HRM 4016-CASE STUDY GROUP ASSIGNMENT-FRANKLIN EQUIPMENT LTD

Project Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment The Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rial Process McGraw Hill CASE STUDY GROUP ASSIGNMENT OPTION 1- DUE WEEK 6 SESSION 1FRANKLIN EQUIPMENT LTD (FEL)HRM 4016This is a team project that is a combined written report and a presentation of your findings. Theremay be four to six people assigned to a team as directed by the professor Students will beassigned to a group either in class or online prior to the end of week 3.Read the case study thoroughly to obtain an understanding of FRANKLIN EQUIPMENT LTD(FEL) and the current business situation. As you go through the case study, identify issues andaspects of the situation that will help you to analyze the case and write thorough responses to thequestions outlined below. You must use HR concepts and do secondary research in order tosupport your responses.Please follow APA standards for works cited. Students are reminded that references must be citedfor all sources of information. Use Times New Roman and use 11-point font.Each team will submit a ten-twenty page paper responding to the questions that are outlined onthe case study. This will include the cover page, and works cited, PPTS (condensed to fit on 8.5x 11 inch pages), meeting minutes, peer evaluations and a team contract. Include handouts in thisreport as appendices, as well. Students are to rewrite the questions and the related responses.Teams are expected to respond to the questions using the HR concepts used in the course andusing secondary research both from the text and other sources. Your cover page for the reportmust include the respective names and student numbers of all team members, professor name andcourse number. You will submit the completed report including the first two meeting templates,references, and team contract and peer evaluations, PPTS in class by the deadline outlined to youby the professor.You are expected to individually and privately evaluate each of your team members on theircontribution to the team project. Include a peer review for each member of the team includingself. Each member of the team must complete peer evaluations individually. One person willneed to compile the peer evaluations and include as attachments and hand in during class. Behonest in your evaluations please. Use the template that has been assigned for this purpose.A minimum 8 – maximum 10-minute presentation is required from each group. Do not use internetbased connection ie. Hotmail or Prezi. You must provide the class with the context of the case priorto presenting your findings and solutions. Students are encouraged to be creative with yourpresentations. Everyone in the team must participate. Do NOT read your report to the class. Youmust try to engage the class in your discussion.Presentations require a power point presentation capturing important information. You mayconsider handouts as well. PPTS must be included in your report. Keep in mind you are making abusiness presentation therefore business casual is required. Presentations are to be ready the sameday. Presenters will be drawn at random for delivery. All students must be ready to deliver theirpresentation or will be assigned a penalty for delay. .The written report of the assignment is due in Week 6 Session 1 is due in class and thepresentation is due on the same day in class. The assignment is valued at a total of 20% of yourfinal mark for this course.1 Project Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment The Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rial Process McGraw Hill Late reports and presentations will be penalized 20% per day when students cause lateness.Plagiarism is a serious academic misconduct that can result in failure of the course. Assignmentsare not accepted via email.CASE STUDY-FRANKLIN LTD.Franklin Equipment, LTD (FEL) with headquarters and main fabrication facilities in Saint John,New Brunswick, was founded 100 years ago to fabricate customer designed large machines forconstruction businesses in the Maritime Provinces Over the years its product lines becamestrategically focused on creating rock-crushing equipment for dam and highway construction andfor a few other markets that require the processing of aggregate. FEL now designs, fabricates andassembles stationary and portable rock-crushing plants and services its own products and those ofits competitors.In the 1970s FEL began to expand its market from the Maritime Provinces to the rest of Canada.FEL currently has several offices and fabrication facilities throughout the country. More recentlyFEL has made a concerted effort to market its products internationally.Last month, FEL signed a contract to design and fabricate a rock-crushing plant for a Middle Eastconstruction project, called Project Abu Dhabi. Charles Gatenby secured this contract and hasbeen assigned as a project manger. This project is viewed as a coup because FEL has wanted toopen up markets in this area for a long time and has had difficulty getting prospective customersto realize that FEL is a Canadian firm and not from the United States. Somehow these customersview all North American vendors as the same and are reluctant to employ any of them because ofinternational political considerations.A project of this scope typically starts with the selection of a team of managers responsible forvarious aspects of the design, fabrication, delivery and installation of the product. Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rselection is important because the produce design and fabrication vary with the unique needs ofeach customer. For example, the terrain, rock characteristics, weather conditions, and logisticalconcerns create special problems for all phases of plant design and operations. In addition,environmental concerns and labor conditions vary from customer to customer and from region toregion.In addition to the project manager, all projects include a design engineer, an operations manager,who oversees fabrication and on-site assembly; and a cost accountant, who oversees all projectfinancial and cost reporting matters. Each of these people must work closely together if a wellrunning plant is to be delivered on time and within costs constraints. Because internationalcontracts often require FEL to employ host nationals for plant assembly and to train them foroperations, a human resource manager is also assigned to the project team. In such cases, thehuman resource manager needs to understand the particulars of the plant specifications and thenuse this knowledge to design selection procedures and assess particular training needs. Thehuman resource manager also needs to learn the relevant labor laws of the customer’s country.FEL assigns managers to project teams based on their expertise and their availability to work on aparticular project given their other commitments. This typically means that managers withoutheavy current project commitments will be assigned to new projects. For instance, a managerfinishing one project will likely be assigned a management position on a new project team. Theproject manager typically has little to say about who is assigned to his or her team.2 Project Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment The Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rial Process McGraw Hill Because he secured Project Abu Dhabi and has established positive working