Category: MBA Projects

Leadership Theories:

“Those managing the change did not gather the whole workforce together to discuss the changes.” Thought the establishing the project the team did not discussed or involved any personnel who is effected by this scheme. They believed in that which they felt is good.

The team managed by Lipton was dedicated and enthusiastic, as mentioned in the case study. They are achievement-oriented behaviour. Their only goal is to implement and success the project. According to this statement it can be consider the team as Achievement-oriented team.

They used the common notice boards to display the rotas and other important development in the project, but the case study does not mention anything about the feedback. So they used the Telling method to tell the staff about the latest updates but does not cared about their opinion and feedback.

The Path Goal Theory  can be applicable to the implementing team. In this case study the implementation team tried to success the project in a such a way they believe is the best for the present situation. They behaved directive, and telling to motivate the subordinates by showing them the positive result of the project. In the case study it mentioned that “ they believed that if it could be made to work well on the pilot scheme then good news would spread and people would come on board”. The team is trying to get succeeded in the pilot project and it is believing that after success everybody will satisfied and join, but they neglected the things happening through the project. This made them fail at the end of the project.

At the time of decision making to either implement or remove the Multi-skilled Worker concept, the unions of the trust decided to conduct an voting and release a ballot. This approach can be considered as Participatory Leadership behaviour. This approach is an effective and most success proved method in the history for good decision making process.

Groups and teams, team leadership:

According to the case study there are some issues in the deferent groups in the Rossett NHS Trust. These issues are expressed by some of the managers in the trust in the case study. In page nine of the case study it is clearly mentioned that there are some problems between hotel services and medical services groups, they are not willing to work as a team with a team spirit, and they are developing some boundaries between two groups like the clinical group is thinking that the hotel services are only for cleaning and they are not part of the medical services, and unfortunately the hotel services group also feeling like that. A  manager from hotel services arranged some meetings with clinical groups to improve  awareness in them, but nobody responded for that. This statement is showing their ignorance of hotel services group.

            These groups are ignoring that they all are here for reach one goal that is servicing the patients effectively and satisfy the customer with our service. 

Management and Leadership:

In the case study it mentioned that there are two directories, according to the situations from the case study it can be said that there is a gap between these two managements. If we take the issue of implementation of the Multi-skilled workers the managers opinion from each group are quit opposite. The manager from Multi-skilled workers concept Ms. Lipton said about new scheme that “ Basically if anything need moving we move it; if it needs feeding we feed it; if it needs cleaning we clean it and that’s what generic working is about”( page 8, paragraph 1, case study). In the same situation Directorate General Manager (DGM) Mr. Thomas Alban from clinical directories said like “The goal posts have been endlessly moving, it changes with the wind. One minute they are going to be doing ABC and the next minute it was ABC”( page 8, paragraph 3 case study).

The above context is showing that these two directories had a cold war from inside. There are some more reasons for it. Because of the new implementing system the clinical directory is losing about 37,500 hours per year ( these work going to hotel services from nurses) and that work is shifting to Site Service Directorate this caused a little controversy, and in the present working scheme the portering staff who are working in the wards under ward managers, they will report to their managers in the Site Service Directorate, and the ward managers who belongs to clinical directorate control among the portering staff was limited, this issue also caused frustration in the trust( mentioned on page 6, last paragraph).

Motivation:

This is the important element in any organisation to succeed with efficient productivity. In the Rossett NHS trust it is needed more to motivate the staff towards the achievement.

When we take in account the literature, the above statement can be proved. In the introduction of the case it is mentioned that the absenteeism of the hospital is favourable with other organisations, but the turnover of the trust is advert when we compare it. It is clearly showing that the other organisations with more absenteeism than rossett trust, they are getting more turnover than this, but why rossett not able get more turnover. This question only can be satisfied with one answer that is ‘motivating the staff’.  

Ms. Lipton said in UNISON the trade union meeting in page 9 and paragraph 3 of the case study that; the domestic staff believes that this is only ‘a cost improving exercise’. Actually it is not only for that, it is majorly for improving the customer service. But the managers failed here to motivate the staff and let them to feel that this is for the patients and not only for the cost improvement. By announcing this statement Lipton expressed her unrestraint on the staff.

