Victoria Heavy Equipment Case

Victoria Heavy Equipment’s most recent organization has been lacking effective communication practices amongst all of its divisions. The company has been suffering from lack of clear goals in measurable terms, for its divisions. The idea of each division functioning as an independent unit, whether it being cost or profit center, is a remarkable beginning. However, clear goals and key measurable need to be set for each center, which in our case have been overlooked. As a result, many of these centers have over spent, resulting in over expenditures, something we can definitely not afford with anticipated slower market.

Brian Walter Jr. had a great vision of not turning into “bureaucratic, quantitatively, grey-suited manager ...”, yet the alternative was not clearly specified. Currently, Victoria Heavy Equipment Limited (V.H.E.) with lower sales and disgruntled workers is a troubled organization. Should decline in sales continue, as we expect due to troubled real state economy, V.H.E. will soon enter the crisis zone. Hard goals set by Brian W. Jr. or any new similar goals set by us will utterly be more difficult to achieve if we fall in crisis zone. My intention is not to change the existing structure of V.H.E, since I do not see any problems arising form greater autonomy given to division managers and ultimately line workers. However, we have to improve (or create in case of non-existent), communications AND a sense of accountability among divisions. Clear communication and agreement on achievable goals for each individual division is key to raise the moral and motivation among workers and managers.

For example, V.H.E can not afford an R&D division that designs something to their liking without any participation from marketing and manufacturing divisions. I am sure that you are all aware that this has occurred at V.H.E on more than one occasion. Goals and functions of our R&D are obviously not clearly defined. New LTM -1000 crane was developed back in 2006 with