relationship with theAbu Dhabi customer, Gatenby was assigned to be project manager. Project Abu Dhabi are BillRankins, a brilliant design engineer, Rob Perry, operations manager with responsibility forfabrication and installation, Elaine Bruder, finance and cost accounting manager and SamStonebreaker, human resource manager. Each of these managers has worked together onnumerous past projects.A few years ago, FEL began contracting for team facilitator services from several consultingfirms to help new project teams operate effectively. Last month, FEL recruited Carl Jobe fromone of these consulting firms to be a full time internal consultant. A number of managers,including Gatenby, were so impressed with Jobe’s skills that they convinced FEL topmanagement of the need to hire a permanent internal facilitator; Jobe was the obvious choice.Because Gatenby was instrumental in hiring Jobe at FEL, he was excited at the prospect of usingJobe to facilitate team building among Project Abu Dhabi team members. Gatenby was veryproud of having secured this project and had expected to be appointed project manager. He knewthat this project’s success would be instrumental in advancing his own career.Gatenby told Jobe. “This project is really important to FEL and to me personally. I really need foryou to help us develop into a team that works well together to achieve the project’s goals withinbudget. I’ve observed your success in developing teams on other projects and I expect you will dothe same for Project Abu Dhabi. I’ll take care of you if you help me make this work”.Jobe outlined for Gatenby how he would proceed. Jobe would begin by interviewing teammembers individually to learn their perceptions of each other and of the promises and pitfalls ofbeing involved in this project. Meetings of the entire team would follow these interviews usingthe information he collected to help establish a team identity and a shared vision.Jobe interviewed Bruder first. She expressed skepticism about whether the project could succeed.During the interview, Bruder appeared to be distant and Jobe could not figure out why he had notestablished good rapport with her. Bruder intimated that she expected a lot of cost overruns and alot of missed production deadlines. But not knowing Jobe well, Bruder was reluctant to identifyany specific barriers to the project’s success. While she would not directly say so it was clear toJoe that Bruder did not want to be a part of Project Abu Dhabi. Jobe left this interview confusedand wondering what was going on.Jobe’s next interview was with Perry, the operations manager. Perry has worked at FEL for 15years and he immediately came to the point: “This project is not going to work. I cannotunderstand why upper management keeps assigning me to work on projects with Rankins. Wesimply cannot work together and we don’t get along. I have disliked him from day one. He keepsdropping the fact that he’s has earned all these advanced degrees from Purdue. And he keepstelling us how things are done there. I know he’s better educated than I am and he is really smart.But I am smart too and am good at what I do. There is no need for Rankins to make me feel likean idiot because I don’t have a degree. Jobe, I’ll be honest with you. Rankins has only been herefor five years, but I hold him personally responsible for my problem with alcohol and for itsresulting effect on my marriage. I got divorced last year and its Rankin’s fault.”Jobe next talked with Rankins, who said, “ I don’t care what you do. Perry and I simply can’twork closely together for the nine months it will take to get it done. One of us will kill the other.Ever since I arrived at FEL, Perry has hated my guts and does everything he can to sabotage mydesigns. We usually worry about customers creating change orders; here it’s the fabrication andoperations manager who is responsible for them. Perry second-guesses everything I do and makes3 Project Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment The Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rial Process McGraw Hill design changes on his own, and these are always bad decisions. He is out of control; I swear hestays awake at night thinking up ways to ruin my designs. I don’t have this problem with anyother manager.”Jobe left these interviews thoroughly discouraged and could not imagine what would come up inhis interview with Stonebreaker. But Stonebreaker was quite positive: “I enjoy these internationalprojects where I get to travel abroad and learn about different cultures. I can’t wait to get startedon this.“Jobe asked Stonebreaker about the ability of various team members to work together.Stonebreaker replied. “No problem” We’ve worked together before and have had no problems.Sure, there have been ruffled feathers and hurt feelings between Rankins and Perry. Rankins canbe arrogant and Perry stubborn, but its never been anything that we can’t work around. Besides,both of them are good at what they do and are professionals. They’ll keep their heads onstraight.”Jobe was even more bewildered. Gatenby says this project’s success rides on Jobe’s facilitationskills. The finance manager appears to want off this project team. The design engineer andoperations manager admit they detest each other and cannot work together. And the humanresources manager, having worked on projects with Perry and Rankins before, expects a rosyworking relationship and anticipates no problems.Jobe had a second meeting with Gatenby. Before discussing the design of the team-buildingsessions, he asked questions to learn what Gatenby thought about the ability of team members towork together. Gatenby admitted that there has been very bad blood between Perry and Rankins,but added, “ That’s why he hired you. It’s your job to make sure that the history between thosetwo doesn’t interfere with Project Abu Dhabi’s success. It’s your job to get them to work welltogether. Get it done.”Their dialogue toward the end of this meeting progressed as follows:Jobe: “Why do you expect Rankins and Perry to work well together, given their history? Whatincentives do they have to do so?Gatenby: “As you should know, FEL requires formal goal setting between project managers andfunctional managers at the beginning of each project. I’ve already done this with Bruder,Stonebreaker, Perry, and Rankins. Perry and Rankins have explicit goals stating they must workwell together and cooperate with each other.”Jobe: What happens if they do not meet their goals?”Gatenby: “I’ve already discussed this with top management. If it appears to me after two monthsthat things are not working out between Perry and Rankins, FEL will fire Rankins.”Jobe: “Does Perry know this?”Gatenby: “Yes”.4 Project Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment The Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rial Process McGraw Hill Discussion Questions1. Write a word essay – Evaluate the criteria FEL uses to assign managers to project teams. What efficiencies dothese criteria create? What are the resulting problems?2. Why is it even more important that project team members work well together oninternational projects such as Project Abu Dhabi?3. Discuss the dilemma that Jobe now faces.4. What should Jobe recommend to Gatenby, and substantiate your response using HR andOB concepts that you have learned from the text and class that are detailed andappropriate to the issues.5

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