Litton Industries Plant

This research presents a proposal for a process intervention designed to increase productivity at a Litton Industries manufacturing plant. The Litton Advanced Circuitry Division manufactures preprinted circuit boards. A significant proportion of the plant's production involves the design and manufacture of circuit boards to fulfill the unique requirements of different customers. Within such an environment, productivity improvement is heavily dependent on the efficient and seamless interaction between user and producer (Whiting, 1993, pp. 6168). The proposed intervention is structured to improve both the quality and the speed of the required interactions between user and producer between the time of order inquiry and design approval.

At present, the mean time between customer order inquiry and design approval is seven days. This time span often proves to be inconvenient for the customer, and the present time span also affects adversely the productivity of the Litton plant. The losses to the Litton plant range from lost contracts because of slow reaction time to customer requests to inflated human resource costs because of the inefficient management of available resources.

The Zytec Corp., a manufacturer of power supplies for electronics equipment, solved a similar problem to that being faced by the Litton plant through the implementation of a process

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ing the team, in effect, to become almost a separate company within a company (Owens, 1991, pp. 5365). The selfmanaged work team (SMWT) tends to affect three aspects of organizational structure. The affected aspects of structure are (1) lines of managerial authority, (2) responsibility and accountability within the organization, and (3) the informal organization within the organizational structure. Strong leadership is necessary for the effective functioning of SMWTs (Barton, 1991, pp. 5859). Such leadership is essential if SMWTs are to hire, train, and assign new employees, determine work schedules, provide instruction in various skills, and make decisions related to bonus compensation and employee terminations (Barton, 1991, pp. 5859). To foster strong leadership in SMWTs, organizational management must relinquish control over details, concrete problems, and daytoday activities (Barton, 1991, pp. 5859). Organizational management then devotes its energies to broader responsibilities, such as planning, and providing direction and support for SMWTs (Barton, 1991, pp. 5859). Within such an organizational environment, management retains authority over strategy, while the SMWTs assumes authority for tactics within a fra
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Some common words found in the essay are:
SMWTs Barton, Mahler Nicholson, Recommendation Based, Circuitry Division, Intervention Alternatives, Zytec Corp, Litton Industries, Publishing Company, Industry Week, organizational structure, Denton Keith, mahler nicholson, nicholson 1989, gortner mahler, gortner mahler nicholson, mahler nicholson 1989, litton plant, nicholson 1989 110, 1991 pp, 1989 110, 1992 pp, informal organization, inquiry design approval, design approval, 1991 pp 5859,
Approximate Word count = 1492
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)