The Paradoxical Twins:
Acme and Omega Electronics
Albert Tapia
Dr. Henry Pratt
Organization Theory And Design

The Paradoxical Twin
In 1986, Technological products of Erie Pennsylvania was bought by a Cleveland Manufacture. Two different investor purchased each one of the plants that became known as Acme Electronics, and Omega Electronics that manufactured computer chips, and printed circuit boards. In July of 1992, a major photocopier manufacture was looking for a subcontractor to assemble the digital memory units of its new experimental copier, a contract estimated to be worth $7 to $9 million in annual sales. Acme and omega often competed for the same contracts, due to geographically being so close. Respectively, Acme had annual sales of $100 million and employed 500 employees, while Omega had annuals sales of $80 million and employed 480 people. Each organization had a different process in their organization environment that was beneficial to their system in regards to production, communication, and efficiency
Case Analysis
Problem
In July of 1992, a major photocopier manufacturer was looking for subcontractor to assemble the digital memory units for its new experimental copier. The photocopier manufacturer explicitly made it clear that speed was critical due to the fact that they had promised a finished product by Christmas and expected 100 prototypes from each firm. Each organization would be pressured due to the short amount of only two weeks to produce a prototype for approval of contract. Each company has different objectives on how to obtain their goal; the goals of Acme and Omega could not have been more different. One, Acme, wanted to focus solely on high-volume manufacturing and beating out competitors. The other, Omega, cared more about promoting employee satisfaction/cooperation and producing a product as a team. John Tyler had a major influence in the goals of acme by retaining the structure developed from technological products because it was most efficient for high-volume manufacturing. Top managers’ implemented organizational charts, and detailed job descriptions, which clearly stated the responsibilities of each department and specific job tasks. Basically, Tyler wanted to streamline everything and orchestrate department by department with no cross communication to develop the photocopier prototype. Rawls of omega wanted to coordinate a more informal atmosphere allowing cross functional communication by allowing each department to understand the needs of others he wanted his managers at omega to buy into a team effort and had them work together to create the prototype. Depending on what a buyer considers best production results will dictate which supplier you would rather buy from. Quantity vs quality, surely Acme is more likely to produce a higher amount of photocopy machines due to their high-volume manufacturing, high production rate increases the possibility defectiveness in product thus lowering quality percentage. Omega makes valuable use of their time, not willing to rush the process for production rate increase. Omega would rather steady decrease the defectiveness percentage of production, thus creating more quality in product. Each method has an advantage and disadvantage depending on the buyer’s strategic goal. Due to omega’s method of production they were more effective in developing digital memory units and meeting the deadline for the photocopier manufacturer. The constant informative meetings between department heads prior to the production of the photocopy machines outlined the process and kept every department informed of where each department stands in the process. Omega working together yielded better results due to their collaboration. For example, with the parts that both companies had trouble ordering, one electrical engineer had a connection in Japan that he could get the components from. This saved Omega so much time and stress. The decision to work together also paid off