B.R. Richardson Timber Products Corporation · Case study 6 B.R Richardson Timber Products...
Transcript of B.R. Richardson Timber Products Corporation · Case study 6 B.R Richardson Timber Products...
CASE STUDY 6
B.R. Richardson Timber Products Corporation
1
Jack Lawler returned to his desk with a fresh cup of coffee. In front of him was a file of
his notes from his two visits to the B.R. Richardson Timber Products Corporation. As
Lawler took a sip and opened the file, he was acutely aware that he had two tasks. In a
week, he was to meet with the company president, B.R. Richardson, and the industrial
relations officer, Richard Bowman, to make a presentation on his findings with regard to
the lamination plant and his reconunendations for what might be done. Lawler knew
he had a lot of preparation to do, starting with a diagnosis of the situation. It wouldn't be
easy. Taking another sip from his mug, he leaned back in his chair and recalled how this
project had begun.
It was about 2:30 p.m. when the office intercom buzzed. Lawler's secretary said there was
a Richard Bowman calling from Papoose, Oregon. Lawler knew that Papoose was a small
community about 150 miles south, a town with three or four lumber mills lying in the
mountain range of western Oregon. When Lawler picked up his telephone, Bowman
introduced himself as being in charge of industrial relations for the B.R. Richardson
Timber Products Corporation. He was calling because a friend of his in a regional
association for training and development persons had recommended Lawler, and
Bowman had heard of Lawler's management training and consulting reputation. Bowman
said he was searching for someone to conduct a 'motivation course' for the blue-collar
employees of the lamination plant. Morale in the plant was very low, there had been a
fatality in the plant a few months before and the plant manager was 'a bit authoritative'.
Given the gravity of the p}ant situation, Bowman wanted to conduct the course within the
next few months.
Lawler asked if the plant manager was supportive of the course idea. Bowman replied
that he hadn't asked him but had gotten approval from B.R. Richardson, the founder and
president of the firm. Lawler then stated that he really didn't have enough information on
which to design such a course nor enough information to determine whether such a
course was appropriate. He suggested a meeting with Bowman and Richardson the next
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nted by permission of Craig C Lundberg, Cornell Unrversity Events described are not intended to illustrate either elfecllve or ,neffecllve managerial behaviour.
Case study 6 B.R Richardson Timber Products Corporation 509
Rolf mentioned that 15 to 20% of the work hours were spent trying to unsort the
beam piles, pre- and post-planer.
Rolf mentioned that architectural beams, 7 to 12% of the output, took three times as
long to process as the plain beams.
On Joe again: 'Joe does a good job of scheduling and customer relations.'
On B.R.: 'B.R. is secretive; he should keep the guys informed.'
Rolf often has to juggle men around on their tasks and catches a lot of flack for this.
I asked his criteria for deciding which men would go on which jobs. They were (1) how
well the man will do the job and (2) how easy it is to replace him at his original task.
Rolf said overtime is a big problem. It's necessary to go through the jobs in order. Men
never know how long they'll have to work. Lock-ups have to be finished. He mentioned
that a good lock-up will take an hour, a bad one, one and a half to two hours. (A lock-up
is essentially gluing and clamping the beam into a form.)
Rolf said he used to spend three hours a day on the glue crew. He doesn't do this
anymore; he has a good crew. Eighty percent of the glue crew are good workers, in Rolfs
opinion. He mentioned that two of the bad ones quit because they didn't want overtime.
Also, Rolf noted that it was possible to avoid overtime by scheduling good or easy lock
ups. This was done when the glue crew had been putting in too much overtime.
Rolf stated that the overall problem with the operation was that everyone knows that
'B.R. doesn't give a shit about them'. I asked him if there was anything he liked about
working for the company, and he said, 'I like working for J9e.' We ended the interview
with Rolf saying, 'Overall, it's not a bad place to work; the cheques don't bounce.'
Jack Lawler leaned back in his chair and stretched. It had all come back. Now he needed
a plan for working. It seemed that the first step was to determine what ideas, models or
theories would be useful in ordering and understanding the information he had. Then he
would have to do a diagnosis and, finally, think about what to say to Ben Richardson and
Richard Bowman. After buzzing his secretary to say that he didn't want to be interrupted,
Lawler rolled up his sleeves and began to work.