The Young College Graduate and the Old Superintendent

The Young College Graduate and the Old Superintendent

Please read Case Incident, then,
using The Short Essay Format, answer the3 questions that follow the incident. Please use references where applicable. 1 page for each question.

“The Young College Graduate and the Old
Superintendent”
You are a consultant to the manager of a garment manufacturing plant in a small
southern town. The manager has been having trouble with two employees: Ralph, the
plant superintendent, and Kevin, the production scheduler. Ralph is 53 years old and
has been with the company since he was released from a two-year stint in the army. He
started in the warehouse with a 10th-grade education and worked his way up through
the ranks. Until recently, Ralph handled—along with his many other duties—the production scheduling function. He was proud of the fact that he could handle it all “in
my head.” As the volume of production and the number of different products grew,
however, the plant manager thought significant savings could be attained through a
more sophisticated approach to scheduling. He believed he could save on raw materials by purchasing in larger quantities and on production setup time by making longer
runs. He also wanted to cut down on the frequency of finished-goods stock-outs; when
backlogs did occur, he wanted to be able to give customers more definite information
as to when goods would be available. He wanted to have a planned schedule for at least
two months into the future, with daily updates.
Kevin is 24 years old and grew up in the Chicago area. This is his first full-time job.
He earned a master of science degree in industrial engineering from an eastern engineering school. He jumped right into the job and set up a computerized scheduling
system, with a keyboard in his office. The system is based on the latest production
scheduling and inventory control technology. It is very flexible and has proven to be
quite effective in all areas that were of interest to the plant manager.
Plant manager: Sometimes I just want to shoot both Ralph and Kevin. If those two
could just get along with each other, this plant would run like a
well-oiled machine.
Consultant: What do they fight about?
Manager: Anything and everything that has to do with the production
schedule. Really trivial things in a lot of cases. It all seems so
completely senseless!
Consultant: Have you tried to do anything about it?
Manager: At first, I tried to minimize the impact of their feuds on the rest of
the plant by stepping in and making decisions that would
eliminate the point of controversy. I also tried to smooth things
over as if the arguments were just friendly disagreements. I thought
that after they had a chance to get accustomed to each other, the
problem would go away. But it didn’t. It got to the point that I was
spending a good 20 percent of my time stopping their fights.
Furthermore, I began to notice that other employees were starting to take sides. The younger people seemed to support Kevin;
everybody else sided with Ralph. It began to look as if we might
have our own little war.
Consultant: What’s the current situation?
Manager: I finally told them both that if I caught them fighting again, I would
take very drastic action with both of them. I think that move was a
mistake though, because now they won’t even talk to each other.
Kevin just drops the schedule printouts on Ralph’s desk every
afternoon and walks away. Ralph needs some help in working with
those printouts, and Kevin needs some feedback on what’s actually
going on in the plant. Frankly, things aren’t going as well
production-wise now as when they were at each other’s throats. And
the tension in the plant as a whole is even worse. They are both
good people and outstanding in their respective jobs. I would really
hate to lose either of them, but if they can’t work together, I may
have to let one or both of them go.
Questions
1. Why is this conflict occurring?
2. What method did the manager use in dealing with this conflict situation? Was it
effective?
3. Recommend an approach for resolving the conflict.

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