Oilwell Cable Company, Inc.

Oilwell Cable Company, originally known as Chord Cable Company out of New Jersey, has been acquired by new management and relocated in Lawrence, Kansas. Original manager behind this move was Gino Strappoli, who came up with a corporate structure that determined company’s success. His vision of the company was for everyone to have some responsibility, all the way down to the workers in production. One of the reasons behind this approach was that this was a continuous manufacturing process that involved a lot of decision-making involving employees on the spot. In a few short years, the company broke even and actually has reached some significant milestones. In 1985, Gino has left for another position, and was replaced by the production manager Bill Russell, whose position in turn was replaced by Norm St. Laurent. Bill Russell continued to operate the company under Gino Strappoli’s principles, until the company has hit a down point due to the stagnant economy and in the oil industry in particular. Then certain alterations to the management process were made. After this the company’s management has been faced with the decision, should they continue to operate the same way, as they were before, or should they let management make more decisions, without the involvement of the teams and employees in general. The response from the employees was such that even though they do appreciate that the management consults with them on certain aspects of the business, they would not want to have certain responsibilities and would also like not to be involved in certain decisions that could be resolved without them. Because of this situation Norman St. Laurent a production manager was faced with a decision, whether he should go ahead with the microprocessor conversion and make a decision and make a decision on the executive level, or should he get the teams involved and continue to do it the same way that the company was doing it before. This decision involves a lot of process