CASE STUDY #3

Problems in the Computer Assembly Division

You are in charge of a five person operation responsible for assembling personal computers for a small computer manufacturing firm located in the southeast. As the assembly unit supervisor, your production goals include assembling 80 personal computers per day and ensuring 95 percent of these computers pass the operational inspection of the quality assurance unit. To meet these goals, you coordinate and plan the work of your five subordinates and ensure they have the training and materials needed to get the job done. To maximize efficiency, you have organized the tasks performed by the group members along functional lines. Fred is responsible for assembling all of the hard drives for the unit. Fred is a retired Army sergeant with 16 years of electronics experience, is a hard worker, and has been assembling hard drives for six years. Bill assembles the CD ROM and floppy drives. Bill recently completed an electronics degree from a local technical school and this is his first full time job. He is 20 years old and has been working in the assembly unit for a year. Sherry assembles the mother boards. She is a single mother with two children and will be completing her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in three months. She has been with the assembly unit for four years and has been an outstanding employee. Julie does the final assembly, and has only been with the assembly unit for six months. Julie is 22 years old and her sister is married to the owner of the company. Morgan has five years of experience working in the company's parts supply section. He attended the company's operational inspection course and transferred over to your unit six months ago. Although he has no electronics experience beyond the operational inspection course, he performs all of the unit's final operational inspections before