RIVER WOODS PLANT MANAGER Heritage Appliance Company recently announced plans to construct the River Woods manufacturing plant, replacing the company's original, flagship facility adjacent to the company headquarters in Edgemont. In announcing the new plant, the company stated that to the extent possible it would be staffed by Edgemont plant personnel and that the excess personnel would be transferred to other Heritage plants in neighboring states. Heritage management views the River Woods facility as the plant of the future featuring new methods of production and lower processing costs and manpower requirements. In a recent press release, the Heritage CEO noted that they were replacing one of the least automated plants in the industry with a plant using new forms of production not previously seen in appliance manufacturing. Heritage Appliance is also using the River Woods plant to pilot a new decentralized management structure. In the past the firm's marketing activities were directed from the home office by a vice president. Manufacturing operations and certain other departments were under the control of the company's senior vice president. In this centralized, functional, arrangement none of the company's four plants had a general manager. Instead, each department in a plant reported on a line basis to its functional counterpart at the home office (e.g., director of production, director of engineering). In contrast, the new River Woods plant manager will be responsible for the management of all functions and personnel, except marketing and sales. There is general consensus among the top management team that the long-term viability of the firm depends on the success of this initiative. However, some have expressed concerns about the difficulty of the task facing the River Woods general manager. They point to the shift from the functional lines of communication and accountability to a plant-level focus, as well as the challenges of upgrading the skills of the Edgemont plant personnel, working out the bugs in new applications of advanced manufacturing processes to appliance design and production, and dealing with the inevitable complaints from employees in a small company town who are not satisfied with new assignments and who might serve as the catalyst for unionizing the only nonunion U.S. appliance manufacturing firms. Questions to consider before class: 1. If you were part of the selection committee for the River Woods plant manager position, based on what you have learned about the sources of personnel power in Chapter 5 of Whetten & Cameron, describe what you would consider to be the ideal candidate's qualifications.2. If you were offered the new River Woods plant manager position, based on what you have learned about the sources of position power, what actions would you take to insure that as the company's first general manager you had the necessary clout to accomplish your assigned duties? 3. Using the information on influence strategies in the second half of the Whetten & Cameron chapter as your guide, strategize how you would address the challenges you are likely to encounter if you accepted the position of River Woods plant manager. Be ready to discuss these matters with your team. Source: Whetten and Cameron, Developing Management Skills (Sixth Edition) Marking guidance for case analysis (Assignment #2) Name: Student #: Inadequate (FL) Competent (PA) Good (CR) Superior (DN) Supreme (HD) Analysis (70/100) 50 65 75 85 Identify critical issues (12) Use appropriate model(s) in the course to analyze those critical issues (12) Provide feasible solutions to address those issues under the given conditions (12) Recommend your conclusions with sufficient evidence (12) Reflect on the implications in your learning of the subject (12) Writing (30/100) Logically structure your argument (10) Express your ideas in clear and succinct language (10) No major grammatical and spelling mistakes (10) Appropriate references are cited if necessary (no specific consistent style is required; however, the style needs to be consistent throughout your writing) (10) TOTAL Comments: Requirements for Case Analysis: When you work on a case analysis assignment, you can use the questions at the end of each case as your guidance. However, when you write case analysis, please do NOT just answer those questions. A good case analysis should follow the four steps as below: 1. Identify critical issues and/or problems and explain why. 2. Provide possible solutions to the issues/problems you have identified, based on resources you may have. Please remember you often do NOT have endless time and a limitless budget to solve all those issues/problems. You often need to handle many projects at the same time as most managers do in real life. So you need to prioritise your time and resources in your solutions. Think of urgent vs. important issues here. 3. Analyse why some options are feasible, and others are not, using available data and other supporting evidence. You can build your analysis using concepts, theories/models you have learned in the course. 4. Give your recommendations. Good recommendations should offer optimal solutions to your issues/problems, given the time and resources available to you, as well as the priorities of your organization, yourself and other important stakeholders.