Case: Nuclear Tube Assembly Room (A)

Nuclear Tube Assembly Room Consulting Report

For: Neil Goodrich
Evaluation of Performance Changes
Langley views the changes very positively. He very much so credits his employees with
the increased efficiency and monetary savings. Many of the employees and Langley value their
independence, autonomy, and responsibility. Langley encourages the employees to do their best
work, instead of focusing on standards. Hey emphasizes the importance of the production
schedule, but leaves it up to his employees to get the work done. They take breaks as they see fit,
but all cooperate and get the work done, especially if it gets close to the end of the month.
Singer has a very bad attitude about the room. As an engineer, the women do not trust
him and he sees them as low skilled, low priority, and of low value. He does not understand how
they make money, despite marked improvements. He is very distrustful of the fact that they test
their own products and thinks its impossible that this could be effective. He assumes that they
would never admit to their own mistakes and that this could be dire to the quality, safety, and
efficiency of production. Singer believes the improvements only show that with a new plan and
reengineered room, efficiency and savings can increase even more than ever.
From the firms perspective, what used to be a problematic department became one of the
most successful departments within 2 years under the leadership of Ralph Langley. The firm
would be pleased with the reduced costs and increased profitability, yet at the same time, the firm
would be concerned as to whether the Nuclear Tube Assembly Room
even more.

could be improved

Langley's Establishment of Culture within the Assembly Room

The culture of positivity, encouragement, support, and respect that Langley has created in
the room has produced great results and happy employees.
The employees discuss their close relationship with Langley and each other as very
positive for their work. They are all considered friends and are honest about mistakes, needs, or
any other part of their work. They place great trust in Langley and each other. They have all
developed deep intrinsic motivation because of how they are treated. Supervision is low and
trust, work ethic, and respect are most highly valued.
Langley is also sure to treat each employee fairly so that they all feel they are being
equally supported and attended to. Langley is sure to make sure no one feels stupid and that
employees are confident enough to make suggestions and improvements on production. Intrinsic
motivation and a grave sense of responsibility for quality, efficiency, savings, and the production
schedule seem to lead this room to great improvements they have so clearly made.
In addition, Langley has been sure to create a culture of cooperation with other groups.
He regularly helps out research departments and they regularly return the favor. There is a sense
of mutual trust and support that gives them flexibility when they need help or are having trouble.
This has only further increased efficiency.

Langleys Managerial Style

Langley believed that since people spend most of their day at work, they should derive
some kind of positive feeling from doing their jobs. They should feel that they are an important
part of the firm and are making a real difference to the everyday working of it. This would make
them feel valuable and satisfied with their job. Langley strived to do this in the following way:

He maintained good relationships with every member of the group by being highly involved

in the affairs of the room without micro managing them.

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He earned the workers confidence in his knowledge by helping them anytime any one of
them went to him with work related problems.
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He gained their respect by treating them fairly, equally and respectfully. When an employee
would go to him with a problem, instead of making them feel like a lesser person, he would help
her in a way that she would feel that shes learning a lot from him.
,
He let his employees choose the part of the nuclear tube assembly that they wanted to
handle. The employees got to choose the part with which they were most comfortable, the skill
that they had mastered.
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He gave the group monthly quotas that they had to fill but let them decide their own work
schedule. He did not specify a time limit for lunch breaks, employees could invest as much time
as they wanted as long as they were meeting quantity and quality measures.
,
He also maintained great relationships with other groups. He would help them out with their
projects and in turn they would help him meet quotas if he ever requested, no questions asked.
Langley definitely had a positive effect on the functioning of the nuclear tube assembly
room. He turned a hotheaded, trouble-making group into a motivated and highly productive one.
Figures revealed that his group had shown a 53% boost in dollar output of product per man-hour
of work, labor efficiency had improved by 24% and raw material utilization on tubes produced
had increased by 11% to 12%. At the same time, the group operated at 81% of its budget and the
average hourly wages for women working in the room had increased from $1.45 to $1.75. This
sector alone was generating almost half the total company profits.

Job Design Factors

The current operation, behavior and performance in the Nuclear Tube Assembly Room
are influenced by the job designs organizational, environmental and behavioral factors.

