Background:
Bill Carpenter was an engineer. He worked for many years as a mechanical engineer in the petroleum industry, developing large equipment that was used in refineries. It was there that Bill learned about heat, and how heat impacted metal in various ways. During that time, Bill also had a passion—barbeque ribs. Bill was an avid barbeque-er, and competed in local and regional competitions. He found that many of the grills he used in competition were not good—they heated unevenly, had poor ventilation, and flamed out when gas pressure was too high or too low. In the mid 1980’s after a decade of growth, an oil bust wreaked havoc on the local economy—tens of thousands of former oilmen were out of work. Bill had no choice; find a new career or go under. With the help of family and friends, he started his new business: Bill’s Grills.
Bill’s Grills started in Bill’s garage. He and another former oil engineer made large, custom built gas and charcoal grills by hand. Each grill was made to customer specifications, and took between 3 weeks and 4 months to build. While the work was steady and he enjoyed it, Bill found that margins were narrow and the physical labor quite intense. He began to re-invest all of his earnings into expanding production. Things had been going well for Bill. Although he had big competition like Weber and Char-Broil, the niche market they were in (high performance, special order) helped them to remain unique, with a loyal fan base. The management team had been able to increase year-over-year sales, while simultaneously decreasing costs for 12 years in a row. By the early 2000’s Bill's Grills had $200 million in sales and employed nearly 500 people in two shifts. Most operations took place in two factories located within 30 miles of each other in southern Texas, while R&D was located in three separate facilities located in Texas, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Then, disaster struck. When the dot-com bubble burst, so did the market for high-end barbeque grills. However, after some adjustment Bill and his management team were able to right-size the business, and eventually even grow. When the great recession hit in mid-2008, Bill’s Grills had $300 million in sales and employed nearly 500 people at a single factory, working on three shifts. The business continued to operate out of the two production facilities and three additional R&D facilities.
While Bill was able to weather through the first two years of the recession, by mid-2010 it became obvious that this time it was different. Sales were low and morale among employees was lower. Employees, who had been paid generally below average for the area decided to unionize. Still, the average wage among hourly employees was only $12.75 per hour.
To make matters worse, the leadership team had very little contact with Bill. When business took a turn for the worse, Bill had a hard time dealing with the problem. Rather than give up the reins, he simply stopped participating; he stopped going to meetings, stopped responding to emails, and stopped taking phone calls. Everyone was concerned. Bill’s Grills had gone from a 500-person strong company to a headless monster in a little over a year. This was when Patrick was called. Patrick was brought in as a management consultant then hired full time as the Plant Manager.
See below file for organizational chart to help describe the hierarchy.
Bill's Grills Org Chart.docx
Patrick was faced with turning around a company that operated in the red every month, with historically low levels of productivity in the factories and an R&D group that had not developed a patent or new product in nearly 5 years. Over the next several weeks, you will be asked to put yourself in Patrick’s shoes. What should he do to save Bill’s Grills?
Key Players:
Bill: (Original owner and creator of Bill’s Grills)
Male, 60 yrs. old, Mechanical Engineer, 20 yrs, experience in Petroleum industry.
Once respected, he has been out-of-the loop for about a year. This has left plant leadership unable to make important decisions, and hourly employees with questions about the state of the company.
Patrick: (Management Consultant/Plant Manager)
Male, 30 yrs. old, MBA.
Fresh out of school with his MBA, his prior experience had been at a company with less than 50 people, which was sound financially. He was discovered and hired by a recruiter who needed to fill the leadership role at Bill’s fast. Patrick has a lot to do, fast, to keep Bill’s alive.
Jose: (Plant Quality Manager)
Male, 40 yrs. old, originally from South America, English is second language. He has been at Bill’s for 5 years, starting as a quality engineer, and working his way up.
When he was first hired, he had high ideals for how Bill’s should run. But, after a few years, he realized that none of his hard work seemed to matter, so he just kind of gave up. As long as Bill’s wasn’t sued for a major quality problem or some type of liability issue, he would just go with the flow.
Janet: (Plant Operations Manager)
Female, 35 yrs. old, new on the job - she started just a week before Patrick.
She is adjusting to the norms and culture at Bill’s. She has some plant operations experience. She is under tremendous pressure to improve productivity.
Troy: (Maintenance Manager)
Male, 26 yrs old. He was one of the original employees at Bill’s, and had risen from the ranks within Bill’s, starting on the production line and working his way up. He had just taking on the role of Maintenance Manager a year before.
Sue: (Research and Development (R&D) Manager) Works remotely from the North Carolina R&D site.
Part 1/Introduction - Answer the following questions:
1. Based upon your initial assessment, and the information in Chapter 1, what OB challenges and opportunities can you identify?
2. Based on the general descriptions of the key players, what challenges may arise regarding managing demographic and cultural diversity as described in Chapter 2?
3. What are the most immediate needs for Bill’s and what would you do first, if you were Patrick?