CASE ANALYSIS: John Smithers at Sigtek

I. Introduction

Here is in the middle of the holiday season, a festive time when ideally everyone is celebrating, enjoying family and having fun. In anticipation of being fired from his job of three years, John Smithers is home working on his resume. John works at Sigtek, a small telecommunications company, Sigtek was in need of a change and several months earlier Sigtek set in motion a plan to launch a Total Quality Program and John had been appointed one of two site managers to run the program. Not only would this be the key to getting Sigtek set on the right path but, John felt this would be a challenging and rewarding opportunity for him and he would be able to utilize and apply some of …show more content…
to provide product and service quality better than all competitors;
2. to be the lowest –cost quality producer;
3. to relentlessly pursue quality improvement;
4. to manage through leadership;
5. to personally involve all employees through participative activity;
6. to be compromised of employees who approach the job fearlessly.

There has been a division between the engineering and operations divisions for years that could create a barrier to change:

The current head of engineering Andrew Cross and his counterpart Richard Patricof head of operations are ill matched. They have totally different management styles and beliefs. Cross is committed to bring in new ideas and management practices while Patricof leans more towards style and less towards substantive results. This conflict is what creates the natural split between the engineering and operation departments. The two departments were physically separated, the engineering department is isolated in it’s own building away from the rest of operations and this separation is symbolic of the deep orgazational gulf that divides the two departments. This division makes it impossible for the organization to operate efficiently and effectively.

John Smithers has reservations about their ability to effect change. He did not want to offer false hopes and expectations to the