“The sub group comprising the generic worker role were often referred as ‘TRIBES’ by managers across the hospital”(case study: multiskilling at NHS rossett trust, MBA, Glyndwr university, 2010, page 9 and paragraph 2). This line is from case page 9 and paragraph 2, clearly explains the situation in the workplace of rosette NHS hospital. It can be said that because of this situation the trust is not able to get more turnover. This tells us the managers instead of  motivating the staff, they are criticising and commenting on the staff. In this condition nobody can work with full effort.

One more example as above paragraph is mentioned in page 9 and paragraph 2 of case study is ‘’ a group of domestics, known as ,ward hostesses’, enjoyed a somewhat privileged position among their colleagues whose work focused almost exclusively on cleaning.’’(page 9 and paragraph 2 of case study). This is also can be treated as lack of motivation. Because all staff in the staff are working under a trust and under a system so all should be treated same irrespective of their position.

Another thing is that the all porters are mostly men in the female population leading organisation rossett NHS trust. This made the porters felt like all the women are going off from cleaning job and we are going to do this all the time in future (according to page 9 paragraph 2). Adding to this Ms. Lipton a women manager of pilot project in a large ward stated that; ‘’ women will go for it to see men cleaning, and they really enjoy the varied workload’’. These situations and these statements made the porters feel like the above.

The another most important example is that the different groups in hospital like doctors, nurses, porters and etc.. have to be work as team to improve efficiency. The managers from deferent departments should motivate them to do so, but here the deferent groups are not willing to work like a team and they are not even caring for that( according to the case study).

Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Issues:

After critically reviewing the case study and careful analysis, the following issues can be identified.

Groups and Teams, Team Leadership:

According to a statement from the case study on page 9 paragraph 2 one manager said that “It is about boundaries between groups. We have nurses, PAMs, physiotherapists, doctors all these groups, and making them all work in teams is impossible.” This is the evidence that there is a problem in making teams; important thing is that the groups mentioned above are not willing to be a team because of the boundaries between the groups. It cannot be seen in this case study that the team leaders are in active positions. Except one manager from the hotel services no manager are team leader tried to solve the situation. Everybody is going in their way and everybody is discussing only their comments.

Management and Leadership:

In this case study it can be assumed that there are sum management and leadership issues under beneath. There are two directorates in the trust, one is Clinical Directorate and another is Site Service Directorate. All the Hotel Services workers (generic and portering staff) comes under Site Service Directorate and all the clinical staff comes under Clinical Directorate.

In the generic worker concept all the porter and domestic workers who works in the different areas and wards of the hospital report to the managers in their own directorate,  the ward managers from clinical directorate have a little control on this staff. This made the ward managers frustrated.

When implementing the new Multi-skilled Worker concept, the amount of 37,500 hours per year is moving from Clinical Directorate to Site Service Directorate. This becomes a clash between these two directorates.

Motivation:

‘Motivation’ this is the thing required in this case in every part of the scene. In many situations the lack of motivation is shown. Some of those are mentioned below

• When comparing the Rosett NHS Hospital with other urban hospitals the absenteeism rate is favourable, but the turnover is lower than others.
• Ms Lipton suggested that the domestic staff believes that this is only a cost implement plan. But this implementation is not only for that; the main aim is to improve customer service efficiency.
• Some of the managers referred the generic workers as TRIBES in certain situation.
• A group of ward hostesses enjoyed the privileged position on their colleagues.
• The groups of clinical directorate are not willing to work as team with domestic staff.
• The porters began to feeling like they are doing the women’s work, and they felt like that they are going to do this work for all the time and the women are going off these duties.
• Because of this new scheme some nurses are afraid that they will lose their jobs.

Leadership Theories:

The pilot implementing project followed more Directive and Achievement-oriented leadership behaviour while the process of implementing. They neglected that in this like situations the participative behaviour is most suitable for this situation.

