Case Study Macon was a fifty-year-old company in the business of developing test equipment for the tire industry. The co

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Case Study
Macon was a fifty-year-old company in the business of developing
test equipment for the tire industry. The company had a history of
segregated departments with very focused functional line managers.
The company had two major technical departments: mechanical
engineering and electrical engineering. Both departments reported
to a vice president for engineering, whose background was always
mechanical engineering. For this reason, the company focused 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 control systems
were what made Macon’s equipment outperform that of the
competition. Because of the strong autonomy of the departments,
internal competition existed. Line managers were frequently
competing with one another rather than focusing on the best
interest of Macon. 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 and the
problem would worsen over time. One of Macon’s customers had a
service department that always blamed 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 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 throw it over the fence 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. Oftentimes 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 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” 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 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, and when.
12.Why do you think building relationship with all stakeholders
is a key step in the above process?
(2 Points)
13.With reference to problems elaborated in the Case Study, use
a cause and effect diagram (fishbone diagram) to identify possible
causes for any particular risk event at Macon.
Draw the cause and effect diagram (fishbone diagram) upload your
file. (Word/ Excel/ PDF/ PPT/ Image)(Non-anonymous question)
(3 Points)
Upload file
File number limit: 1Single file size limit: 100MBAllowed file
types: Word, Excel, PPT, PDF, Image, Video, Audio
14.Explain some useful strategies to respond to risks faced by
the organization in implementing its projects.
(3 Points)
15.If you were a Project Manager at Macon, as part of the risk
planning exercise, identify some project risk factors associated
with (i) Roles and Responsibilities at Macon (ii) Scope and
Requirements and (iii) Operations.