Question

The Case of the Mexican Crazy Quilt

“The mission of the project which you will head is to get our new Mexican subsidiary ready for take-over by Mexican managers. My hope is that you will be able to do this in about two years,” explained Robert Linderman, president of Linderman Industries, Inc., to Carl Conway, newly appointed manager for “Operation Mexicano.” Conway had been hired specifically for this assignment because of his experience in managing large defense projects in the aerospace industry.

“The first thing that I will have to do is put a project team together,” said Conway. “I imagine that you have in mind my drawing people from the functional divisions.”

“Yes, I have already sent memoranda to the division managers informing them that you will be asking for some of their key people to work under you for about two years,” said Linderman. “In addition, I have advised them to be prepared to process work orders from Operation Mexicano with the personnel and equipment of their organizations. Later on in the project's life, you will begin to get Mexican personnel, both managers and technicians, in to your organization. These people will have Mexican supervisors, but until the mission is accomplished, they also will report to you. I will have to admit that you are going to have some complex authority relationships, especially as you personally will be responsible to the president of the subsidiary, Felix Delgado, as well as to me.”

Conway began to make his plans for the project team. The plant building was available and empty in Mexico City, and it was important to get equipment purchased and installed as soon as possible. A plant layout would have to be prepared, but before that could be done there would have to be a manufacturing plan. Therefore, he needed to recruit an industrial engineer, a production planner, and an equipment buyer. They, in turn, would have to build their own staffs.

He made an appointment with Sam Sargis, corporate manager of industrial engineering. “I have had a preliminary talk with Bob Cates about his joining Operation Mexicano, and he is quite interested,” Carl said. “Will you release him to me?”

“Why, I'm grooming Cates to take over my job when I retire,” replied Sargis. “He is my best man. Let me pick someone else for you, or better still, you just tell me what industrial engineering work you want done, and I will have it done for you.”

“Sorry, I want Cates,” said Carl firmly. “And besides, you are not due to retire for five years. This will be good experience for him.”

For production planning, Carl had in mind Bert Mill, an older man with extensive experience in managing production operations, but Mill rejected his offer. “I talked it over with my wife,” he said, “and we feel that at my age I shouldn't take a chance on not having a job to come back to when Operation Mexicano is finished.”

Carl next talked to Emil Banowetz, who was assistant to Jim Burke, the vice president for manufacturing, and Banowetz decided that he would like to join the project team. However, Burke told Conway that if Banowetz were forcibly taken away from him, he would give Mr. Linderman his resignation, so Carl decided to back down. He finally accepted a man that Burke recommended.

Filling the equipment buyer's slot was easy. The director of procurement phoned Carl and said that a senior buyer, Humberto Guzman, had requested permission to ask for the assignment, and that he strongly recommended him. Guzman has been purchasing agent for a large mining company in Mexico for about 10 years.

Carl had about the same experiences in getting the people he wanted for the functions of engineering, quality control, cost, marketing, and advertising as he did for the first three positions; in other words, he won some confrontations with the division managers and lost some. For personnel, he got Dr. Juan Perez, who was slated to be personnel director of the subsidiary company, to affiliate temporarily with the project team.

The first brush that Project Mexicano had in getting a functional division to do work for it came when Carl's engineering man, Frank Fong, reported to him that the engineering vice president, who was formerly Fong's boss, refused to authorize top priority to the changing of dimensions in the production drawings to the metric system. Carl had to take this issue to Linderman, who ruled in his favor. The defeated vice president, of course, did not take kindly to the decision.

The next incident revolved around Carl's desire to have a pilot run of products made with metric measurements for shipment to Mexico. The purpose was to test the market acceptance of the Linderman articles. Jim Burke stated flatly that there was no way that his production workers could be trained to work with metric drawings. Carl quickly saw that this was an issue that he was not going to win, so he had his buyer, Guzman, work with the newly appointed manufacturing manager for the subsidiary in getting a run of the products subcontracted in Mexico City.

Bob Cates made a special trip from Mexico City to present Carl with an interesting problem. The Mexican industrial engineer, whom Bob was supposed to be training, had his own ideas about plant layout. When they differed from Bob's as they usually did, he would take his complaint directly to Felix Delgado, the president of the Mexican subsidiary. Because Delgado's competence was primarily in finance, he would not know how to decide the argument and would simply table it. Carl took examples of some of the disagreements to Bob's former boss, Sam Sargis, who quite unexpectedly ruled against Bob's proposed methods. Carl saw that there was bad feeling by Sargis against Bob for leaving his department, which boded ill for Bob's return. To solve the immediate problem, however, Carl asked Dr. Perez to try to reconcile the situation in Mexico City.

Despite these problems, and many more of a similar nature, Project Mexicano was successful, and the transition to Mexican management was made in just a little over two years. By a curious twist, through Dr. Perez's intercession Felix Delgado became very impressed by Bob Cates and convinced him to accept the job of director of industrial engineering for the Mexican company. Humberto Guzman also stayed on to head the procurement operation.

Other members of the project team were not so fortunate. Linderman Industries was laying off personnel when the project ended, and only the project production man was able to get a job in the company at as high a level as the one he had when he joined the team. The cost expert elected to leave Linderman because he said the glamour of Project Mexicano had spoiled him for any routine job.

Carl Conway had a difficult decision of his own to make. Robert Linderman said that he was extremely pleased with his performance and that something good would open up in the company for him soon. In the meantime, there was a staff assignment available for him. Carl had seen enough project managers in the aerospace industry who had figuratively rotted on staff assignments when their projects were completed to be somewhat wary.