Telling style also used in this procedure.

In some situations Path Goal theory can be applicable to motivate the staff to support the new implementation scheme and help the trust to reach the goal which is efficient customer service.

Conducting elections in the union for deciding whether implement or not the Multi-Skilled Worker Concept can be considered under participatory leadership style.

Summary:

This case study covered the issue of Implementation of Multi-skilled Worker concept in Rossett NHS Trust Hospital, UK. The author tried to identify, evaluate and explain the leadership and organisational behaviour issues in this particular case. The factors involved in this topic also evaluated. The main finding of this study is considered the areas of Management and Leadership, Motivation, Groups and teams, Team leadership, Leadership Theories through the critical evaluation of literature.

Introduction:

This case study discusses about an implementation problem of a new system at Rossett NHS Trust Hospital. The Rossett Trust Hospital is a medium sized hospital in UK, in this hospital the trust implemented a Multi-Skilled Worker concept as pilot project to decrease the waiting time for action and increase customer service efficiency, and for cost control.

Implementation of this concept, introduced a new multi skilled work force to the hospital. In this implementation 250 people are directly involving over 2800 staff. In the pilot project only 12 people are involving directly. This project was ran about one year in a large ward under the leadership of Ms. Lipton, but finally failed to implement this in full length. The implementation is removed by conducting a voting in which leading voted against the implementation.

In rossett trust hospital there are two directorates one is Clinical Directory, all the clinical staff comes under this, and another is Site Service Directorate, all the Portering & cleaning staff (hotel services staff) comes under it. This implementation moving some 35,000 hours per year from Clinical Directorate to Site Service Directorate, this made a controversy, and the hotel services people fed up by cleaning every time. After some controversies, arguments, issues and mistakes the staff voted against to change in union voting.

This case study identified and evaluated some issues, and tried to explain why the implementation is failed and what are the factors involved.

The successfulness of adoption of RFID technology in garment manufacturing companies is due to below eight factors.  They are (1)User involvement, (2) top management support (3)cost/benefits evaluation, (4)extent of succession supervision  (5)structure, and operation procedure compatibility(6)vendor selection(7)Organizational behavior (8)staff capability as well as  training. 

• Vendor Selection: For the selection of vendors, cost is not the major concern. Vendor selection factors are operational environment of company, vendor extents, trusts between adopting company and the vendor, and evaluations that are lead to success of company. For the design and development purpose, adopt the characteristics. 

• Organizational Motivation: Organizational motivations and needs are use for the performance improvement. This factor is use to motivate the each level employee in the organization using RFID technology. The Employees performance is better when the managers must motivate them and helping the employees to adopt. The company explains the potential details to employee such as sewers’ payroll increase and productivity are use to bring the organization role in the different position. 

• Cost/Benefits Evaluation: The management is justifies and evaluate the cost and benefits of the RFID technology. The changes of IS strategic direction in company procedure is defines using this factor. Cost effectiveness is the key issue that is the RFID technology business value. Cost/benefit evaluation is mainly not for evaluating the financial factors. The company intangible benefits like creating the continuous improvement of culture are indirectly improves the business value using RFID technology.  

• Top Management Support: Adoption project, users support, top management and commitment are the influence the successfulness and adoption decision of the implementation of RFID technology. It is required to provide the good information, resources and improves the supports of user. These are guide for the smooth implementation process. 

• User Involvement: Top management supports guide for the strategic collision on the implementation of RFID technology, user supports and system actualizes the RFID technology potential business value. To understand the position and expectations of the user and describes how these are use to apply for the new technology; the users are involve in the development and the design process. This system is user friendly and promotes the user acceptance to developing the new technology.

• Extent of Progress Supervision: Implementation process of close supervision forms the other successful factor. The adoption of RFID technology is not the curiosity for the installation of project. The system and worker interacts are use to observe the organization settings to acquire the extension and nature with the new system. Investigates how the new RFID technology is matches for the existing organization settings. To track the implementation process of the system, special department is build by the Organization.   

