ound that a team approach to work tasks brings about a high degree of efficiency and fosters quick problem solving as well as lower inventory. The very appearance of a problem during production is an incentive for the Japanese to get busy solving the root of the problem. In other words, the ABC Box Company will have to give up the old hierarchy and think of new types of leadership. The old way may have been comfortable for past decades, but it tends to be too militaristic and masculine, making the workplace a battleground instead of a place for personal growth and pleasant accomplishment. As Madu notes, "if managers want to follow the military mode, they ought to seriously consider joining the military" (Madu, 1993, p.66). Because of this old-fashioned, early Industrial Age approach to the manufacturing and sale of boxes, the company's employees do not proportionately represent both genders and all racial groups. Although evening out these human resource inequities is not a primary goal of ABC at the present time, it is assumed that some serious restructuring will result in more diverse hiring.
It is suggested that the company make stronger organizational divisions between the three facets of what is created. There should be a distinct shoebox company, a casket company, and a cabinet company, under the loose umbrella of upper management. These functions and products are quite different from each other, with differing markets, methods of sales, and types of distribution. It is merely frustrating for the middle management to pretend that they are a part of a big family of 6,000 when, in fact, the challenges of each of the three companies are completely unique. Of course, physically, the three companies share the same acreage, and the plants are in close proximity, but other than that, the functions and problems are unique to the products manufactured and sold. This shift will solve many of the company's problems.
ABC Box ...