The organizational factors include the production process, task operations, and workflow.
The production process is an assembly process, where parts have to be built first in order to
complete the whole product; thus, workflow problems might occur where workers will be
waiting on one part to be able to assemble the product. Moreover, the production process has not
be standardized, thus product quality is inconsistent, and products may be faulty. Working
standards and conditions have also not been closely followed, allowing for the possibility of
dangerous hazards.
Within the environmental factors, lies the fact that the tasks level of difficulty has to
match the workers abilities. Most of the current tasks are of handwork nature, thus do not
require specialized knowledge. Therefore, the average workers highest level of education is high
school. Nevertheless, due to the hands-on nature of the job, workers are able to learn and
improve while on the job.
The environmental factors include workers autonomy, use of their abilities, and variety
of tasks. Workers are given a high degree of freedom to chose their tasks. Usually workers chose
to do what they do best and makes use of their abilities, and in this case, workers have been
producing very good performance results. Workers are also given flexibility in terms of work
standards and budgets; however, given the autonomy, workers are choosing to become more
efficient driven by their own satisfaction. At the assembly room, while some people are assigned
special jobs due to their extraordinary skills, workers are still allowed to perform a variety of
tasks; thus being motivated to learn and perform better overall.
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Group Processes and Interactions

Management, supervision, and co-worker relationships have influenced the current

operation, behavior and performance in the Nuclear Tube Assembly Room.
When Ralph Langley became head of the department, his personal interactions and
attention to his subordinates allowed for him to establish an open, and serious yet friendly image.
Therefore, workers would feel comfortable approaching him with any concerns or problems.
Further establishing the trustful culture within the department, most workers have very
little supervision and are given a lot of autonomy. According to the case study, while workers
usually obtained instructions from supervisors, workers were also able to perform changes in
work position or the type of task without discussion with supervisors. Moreover, they believe
that since they are closer to the work, they can solve their problems by themselves, and use
Langley as a last resort, who they trust to probably know the solution.
Within the department, co-workers had established very strong relationships. When a
worker makes a mistake, other co-workers willingly help clean up without having to be asked.
As of employees relations, people tried to avoid upsetting their co-workers, so usually they
would not talk about upsetting topics during their lunch breaks. Nevertheless, they remained
friendly and cooperative at the workplace. Yet the workers do not seem to like George Cortoza,
the foreman in room C, and truly appreciate Ralphs leadership.
Evaluation of the Process Engineering Proposal
The implementation of the new production process to manufacture the LDTC line would
improve yields and reduce costs of assembly processes. This would solve the low yield problem
of the current production process and reduction of production costs, in turn increasing
effectiveness, and thus profitability as well.

However, the new process would bring in drastic changes compared to the current
process. While the proposal argues that implementing strict monitoring and standardization of
processes will be beneficial to improve effectiveness, this might not hold true, as it would reduce
the autonomy and decrease the motivation and in turn productivity of the workers, as the current
workers are very satisfied with their freedom to choose their tasks and recognition of their
abilities. The same holds true for the implementation of task specialization, where the workers
would be doing one single repetitive task, but their skills might improve, and the production
process might become streamlined.
The facility changes in order to ensure safer working environments are reasonable, and
while costly, they will be a good investment in order to prevent accidents and lawsuits, and
increase productivity.
The proposal also requires young workers who have an associate's degree in electronics
due to the technical sophistication of the new process. While the firm will have to pay higher
hourly rates, the departments skill level will be upgraded. Therefore, all the current workers will
probably be laid off. While some workers are aware of their lack of job security, the firm will
still have to consider the ethical implications.
Moreover, Ralph Langley showed an extremely negative reaction towards proposal, as its
implementation would destroy his efforts of the last two years.
Recommendation
While the proposal has very good aspects that are necessary for the firm to improve in
efficiency and profitability, the firm must choose to balance between pure profit-driven actions
and worker relationships. In this case, Langley does not agree with implementing the new
process as it is the complete opposite of his. However, in order to make it work, both Langleys

leadership skills and Singers knowledge on tube processes are needed. Therefore, I would
recommend to start by creating the new LDTC line using the new process, and once collected
results are significant enough to prove the superiority of the new process, Langley will be
convinced to adopt the new process within the already existing production processes.