• Staff Competence and Training: The RFID system is well matches for the staff capability so the potential users do not contains any problems to adopt the new system. Potential users are not well educated. Improving the job competence and staff capability provides the training programs. This factor use to develop the new technology.

• Policy, Structure and Operation Process Compatibility: The changes made in the structure of organization, policies and operation process are direct to generate the higher business value in the organization. Adoption of RFID technology is interactive process. The new RFID technology system can obtain the information for real time production. In this case, adoption of the RFID technology came with the modifications in payroll policies and organizational structure. 

So this will be useful for those people who want to implement this technology in the process. So this will be very beneficial to those people. This study explains about the RFID technology.

Recommendations

In textile industry at present there are some drawbacks using the current approaches. The down time of the machine is very high, even the lost time is another factor that is observed to be very high. The orders are not delivered within the time that is expected by the customer. The industry use to take more time to deliver the product which is a major disadvantage. And the sewers should work more hours on over time duties to deliver the product in correct time. Because of the current manual system the company is unable to provide more information; the provided information is also not accurate for calculation of SAM. So because of this reason the line balancing and the cost estimation are not estimated. Production draw backs are not identified by the current approaches and during the real time the product is not monitored.

The process re-engineering is not defined with the current process. Some pressures like department coordination, sewer’s inefficiency and working performance of the employees is covered with the manual functionalities. Using the current approach the staff is not aware of the company services and as result the employees are not having proper motivation. Because of all these drawbacks the company may lose its reputation.                                        

                          To eradicate all this drawbacks a modified system must be designed and developed. As the company is losing its identity because of the drawbacks due to the manual system, it should apply some better systems to solve these problems. The proposed system should be designed in such a way that it should solve both the tangible and intangible drawbacks of the manual system. If a perfect system is designed, the company can solve all these problems caused by the manual system. Finally, the company can improve its reputation using this proposed approach. 

                         Based on the detailed analysis about RFID, I think RFID can clear all these drawbacks of the manual system. Using RFID based systems the down time of a particular machine will be decreased by 30% compared to the down time of manual approach. The factor called lost time decreases by 50% compared to the present system. Delivery rate within the time will be incremented to 90%. The performance will increase by 50% than the performance of present system. And the Over time duty hours for sewers will also be decreased by 10% than current method. Using RFID, the company will provide more data with accuracy for calculation of SAM.

This evaluating can be used for cost estimation and line balancing. Provide monitoring of products in real time, approaches to identify the production drawbacks. It also explains about process re engineering. RFID based system is used to uncover previously hidden threats as department coordination, working performance and sewer’s inefficiency. Improve the motivation for staff by creating the awareness of the company services to employees. Organize the discussions for scientific maintenance which leads to continuous growth of the company. 

                          This shows that RFID based system is the best approach to use in textile industry to solve all the problems that are raised using the previous approach. Designing and implementation of RFID based system may take some time. The total time taken to implementation and application of this approach may be one year. The cost estimated to implement a RFID based information system in garment industry will be nearly 6 million dollars and the estimation for the return of the investment will be 5 years.                          

                     From above explanation it came to understand that using of RFID technology will increases in both manufacturing and business sector. Most of the companies are using this technology. This study is uses like a reference framework. For those people who want to adopt this technology. This study gives the major factors in adoption intention, business value and success factors in RFID system implementation in textile and garment industry.

Vendor selection

Experience trusts of vendor, work extents and calculations after installations are very important.

The vendor support is very important is said by project manager. Also told that it is the long-term partnership and it is not presently one-off support maintain for the installation. The vendor experience depends on RFID technology and the support is important for the project success.

Cost/benefits evaluation

The management is justifies and evaluate the cost and benefits of the RFID technology.

The project manager told that treat cost/ benefits analysis is as a “long term evaluation strategy” and the evaluation is considers by the management. 

The assistant project manager told, “Intangible benefits like creating the continuous improvement of culture are indirectly enhancing the value of business”.

Organizational motivation

To presents the RFID technology potential benefits and improvement with the emerging needs are adopt from the RFID based system.

