The plant manager noticed a need to lessen the amount of waste materials, which

Question

The plant manager noticed a need to lessen the amount of waste materials, which occur in the production process. A task force was set up, composed of the plant manager and two of her supervisors, to examine the problem. They met for three months and regularly published the task force objectives and findings on the plant bulletin board. The plant manager found, to her surprise, that the workers on the shop floor exhibited limited interest in the task force and ignored the bulletin board entirely. At the end of the three-month period, the task force came up with several excel- lent recommendations, which required changes in work practices. Most of the workers implemented the recommended changes very reluctantly, and some even secretly worked to sabotage the new practices. Eventually, all recommendations were withdrawn. What went wrong? How should the plant manager have handled this case?

Explanation / Answer

What went wrong: Multiple things could have gone wrong in this kind of scenario. However I’m taking a shot at the most possible reason(s) that would have led to failure of the study and discarding of recommendations.

How should the plant manager have handled this case: Based on the assumptions in the previous section, there could have been specific things that the plant manager could have done in this case to make the exercise successful. However, I’m listing down the generic actions, that would have been applicable in most of cases.

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