CASE 2 The Hospital Days Off Bart Metlen had been the hospital materials manager

Question

CASE 2 The Hospital Days Off Bart Metlen had been the hospital materials manager for 3 months, and he was going crazy. Every day he was confronted with a stockout of something important that r equired him either having a courier from the vendor make a special delivery or going to borrow the item from a neighborhood hospital He began tracking his records, and he found that 15% of the time that the hospital departments needed supplies, they were out of stock. When trying to discover the major cause of this, he finally concluded that faulty records were to blame. Approximately 10% of the records were incorrect in their computer inventory system Further analysis revealed the major causes of the records getting off: Supplies were sometimes with drawn from the storeroom by nursing personnel at night without signing out for the supplies. Or the unit of measure was incorrect. For example, a case of film consisted of 12 boxes and was distributed to he X-ray department by boxes. If the X-ray department requested one case, it was appropriate to deduct oxes from the inventory, but sometimes only one box was subtracted, causing a deviation ot ll Th e materials management department consisted of 25 employees, who worked in purchasing receiving and distribution, or the central supply area. Starved for solutions, Metlen finally confronted his employees Here is the problem, people. We are out of stock 15% of the time, and this is causing us to spen a lot of extra time and money in getting rush deliveries. So I offer this challenge to you: If we as a department, can reduce the stockouts to less than 500, I will give every one of you an addi tional day off the following month. I dont care how you get to the 5%, so long as you dont fudge the numbers. Whatever you can, do It was a magical solution. Suddenly the employees saw reducing stockouts as a way to get a m earned day off to go fishing or shopping, or simply for sleeping in. The department was totally mo lized and made the goal the very first month and every month Metlen was employed at the hosp They found a variety of ways to accomplish this, including cycle counting the inventory to r cile the balances (covered in Chapter 14). This illustrates a case in which increased productivity one of reached through an incentive program, and finding the incentives that motivate employees is the challenges of good management Discussion Questions 1. What other approaches might Metlen have tried to motivate his employees? 2. Going back to Chapter 1, what performance measures would be important here?

Explanation / Answer

1. Melten used the approach of incentive to motivate his employees and it worked out well. Some other approaches that Melten might have approached are:

a. Recognition - Recognition is also one method which is widely used by organisations to motivate their employees and get the best out of them. It is also a kind of incentive where employees get recognition and goodwill in the organisation. Employees are appreciated for their efforts.

b. Empowerment - Another very good method of motivating the employees is empowering them to take the correct decisions which would result in the betterment. This will give employees the sense of responsibility to the employees to do better.

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