The supervisor of factor define that Employees performance is better when the managers must motivate them and helping the employees to adopt. Moreover, use the technology of RFID to increase the productivity.

Support of Top management

It is required to provide the good information, resources and improves the supports of user. These are guide for the smooth implementation process.

Project manager told that” support of the senior manager is important for this project to get the moral support and also support of financial and other resources for the project implementation”.

User involvement

To understand the attitude and expectations of user and defines how these are use to implement the new technology, involve the users in the development and design process.

Staff capability and training

The RFID technology is well match for the regular training programs and capability of the staff to adopt the new system.

The vendor said, “training programs are conducting for improving the job competence and staff capability and some people don’t know about this new technology”.

Extent of progress supervision

Here investigates the how the new RFID technology is suited for the existing organization settings.

The supervisor of factory said that “the system and worker interacts are use to monitor the organization settings to get the extension and nature with the new system.

Compatibility of Structure, policy and operation process

The changes made in organizational structure, policies and operation process are lead to produce the higher business in the organization.

The production manager told,” The new RFID technology system can capture the information of real time production”.

Here manufacturing information systems are mainly based on RFID. This kind of manufacturing system will create more and more performance improvements. These improvements could be done for the company development. These business values of the company finally lead to the efficiency and effectiveness of the production department

In the concept of operational development, the concept of RFID will helps in uncovering the hidden threats which were already separated previously. These threats include creation of traditional improvement, low coordination among departments. It also provides some accurate information about the company include performance evaluation and payroll calculation. 

If the organization will follow RFID based manufacturing systems, then the performance and profitability of that company will change in tangible way. Some intangible benefits are specified in the following table.

Tangible benefits

Using the RFID based systems the down time of a particular machine is 30% decreased compared to last year. the factor called Lost time has decreased by 50% compared to last year delivery rate within the time has incremented to 90% the performance has increase by 50% than the last year performance Over time duty hours for sewers are decreased by 10% than last year.

Intangible benefits

Using RFID, the company will provide more data with accuracy for calculation of SAM. This evaluating can be used for cost estimation and line balancing. Provide monitoring of products in real time, approaches to identify the production drawbacks. It also explains about process re engineering. Used to uncover previous hidden threats as department coordination, working performance and sewer’s inefficiency. Improve the motivation for staff by creating the awareness of the company services to employees. Organize the discussions for scientific maintenance which leads to continuous growth of the company.

Table: intangible benefits of a company with RFID systems 

• Adoption intention

Various project planning interviews are conducted in order to fin out the factors that can easily influence a garment factory. This leads to adopt a new system called RFID manufacturing system. The analysis of this new adoption is done in terms of technology. Various motivation factors are discussed in the below table.

Technology push	Need pull
Relative benefit	Competitors
Compatibility	Customer
Difficulty
Expansion
Cost

Table: motivation factors of technology 

• Technology push

There are various factors for push which are very much used to get the RFID benefits for the company. In the case study it is found that the factors of push such as difficulty, compatibility, benefits and cost of technology are affected by the advanced adoption of RFID methodologies. These factors of push are mainly influenced by the decision of adoption. Let us discuss the impacts on the push factors briefly by adopting the advanced technologies.

• Relative benefit

This is the first kind of push factor. This can be identified by the influence of adoption. Apart from sewers, all staff can easily identify these relative benefits of RFID manufacturing system. So, based on the adoption each department except sewer can know the advantages of RFID systems.

• Compatibility

The push factor called compatibility can be defined as the degree of technology which can be consistent with the goals of company such as practices, wants and infrastructure. At this time sewers will not include in the procedure of RFID technology adoption. Based on the explanation, the company could expect that the advanced system feel compatible with accurate information.

• Difficulty

In a particular garment organization, the labor would not have efficient education background rather than others. So they could face problems when dealing with new adopted technology. But the manufacturing technologies of RFID are very much easier to understand. So the difficulty of new technology will directly affect the intention of adoption.

• Expansion

The expansion of adopted technology should support remaining work platforms. Here the vendor has the responsibility to process the further rounds. The sub modules include IEES. It is a centralized solution for development and maintenance of garment production. 

