Management 14th Edition by Leslie Rue,Lloyd Byars ,Nabil Ibrahim

Exercise 18

The Young College Graduate and the Old Superintendent
You are a consultant to the manager of a garment manufacturing plant in a small southern town. The manager has been having trouble with two employees: Ralph, the plant superintendent, and Kevin, the production scheduler. Ralph is 53 years old and has been with the company since he was released from a two-year stint in the army. He started in the warehouse with a 10th-grade education and worked his way up through the ranks. Until recently, Ralph handled-along with his many other duties-the production scheduling function. He was proud of the fact that he could handle it all "in my head." As the volume of production and the number of different products grew, however, the plant manager thought significant savings could be attained through a more sophisticated approach to scheduling. He believed he could save on raw materials by purchasing in larger quantities and on production setup time by making longer runs. He also wanted to cut down on the frequency of finished-goods stock-outs; when backlogs did occur, he wanted to be able to give customers more definite information as to when goods would be available. He wanted to have a planned schedule for at least two months into the future, with daily updates.
Kevin is 24 years old and grew up in the Chicago area. This is his first full-time job. He earned a master of science degree in industrial engineering from an eastern engineering school. He jumped right into the job and set up a computerized scheduling system, with a keyboard in his office. The system is based on the latest production scheduling and inventory control technology. It is very flexible and has proven to be quite effective in all areas that were of interest to the plant manager.


What method did the manager use in dealing with this conflict situation? Was it effective?