Flexibility Organizational Flexibility: As One

Flexibility

Organizational Flexibility:

As one of the major organizations in today's global economy, the Eaton Corporation operates in a rather traditional mode, much along the lines of Ford Motor Company or General Motors; thus, Eaton as a company retains a number of restrictions related to its ability to be flexible and to change with the times. Currently, the Eaton Corporation is composed of five separate groups or divisions, being electrical, automotive, truck, fluid power and aerospace, all of which are "spread all over the globe as separate divisional entities" (The History of Eaton Corporation, 1995, p. 34).

For example, in 2000, Eaton created Axcelis Technologies as an entity of its semiconductor manufacturing segment, and in 2003, Eaton Electrical "acquired the electrical division of Europe's Delta PLC and Westinghouse" (Business Organizations, 2008, p. 325) in order to own the manufacturing rights to IEC standards, a move which Eaton itself saw as a major step to becoming a globally-based corporation and to developing manufacturing standards that could be utilized by any major global company. Furthermore, in late 2007, Eaton acquired MGE Office Protection Systems from Schneider Electrical and Phoenixtec, based in Taiwan, which gave Eaton "the highest corporate share in the single-phase UPS market in the nation of China" (Business Organizations, 2008, p. 326).

Obviously, the Eaton Corporation "takes an aggressive approach to engineering and design optimization" (No Boundaries, 1998, Internet) and to the acquirement of other companies in order to expand its influence in the manufacturing business world; however, Eaton currently maintains separate goals and objectives for each division, along with a brand name for each division. This type of business structure, although certainly profitable, clearly limits employee creativity as to design and implementation and creates a sort of brick wall between each of Eaton's divisions/entities related to interdivisional communications. Thus, in this environment, there appears to be limited interaction between the members of each division (much like Ford and GM) which in essence stifles creativity and the exchange of ideas, especially when we consider the fact that each division has its own bureaucratic structure and way of doing things (Business Organizations, 2008, p. 328).

Undoubtedly, the Eaton Corporation as it stands today could become far more flexible and greatly transformed by incorporating one or several of the following suggestions. First, Eaton should adopt only one brand name for its divisions, a move which would guarantee "unity between the divisions when it comes to creativity and the exchange of ideas and concepts" (Davidson, 2002, p. 167) related to Eaton's myriad line of products. This would also make the same corporate resources available to its employees regardless of which division they are employed in and would make duplication a thing of the past, thus saving time, energy and money. In addition, Eaton's employees would be able to interact either as individuals or as members of a team at operational levels within and outside each division which would improve the "complicated process of moving from point A to point B. In relation to creating, designing and improving upon existing and future products" (Williams, 2003, p. 126). Also, these teams, either formal or informal, could easily share their accumulated knowledge and perhaps arrive at methods which would improve the use of manpower, company resources and time.