Macon Inc. was a 50-year-old company in the business of
developing test equipment for the tyre industry. The company had a history of
segregated departments with focused functional line managers. The company had
two major technical departments: mechanical engineering and electrical
engineering. Both departments reported to a long-serving Vice President for
engineering, whose background was mechanical engineering. For this reason, the
company undertook all projects from a mechanical engineering perspective. The
significance of the test equipment's electrical control system was often
minimized when, in reality, the electrical (not the mechanical) control systems
were what made Macon's equipment outperform that of the competition.
Because the two technical departments operated in a highly
autonomous way, there was much internal competition between them. Line managers
from each department frequently competed
with one another rather than focusing on the best interests of Macon Inc.. Each
would hope the other would be the cause for project delays instead of working together
to avoid project delays altogether. Once dates slipped, fingers were pointed,
blame assigned and the problem would worsen over time.
One of the company’s customers had a service department that
always blamed Macon Inc.’s engineering for all of their problems. If the
machine was not assembled correctly, it was engineering's fault for not
documenting it clearly enough. If a component failed, it was engineering's
fault for not designing it correctly. No matter what problem occurred in the
field, customer service would always put the blame on Macon Inc.’s engineering.
As might be expected, engineering would blame most problems
on production claiming that production did not assemble the equipment correctly
and did not maintain the proper level of quality. Engineering would design a
product and then push it on to production without ever going down to the
manufacturing floor to help with its assembly. Errors or suggestions reported
from production to engineering were being ignored. Engineers often perceived
the assemblers as incapable of improving the design.
Production ultimately assembled the product and shipped it
out to the customer. Often times during assembly the production people would
change the design as they saw fit without involving engineering. This would
cause severe problems with documentation. Customer service would later inform
engineering that the documentation was incorrect, once again causing conflict
among all departments.
The President of Macon Inc. was a strong believer in project
management. Unfortunately, his preaching fell upon deaf ears. The culture was
just too strong. Projects were failing miserably. Some failures were attributed
to the lack of sponsorship or commitment from line managers. One project failed
as the result of a project leader who failed to control scope. Each day the
project would fall further behind because work was being added with very little
regard for the project's completion date. Project estimates were based upon a
"gut feel" or intuition rather than upon sound quantitative data.
The delay in shipping dates was creating more and more
frustration for the customers. The customers began assigning their own project
managers as "watchdogs" to look out for their companies' best
interests. The primary function of these "watchdog" project managers
was to ensure that the equipment purchased from Macon Inc. would be delivered
on time and complete. This involvement by the customers was becoming more
prominent than ever before.
The President decided that action was needed to achieve some
degree of excellence in project management. The question was what action to
take.
Questions:
1. Identify and analyse the main Project Management Issues
(both organizational and management) at Macon Inc. Draw upon your knowledge of
the Project management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) to help you analyse the case. Do NOT simply
re-state the case facts.[200 words maximum ]
2. Prepare a report card on Macon about the problems they
are facing in applying project management principles to their projects. Select
a set of specific project management factors against which you will measure
their performance in new product development projects. Rate Macon Inc. against
these factors explaining why you gave them this rating based on the evidence
presented in the case and your knowledge of best practice principles of Project
Management. [200 words maximum]
3. You have been hired by the President to advise him/her on
how to help Macon achieve project management excellence. What recommendations
will you make to him/her based on your rating in question 2 of this case study?
Write out a brief scope statement for a consultancy project that you are
planning to propose to the President to help Macon Inc. achieve project
management excellence. You need to justify your scope recommendations. [300 words maximum]