1 / 9

Perceived management problems/issues

Management of Technology & Innovation BUSI 4607 Improving the Product Development Process at Kirkham Instruments Corp.: Problems, alternatives and recommendations March 3, 2008 John Callahan. Perceived management problems/issues.

pelham
Download Presentation

Perceived management problems/issues

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Management of Technology & InnovationBUSI 4607Improving the Product Development Process at Kirkham Instruments Corp.: Problems, alternatives and recommendationsMarch 3, 2008John Callahan

  2. Perceived management problems/issues • Company having a tough time supplying customers customers looking for systems that integrate functions of multiple pieces of lab equipment • Each business unit (Mass Spectrometer, Chromatography, Optical Equipment, Waterloo Instruments) working on too many projects • No universally accepted definitions for project types • Strategy does not help prioritize resource allocation Kirkham

  3. Time line of developments Nov 15-19 1995 – New product development seminar with Harvard profs Feb 16 1996 – One day crash course with Derrick Feb 17 1996 – Bad meeting of Executive Committee with Derrick Apr 1 1996 – Hoole presents diagrams, etc. at Quarterly Executive Conference Sep 1996 – Review and audit by Derrick, Fetzer-Woolley to present report soon Kirkham

  4. Mistakes that were made • Education and training • Done by external people, too early in advance of any action • Delegation to Quinn • She had responsibility but no real power, Donaldson not interested in actual details • Hiring Fetzer-Woolley • Just avoiding decisions, will feed back what they are told • Documents for communication rather than decision-making • Really hard to produce, for very little or no result • Started by trying to cut projects from total list • Managers were given incentive to hide projects Kirkham

  5. The situation now – as of Sep 1996 • Exhibit 9 • Derrick’s audit Kirkham

  6. Core issues • Role of Donaldson in the management of the company • Incentive structure for managers of separate business units • Allocation of resources within the company Kirkham

  7. Alternatives – what they can do now? • Short term • Try the approach that Derrick champions within one or more individual units • Long term • Go to one business unit (get rid of separate business units each with a profit-loss statement) or start a business unit that produces systems with integrated functionality • Develop a useful strategy • Allocate resources (funds for R&D, overhead, margins for products) according to a real strategy • What would that strategy be? • Develop consistent integrated information system for both communication and planning Kirkham

  8. Recommendations – what they should do now • Short term • Try the approach that Derrick champions within one or more individual units • Long term • Start a business unit that produces systems with integrated functionality • Develop consistent integrated information system for both communication and planning • Start this with individual units that try Derrick’s approach and with the new unit Kirkham

  9. References • Wheelwright, S.C. & K.B. Clark (1992). Creating project plans to focus product development. Harvard Business Review, Mar-Apr, 70-82. Kirkham

More Related