Needs Assessment: Hovey and Beard Company Case
This case requires a consideration of the situation at the Hovey and Beard Company within the context of the needs assessment described in the case. Further, this case requires an assessment of the needs assessment process followed by the company with a view toward making recommendations as to how the process could have been improved by the company.
The most efficient way of assessing the process followed by the company is to compare that process to the "Checklist for Designing Needs Assessment Studies. This methodological approach was followed, and the results of the assessment are presented in the remainder of this essay.
To begin this assessment, one must state that in all honest the Hovey and Beard Company did not perform a needs assessment. What the company did was determine that they could sell more wooden toys if they could produce them at a more rapid rate. In turn, the company determined that the hand-made manufacturing process that had been traditionally followed in the company's production of wooden toys would need to be converted to an assembly line process if the company was going to be able to boost production levels sufficiently to meet the increased demand for the company's wooden toys. Next, the company's engineers designed an assembly line process for the production of wooden toys, and operational management determined that the existing workers who had been manufacturing the company's wooden toys by hand would man the assembly line operation. No trial tests were conducted, little education was provided, and a participative decision process was not followed. In short, Hovey and Beard Company management made a top-down decision which was imposed on the employees. When this initiative fell flat on its face, intransigent production engineers resisted any change to their assembly line design and operational procedures and standards. When changes were made in ...