Questions

A.	Was Linderman Industries' adoption of project organization an appropriate one for getting the Mexican subsidiary started?
B.	In consideration of Robert Linderman's letting the division managers know that the project manager would be asking for some of their key people, why would Conway have any difficulty in getting the ones he wanted?
C.	Would you expect that many people would turn down a chance to join a project organization, as Bert Mill did?
D.	Why would Conway take his problem with the engineering vice president to Linderman and have it resolved in his favor, yet back down in two disputes with the manufacturing vice president?
E.	What could Linderman Industries have done to assure good jobs for the people coming off Project Mexicano, including Carl Conway, the project manager?

Answer 1

1. Was Linderman Industries' adoption of project organization an appropriate onefor getting the Mexican subsidiary started?

ANS:

Taking the plan group for receiving the Mexican subsidiary was a suitable measure by Linderman Industries. Mainly, setting up a new subsidiary is a workout that would require significant development, research and planning to ensure that the accomplishments would run easily once it is in process.

The kind of effort obligatory in creating this a truth is time intense and staffs inside the group may not be able to grip the plan while presenting their other normal duties. So, there is to be great levels of disorganization.

The project organization in turn makes sure that person to involved only focus on the plan such that it is probable to be successful. Project organizations show suitable for vital plans due to the many reasons. Project management lets for complete use of employees. Two companies should have agreed on importance for the mission to be effective.

Companies are willing to negotiate for resources. However, when both support a high degree of expert it develops problems for the project manager to do what is best for the project. Decision-making in a medium society alone is a problematic course.

When someone is working on transitioning, it develops problems for the workers to do what is correct, and when to correct, their group executive's and the project manager's feelings are in performance.

The management team, in most cases, aims at guaranteeing that the project is successful. Their goals are well set, and they are more attentive, and result concerned with to avoid project failure. Furthermore, only fruitful plans receive award and these managers are ready to expense for the achievement of the projects they are responsible.

Basically, to be improved by the fact that their total attentiveness is on the project completion.

1. In consideration of Robert Linderman's letting the division managers know that the project manager would be asking for some of their key people, why would Conway have any difficulty in getting the ones he wanted?

ANS:

Project organization is known to be as beneficial because managers can select employees based on the requirements of the project, with the right skills from the parent organization. The changing of employees, however, touches the subdivisions from which they are sourced in a deep method.

It means that these sections are dispossessed of knowledge, services and contribution that these employees deliver. This can be credited to the point that project organization front runners are likely to select the best workers. It would be suitable for Conway to claim that the partition bosses had been knowledgeable and that they had a responsibility to capitalize on the workers. However, he did not offer an understanding as to which workers would be taken for the development.

So, it is conceivable that the managers were not in a situation to make essential preparations to provide for the difference of their team associates. The influence on the separations was there before it touched when the choice has been completed therefore, important to bad responses from the partition heads.

1. Would you expect that many people would turn down a chance to join a project organization, as Bert Mill did?

ANS:

There would be a quite a lot of people who would turn down to join a project organization. It would also depend on the situation that a candidate is going through, because Bert Mill had a genuine reason to not accept the offer.

I do not blame him for not wanting to join Carl’s project. It all depends on analysing the advantages and disadvantages of taking up certain offers and rejecting certain offers. From Carls perspective it was already stated that the ending goal date would be two years. An older gentleman would not want to take that risk, especially if retirement is already being planned and having a steady job is more important.

If the candidate is young and a lot of years to come, he could certainly take the project and work on the completion as it would give a lot of exposure towards the industry.

1. Why would Conway take his problem with the engineering vice president to Linderman and have it resolved in his favor, yet back down in two disputes with the manufacturing vice president?

ANS:

The unlike reactions depicted by Conway in resolving each problem are a design of how personalities approach conflicts resolve. People react differently to struggle, mostly inclined by the conditions nearby the issue instigating the conflict.

Person’s reaction to arguments may be touched by the influence of individual relations, degree of irritability, difficulty of the issue and past with a similar condition. The highest likelihood is that the initial meeting with the business vice president highly affected Conway's method to dealing with disagreements.

Next the argument with the engineering vice president, Conway responded violently and in a self-gratifying manner probably eager that the vice president would respect him after Linderman guidelines in his favour.

This led to a rocky relationship with the business vice president who did not take the issue casually. It is likely that Conway be afraid of that he could bring about more strenuous relationships and, therefore, chose to in return down on the disputes with the industrial vice president.

1. What could Linderman Industries have done to assure good jobs for the people coming off Project Mexicano, including Carl Conway, the project manager?

ANS:

The first success of the project was essential to assure good jobs from Project Mexicano. Linderman Industries likely to invest heavily into the plan and to ensure that the team involved did their duties well through continuous review of the project development. The case exemplifies that the plan was successful. The guarantee of jobs would depend on the business's efforts.

Promising that there would be good jobs from the plan would need the company to standby some of the places for their members staff once the new lesser was set.

This way the staff members counting the project manager, Carl Conway, would be certain good jobs. It is significant that during the project, the team memberships related with several investors that would be of great position to the lesser. These are influences that the business would use to ensure that the secondary becomes moneymaking in the future.

The organization highly needs the team memberships who can donate highly from the skills learned during the project. Accordingly, the mission team dissolution process must, therefore, be lead with extra carefulness.   Author suggests advance preparation on how capitals will run down and how staffs will be transferred to new jobs or repaid to their old jobs. Noting that incentive is quite vital to the project team suggests that project team members should directly be moved to new jobs succeeding project completion. This can only be activated through the organization's proper planning for the future. Linderman industries should plan their staff procedure ahead, giving importance to staff members who are employed with Project Mexicano.