers are often not clear in stating their needs. The order is transmitted to the foreman, who is usually in a position, through his general knowledge of the progress of other orders in the shop, to give a fair estimate of when the order will be started and finished. From this point forward, the foreman is responsible for routing, scheduling, dispatching, and inspection of the order. Few records are kept. The workers do turn in time slips, but little utilization is made of them. Workers are paid a straight hourly rate, and, as most of the work is of a semi-skilled nature and the workers are highly unionized, advancements in wages are usually made on an overall negotiated basis. Although the foreman has a rough idea who the best workers are, he has no figures of productivity to give him definite knowledge. No attempt has been made to specialize workers beyond allocating the most difficult welding operations to those men that are obviously the most skillful. Mr. Brown has long appreciated the advantages that would accrue to the company if some of the companys production could be carried on continuously rather than on a job-lot basis. He realizes that certain sizes and models of the dish racks sell in larger volume than others, but, because of tying-up working capital in finished inventory that may move slowly, he hesitates to produce much for stock. About half of the dish rack sales are for original equipment, that is, to the manufacturers of dishwashing machines. The other half goes to hotels and restaurants for replacement of racks that are broken or damaged in use. Display stands are always of special design, and usually orders are placed for several thousand or more to be delivered on rather short notice. This is quite profitable, but on the other hand, because of the piling-up of work-in-process, it disrupts plant operations and clutters floor areas. Moreover, dish racks are sidetracked, delivery promises are not met, and steady customers become displeased. In fact, the display stand business is so difficult to handle that, upon occasion, very large orders have been refused because the present organization and plant simply could not handle them.

Another problem that frequently confronts the management is the control of wire-forming and welding fixtures. A set of permanent fixtures is used for the fabrication of dish racks, but display stands require special fixtures. Often, when repeat orders are received for display stands, the foreman finds that he cannot locate the special fixtures or that these have been rebuilt to make new fixtures. In general, the conduct of the business is characterized by a lack of record-keeping, which has been excused by the management on the grounds of the companys small size and its inability to assume the additional overhead expense of adding non-productive workers to the organization. Recently, the management has received much advice regarding adoption of more scientific management methods, particularly the need for an effective system of production control. So far, nothing has been done, for three reasons: first, there is reluctance to add to the overhead; second, the foreman has expressed considerable doubt as to the value of such methods (he states that Im working as hard as is humanly possible and cant bother to fool around with any more details); and third, the management feels that the company is so small that the present informal basis may actually be the most efficient way to operate. Expansion has been contemplated for some time, but there is some doubt whether the present organization could be expanded without a complete reorganization. Mr. Brown is uncertain whether a change in management methods and in organization should be made now or after expansion.