Page 336 - Cultures and Organizations

9
Pyramids, Machines,

Markets, and Families:

Organizing Across Nations

omewhere in Western Europe a middle-sized textile printing com-
Spany struggled for survival. Cloth, usually imported from Asian

countries, was printed in multicolored patterns according to the desires

of customers, firms producing fashion clothing for the local market. The

company was run by a general manager, to whom three functional man-

agers reported: one for design and sales, one for manufacturing, and one

for finance and personnel. The total workforce numbered about 250.
The working climate in the firm was often disturbed by confl icts

between the sales manager and the manufacturing manager. The man-

ufacturing manager had an interest, as manufacturing managers have
the world over, in maintaining a smooth production process with mini-
mal product changes. He preferred grouping customer orders into large
batches. Changing colors and/or designs involved cleaning the machines,
which cut into productive time and also wasted costly dyestuffs. The worst
was changing from a dark color set into a light one, because every bit of
dark-colored dye left would show on the cloth and spoil the product quality.
Therefore, the manufacturing planners tried to start on a clean machine

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