Fmc Aberdeen

FMC Aberdeen was a new start up business 5 years ago and Bob Lancaster was the manager of this plant. The Aberdeen plant was structured around principles of participative management, trust of production workers and respect for individuals which involved the use of self directing teams at the same time to meet the demands of the customer. The Green River plant managed by Ken Dailey was a plant that had a union, direct supervisors and managers and many isolated work stations. Green River had several plants with the first beginning in 1948. The four aspects to look at first are Management of ability, Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Ethics.

Management of ability

The Aberdeen’s methods were really the ideas of Bob Lancaster. Bob Lancaster’s approach to organizational structure enabled employees the freedom to do what they want as long as the goals of organization were produced and that meant that product was completed on schedule. Workers were to think in situations as what would they do if it was their business and act upon their own instincts. With this methodology people were held more accountable, responsible and open to new ideas. The main concern that Bob had and he communicated to each and every employee was dishonesty; just don’t lie, cheat, and steal. Fear was eliminated as co-workers were empowered; mistakes were allowed and warranted as that is the only way lessons can be learned and people grow. You would not lose your job as long as you assuring goals of organization were met no matter how you chose to get it done as long as you didn’t lie, cheat or steal.

There is training in place along with certification process in which employees can learn particular skill and get certified in skill. The abilities of the employees were encouraged through this process and there were no limitations to the skills an employee wanted to learn. As more skills got certified an opportunity for a pay increase would also be considered but pay will be talked about in different section. Employees were self motivated to get certifications but were shared among other employees as the teachers to get you certified were other co-workers. Employees were encouraged to find a person of that skill set to teach them skill so it was a joint effort. Success was dependent on your abilities; however, co-workers had an active role in your success as well.

Green River is limited to the level of management because of the union which labored on old standard job descriptions. Green River has also been around a lot longer than Aberdeen so in instance it can take longer for employees to accept new changes due to how long they have been used to the environment at Green River. Taking that into consideration is a must. Communicating more to employees would give proper feedback to find out what will or won’t work. An alternative would be consider removal of union so that there is more ease on job description, and allow employees to form work teams. Since some of plant is isolated and is unclear as to why I can assume that working with chemicals there may need to be some work stations that are protected and isolated. In such case, have rotating working teams so that one team doesn’t feel secluded from rest of areas.

Organizational Commitment

Aberdeen utilizes a team process with each member having specific tasks and the schedule such as shift to work, days off, etc go through the team and no specific manager. Members become an integral part of the team and there is no individual failure. If there is an issue you don’t answer to one person you answer to whole team. When someone realizes first hand they impact the full time commitment changes. You don’t hear it from one person when you are late to work; you hear it from whole team but not in a disrespectful manner either. Participative management was the tool used at Aberdeen to gain organizational commitment. Individuals were asked to treat the company as if it were your own and make decisions based of company being their own business. This method meant mistakes were allowed and that the company trusted each employee which increased commitment within organization. Interaction among manager and employees was a technique also used among Aberdeen plant. Bob Lancaster made sure he knew every individual. Bob would walk around production floor and work with teams on difficult tasks. Bob never used his title for power; all employees even him were equals. This was demonstrated by him parking in what ever parking spot was available. There was no reserved for Plant Manager, etc to show status. He did have a laptop in his office but he made sure that if any employee needed to use it they could. In contrast, Green River utilizes a factory system based off of specialization of work cells. Work cell consists of a small area of work that an individual becomes