In a Nutshell

In every field, decision-making plays a vital function in being a manager. His/ Her
company will rise or fall depending on the outcomes of his/her decision. With this, it is
very necessary for the manager to develop skills in decision making. In this activity, you
will make a case study about the scenario found on pages 40-41 on Dr. Robert Medina’s
book, Engineering Management.
Your case study is composed of the following:
1. Introduction
The case suggests that Engr. Romeo Estabillo is currently facing a
particular problem in his construction firm, specifically in terms of control over the
functions under his firm. This is primarily because of the current expansion of the
construction firm. To be more specific, Engr. Estabillo’s inability to perform well on
his executive role is due to the increasing number of demands and requests
coming from clients. This is evident because according to the case, Engr. Estabillo
felt the need to secure four additional civil engineers on a full-time basis.
Prior to the problem, Engr. Estabillo has done his role as the executive of
his firm with ease and finesse and for him, the reason for this is that his firm is still
small in terms of size. Furthermore, he can oversee all functions of the firm
including the operations, accounting and administration.
2. Background Information
Engr. Romeo Estabillo first started his construction firm right after he passed
the Civil Engineering Board Examination. He started a construction right away
because he wanted to start independently. He established his construction firm on
his hometown, Santiago City. His first clients were those who requested
construction works for their residential houses. With experience, the number of his
clients grew.
Also, at the start, he hired two assistants to help him on his construction
firm: Mr. Silvino Santiago and Mr. Romulo Mamaril. Mr. Santiago was assigned as
the draftsman of the firm. My Mamaril was in-charge of the administrative and
accounting works such as coordinate purchasing and bookkeeping. During the
third year of the firm, Engr. Estabillo hired two additional female engineers.
After some time, the payroll of the firm grew to having six civil engineers,
two draftsmen, ten administrative personnel, one messenger and one security
guard. The foremen and laborers were only contractual. By then, the firm has been
growing and because of this, Engr. Estabillo needed additional hires for the firm.
However, with additional hires comes more people that he needs to manage.

3. Alternatives
The following statements are possible solutions to Engr. Estabillo’s
executive problem.
Solution 1: Create Systems for Every Department
 Create systems among the employees of the firm and group them according to
function e.g. operations, accounting and etc. In consequence, a particular number
of employee will be assigned as managers of their respective offices. As a result,
this narrows down the function of Engr. Estabillo and specifically, he now only
needs to oversee the managers. This is because the managers themselves will do
the “overseeing” over the employees for Engr. Estabillo.
Solution 2: Fire Employees from Other Departments
If Engr. Estabilllo does not want to give up control, he needs to fire
employees from either admin or accounting in order to give space for additional
civil engineers. In this case, the firm is “growing” in terms of the operations but
“shrinking” in terms of either admin works or accounting. However, there would be
crucial consequences in firing employees as their respective departments will most
probably weaken due to lack of employees that will function and will affect the
whole firm.
Solution 3: Create Systems Only for the Accounting and Admin Departments
Assign managers for the administrative and accounting departments so that
Engr. Estabillo would no longer need to oversee these departments. With this, he
only needs to work with these managers and will give him extra space to function
as the executive of growing operations department. Also, Engr. Estabillo remains
as the executive of the operations. With this, he still has full control over the
operations. However, problem comes when the operations will continuously grow
and eventually, he would still need to create systems under the operations
management.
4. Solution
It is evident that the most appropriate solution for this problem would be the
delegation of Engr. Estabillo of his executive roles to other employees. If Engr.
Estabillo really wants to expand his firm, he would need to give up control. With
this, Solution 1: Create Systems for Every Department would be the most
appropriate solutions to his problem. The only downside of this solution is when he
actually delegates an important executive role to an irresponsible employee and
therefore, he needs to delegate properly. Aside from this problem, the solution far
outweighs the other solutions.
5. Recommendation
It is to be recommended to do more elaborate and detailed research about
Engr. Estabillo’s firm, specifically its internal and external environment. This further
research will help detail the problem and create a more specific solution out of the
chosen solution for his problem.