Littleton Manufacturing Organization Design and Theory

Littleton Manufacturing

Organization Design and Theory

Organization Type:

Littleton Manufacturing is a large-batch, mass production manufacturing organization with a mechanistic structure that does not function properly. (Daft, 2010) The employees in this type of environment should be constrained to perform their jobs and there should be tight control through sophisticated control systems. (Botha, 2010) Many of the employees concede that at the end of the month when they are attempting to get product out the door that quality becomes an issue. The employees push items through the line that would not pass the quality test and it becomes the next person's problem on the line. This is not how a mechanistic structure should operate. There should be written, specific rules for the employees' jobs.

Upper management makes decisions, but the decisions do not flow through to all the employees. The supervisors do not seem to understand what the rules are. There appears to be different rules for the Fabrication and Components sides. The company needs to come up with a set of rules and procedures that is applicable to all employees on both sides, explain them and enforce them.

There is a clear hierarchy of authority, another component of a mechanistic organization but when the hierarchy reaches the supervisory level it appears they have a lot of responsibility but little authority. (Daft, 2010)

Structural Dimensions:

In the structural dimensions of an organization, the first to be examined is the formalization. This is the amount of written documents within the company. This can be broken down further into two groups. The first is processes, which is the description of routine or repeatable processes of the organization; such as hiring, performance review, expense reporting etc. The second is regulations; the written policies regarding legal and other procedures of the company. (Gupta, 2009)

Littleton does not appear to have many written procedures for a mechanistic organization. Supervisors and managers are often confused as to what the policy is for enforcing rules and procedures. Between the Fabrication and Component sides, the rules are inconsistent which causes difficulties between employees on both sides. Some employees were allowed longer breaks than others and permitting hourly employees to stand around and talk prior to starting their machines. Safety regulations were also inconsistent within the company with some supervisors allowing personnel to wear sneakers on the job. Absenteeism was also inconsistent between the two sides of the operation. (Daft, 2010) The company must create a set of rules and procedures, write them down, explain them to all personnel and enforce them.

The next process in structural dimension is task division. This is the measure to which a task is sub-divided into smaller tasks. If the tasks are distributed into narrow job functions, the less skill required by an employee and the easier it is to hire and train a new employee. (Gupta, 2009) The specialization of Littleton appears to have narrow job functions. Employees are not cross-trained to cover many job functions. The only individuals who appear to be doing more than one task are the supervisors.

The next process is the hierarchy of authority. The hierarchy determines how tasks are delegated and tracked. Littleton has a narrow span of control and a high hierarchy. The Fabrication side had approximately 10 employees per supervisor and 13 on the Component side. The supervisors had a lot of responsibility with not a lot of authority and therefore felt they could not perform their job functions well. (Daft, 2010)

The next step is centralization. Littleton is a highly centralized company that the majority of the decisions are made by the plant manager. This involves little or no sharing of information from the people on the floor to the other managers within the organization. Supervisors would make decisions involving the discipline of employees only to be overruled by upper management. (Daft, 2010) This made it difficult for these employees to receive any respect from their workers.

The level of professionalism is low at Littleton. The average salary for the individuals on the floor is $10. This proves that they are generally unskilled workers in the production area and probably do not need a lot of training to hold jobs in that department. The upper level managers have a higher degree of professionalism. Their positions required degrees and experience in the field to keep their jobs.

The final dimension is the personnel ratios. The supervisors to production employees ratio is approximately 10-13 workers per supervisor. There were 343 hourly employees versus 125 salaried employees which is about the same ratio that Crucible Steel has which is another manufacturing plant.

Corrective Actions:

The first priority of these corrective actions would be to change to consistency of enforcing the rules and regulations. The majority of employees are in the production area and they appear to be receiving different treatment depending on the supervisor. A set of rules must be administered to all of management and the then explained to the employees by Bill Larson. They need to set up a monitoring system to make certain that these rules are followed. This will help company morale immensely and prove to the workers that the company knows what they are doing.

The next step would be to provide training in how to manage change. This is a high priority since the whole premise of the meeting is to promote change. They want to adopt a new behavior and to do this they must communicate more with their employees. (Daft, 2010)

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