• Cost of technology

Here the factor called cost can be considered as significant factor of adoption decision. This factor is the major factor in this particular case study. Here cost tags can be recycled.

• Needs pull

Here the pull factor yields the wants of the garment industry. These factors include competitors and customers.

• Competitors

The desire of a garment industry is to enhance the performance and effectiveness of production. The decision of competitors would affect the adoption decision towards the advanced technology.

Customers

Here the customers are the drivers for the garment industry adoption. Here the cost of technology leads to pressure on customer. Here the cost changes however yields the efficiency improvement. 

• Success factors

Based on the experiences of the company identifies the successful eight factors. These relevant factors are adopting from the RFID based manufacturing information system. These are discussing in below table and some factors are elaborates in the following sections.

The major components are included in this. 

• Token of RFID: 

This is having passive tag and low frequency. In order to fulfill the order using the sleeves, hoods, and cuffs. With the use of these materials as bundle it gives the unique ID for that token.

At the cutting department, the readers of RFID are installed; next this is installed in the every sewing machine and tables of QC.

The connection of RFID readers of 40 sets is done with the work station of PC; this is possible in the business structure. Data before upload to the server of the computer, this PC is collected.

The data is transmitted from PC to server; this is done by using the Ethernet system.

• System Implementation 

The sew lines are installed after the trail period completes with manufacturing management system based on RFID. From Industrial Engineering Department (IED) Set up the new support team, those are involved in the data collection managing and analyzing. In order to monitor the line balancing, the data analysis is done by the responsible IED team. In analyzing the data, the team measures “before using RFID after using RFID”.

In this recording the process of manufacturing, and it is helpful for the managers who caring about the line balancing in the manufacturing company. The line balancing is better for managers with real time RFID based garment manufacturing information system’s availability. If there is no real time, there is only estimating in terms of time to complete and their experience. But using of this real time the managers can get the exact information which is related to the customer’s time and experience. So from the RFID system the managers can get the information of real time data, so by using of this they will assign the sewers in order to give the quick response for the production departments.

With the real time data, the performance of the individual sewer also monitored. The performance of the daily production of employee gives the report of employee efficiency. For the same operation the company uses the number of persons, so the efficiency of employee’s production is compare to the standards of production fro particular performance of the particular operation.

Loebbecke states that RFID is a “wireless technology” which uses broadcasted radio signals to tag here it  identify and automatically trace and track the faction of the item. Delen says that this technique is one of the auto recognition technologies which also comprises of three ubiquitous barcodes as well as magnetic strips. RFID infrastructure contains three principal components .On them one is transponder it is reusable tag with small computer chip which recognizes the object  and the  other is the reader it serves  as an communication channel between the RFID based information system and tag and the another is data collection application contains  a software result and an aerial.

Ngai says that the application of RFID technology is varied and also applied in at least 14 various industries like library services, supply chain management, retailing, and logistics. In spite of rising recognition of RFID technology  textile and garment manufacturing industry which is labor intensive manufacturer which can be barely  be automated and are not adopting such technology  yet. Mostly so many organizations of garment producing industry are using manually or partially bar coding system to keep track of manufacturing line. Here it occur problems frequently because as garment manufacturing company is labor intensive industry. To better management of operation and also to solve operation problem there is a need of real time information. The china is the largest manufacturing bases in the world as it is center of garment and textiles .Moreover the china’s operation cost of garment industry is increasing quickly because of increasing labor cost and also harsh regulations on labor right and working time. Garment producing industries require increasing in the effectiveness an efficiency of the production system so as to remain competitive in the market, so the probable solution for this is RFID.

In this study it had adopted “technology-push as well as need-pull” perception in examining the emphasizing motivation of the textile as well as garment manufacturing industry to endowed in RFID technology. The concepts of “technology-push and need-pull” were taken from the R&D administration discipline and Engineering for examining the key factors  in decision of adoption of latest technology where requirement factors and technology is serve as fundamental framework while examining the motivation and decision of adoption in the case study.