Case Study
CASE STUDY
A DAY AT SEAGRAVES
Dr. David Pope arrived at his office at 8:10 in a foul mood. One of his children kept him up half the night with a flu. He is usually able to spend a couple of hours in the evening at home reading reports from his department heads, but the sick child had precluded last night. His secretary greeted him cheerily and handed him three phone messages that have come in already.
Dr. Pope was the director for engineering for the Seagraves Corporation. Two of the messages were marked urgent: he decided to return George Jamison’s call first. Jamison was the head of plant engineering. “Dave, we had a bad fire at the North Plant last night. It started in the window air conditioner checkout line. Looks like they’ll be out at least a couple of weeks unless I can work my people overtime,” reported Jamison. After some discussion, Pope authorized Jamison to work as much overtime as necessary to get the line going again. Jamison promised to keep Pope posted on progress. Next Pope called Dr. John Bush, the director of research and development.
BUSH: Thanks for returning my call so promptly, David. I was talking to Pat Wright at a cocktail party last night, and he told me that there is going to be trouble at the new products committee meeting tomorrow morning. Seems Sherry Smith has decided that our waste treatment plant is inadequate to handle the additional load from the degreasers needed for the new refrigerator line I knew we’d have nothing but trouble putting a consumer advocate on the committee.
POPE: What brought about her concern?
BUSH: Seems she read an article about river pollution and went down and talked to one of the operators at the treatment plant.
POPE: Okay, John, don’t worry. I’ll bring a copy of that study Jamison’s people did. That ought to satisfy everyone’s concerns. Maybe you should call on me at some appropriate point in your presentation, and I’ll say a few words in this regard.
BUSH: Great, I’m sure
A DAY AT SEAGRAVES
Dr. David Pope arrived at his office at 8:10 in a foul mood. One of his children kept him up half the night with a flu. He is usually able to spend a couple of hours in the evening at home reading reports from his department heads, but the sick child had precluded last night. His secretary greeted him cheerily and handed him three phone messages that have come in already.
Dr. Pope was the director for engineering for the Seagraves Corporation. Two of the messages were marked urgent: he decided to return George Jamison’s call first. Jamison was the head of plant engineering. “Dave, we had a bad fire at the North Plant last night. It started in the window air conditioner checkout line. Looks like they’ll be out at least a couple of weeks unless I can work my people overtime,” reported Jamison. After some discussion, Pope authorized Jamison to work as much overtime as necessary to get the line going again. Jamison promised to keep Pope posted on progress. Next Pope called Dr. John Bush, the director of research and development.
BUSH: Thanks for returning my call so promptly, David. I was talking to Pat Wright at a cocktail party last night, and he told me that there is going to be trouble at the new products committee meeting tomorrow morning. Seems Sherry Smith has decided that our waste treatment plant is inadequate to handle the additional load from the degreasers needed for the new refrigerator line I knew we’d have nothing but trouble putting a consumer advocate on the committee.
POPE: What brought about her concern?
BUSH: Seems she read an article about river pollution and went down and talked to one of the operators at the treatment plant.
POPE: Okay, John, don’t worry. I’ll bring a copy of that study Jamison’s people did. That ought to satisfy everyone’s concerns. Maybe you should call on me at some appropriate point in your presentation, and I’ll say a few words in this regard.
BUSH: Great, I’m sure