Sal Ltd. Case Study --

SAL Ltd. Case Study -- Part B

SAL Ltd. is currently faced with one of the greatest organizational challenges -- it seeks to expand its market presence to more international regions, and in this process, to make use of the items it already produces.

With this objective in mind, the company has reshaped its objectives, its mission statement and its internal layout. The primary change in the layout was represented by the creation and introduction of a new managerial function for the Technical Manager. This is explained by the fact that the company would be purchasing more technologies to support its manufacturing processes, and also because technologic innovation would become a continuous emblem of SAL. Additionally, the firm would also rely on technology to create cost and operational efficiencies, which would help it attain its ultimate profitability objectives.

At the level of the mission, this has been reshaped to reveal the new commitments of the firm to becoming the number one choice of customers across the globe, but doing so in a manner in which the well-being of various stakeholder categories is promoted. Special emphasis is being placed on the staff members, the customers, the business partners, and especially, the totality of the communities in which SAL Ltd. operates.

As these elements were reshaped, it is now necessary to switch to focus onto three other important aspects of the change process. These refer to the following:

The assessment of the capacity -- current, new and maximum

The bottlenecks that would be created and how to address them, and last

The new plant layout.

The current operational capacity formed from seven primary departments, namely cleaning, large mill, mixing, extrusion, conveyor, small mill and another mixer. This capacity would not suffer major modifications as it has proven successful enough in the past. Specifically, the current capacity is able to create the products within the imposed quality parameters.

Still, it is required to create more operational efficiency and this would be created through the introduction of technological innovation at each of the departments preset at Sal Ltd. In other words, the organization at SAL would remain as depicted in the chart below:

But the changes would be revealed as follows:

The cleaning department would be added more cleaning technologies

The large mill would be added more production technologies

The mixing sector would be added more machineries

The extrusion processes would be improved through better developed technologies

The conveyors would replaced with superior ones

The small mill would be improved through the replacement and addition of new technologies.

These new operations would be supervised by the operational managers, as well as by the technical manager.

At the level of the bottlenecks that would be created, these refer primarily to the periods when the new technologies would be implemented. During these specific periods, production would be slowed down and productivity would as such decrease. In order to minimize the losses from these bottlenecks, the following recommendations are forwarded:

The gradual implementation of the new technologic developments at each level, so that no multiple departments are impacted at the same time

The methodical implementation of the technologies to ensure efficiency, such as the implementation of technologies at a department which has been more productive and possesses inventory to be used while delays are created

The training of the staff members to best deal with the temporary inefficiencies and strive to cover for them in creative manners. Also at this level, it is important to provide training on how to most efficiently use the new machineries.

Ultimately, at the level of the new organizational layout, this would present itself as follows:

As it is easily observed, there aren't any major changes in the layout of SAL Ltd. And this is explained by the fact that the company itself would not suffer major structural changes. The changes, in their essence, are non-structural, but focused on improvement and efficiency.