ArbreCorp Lte

MUHAMMAD ZAKI BIN SHAMSUDDIN

M A S I TA A B U B A KA R

(G1615155)

(G1510844)

Z A RA FAT H I A M U F L I H A N I

(G1615926)

N A D I A Q A M A L I S A JAWA R D I

(G1618562)

AbreCorp Lte s Background

A sawmill operation in Qubec, Canada
Owned by a major forest products company but operated independently

Receives raw logs

Cutting and
planing into
standard size
lumber

Send lumber to
packaging
department

General
Manager

16
Supervisor
s

180
Unionized
employee

AbreCorp
Lte
Sawmill
Departme
nt
-

Boom
Departme
nt

Packaging
Departme
nt

Operate morning shift

starting 6am
For afternoon, at 2pm

Planer
Departme
nt
-

Maintenan
ce
Departme
nt

Shipping
Departme
nt

Operate only morning

shift
Only night
shift
(10pm)
-

continued
All
department
s have their
own
supervisors
except
packaging
department.

However,
planer
supervisor
responsible
packaging
department
on morning
shift,

Packaging
Whilst,
department
sawmills
is at
supervisor different
on the
building so
both
afternoon
supervisors
shift.

seldom visit
packaging
department.

Especially
sawmill
departme
nt
because
distance
to
packaging
departme
nt is the
furthest.

Scenario 1 : Packaging Quality

Boismarch Lte
Boismarch Lte, a large marketing company sells ArbreCorps product and other its
clients
Lumber market is very competitive product, so Boismarch sponsors monthly
package quality award to help its clients to compete in the market.

ArbreCorps Packaging
Performance
PERIOD OF GOOD PERFORMANCE

PERIOD OF BAD PERFORMANCE

(BEFORE)

(BEFORE)

ArbeCorp won Boismarches packaging quality award several times over the past
five years,
and received high ratings in the months that it didn't win.

Started to decline over the past year or two, and several clients have
complained about the packaging.
Most customers switched to competitors lumber, saying that the low
quality of packaging of ArbeCorp when it delivered.

Scenario 2 : Bottleneck in
Packaging
The planing and sawmilling departments have significantly increased
productivity due to better operator training, fewer machine breakdowns and
better raw logs selection. Rest remain constant.
Except, packaging department. It has recorded decreasing productivity over
the past couple of years.
As a result, a large backlog of finished product is typically stockpiled outside
the packaging building

Morning shift is
unable to keep up
with packaging.
Backlog left for
next the next shift

Unfortunately, the
afternoon shift
packages even less
product than the
morning shift.
Backlog bigger.

ArbreCorp has
added Saturday
overtime shifts and
extra hours before
and after regular
shifts

Supervisor and
employees notice
counterproductive
behavior and bad
norm in the work
environment

They have to pay

one and half or two
times which is
frustrating.

Counterproductive and Bad Norm in Packaging

Department
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Extend lunch and coffee break time 10 and 5 minutes respectively

Typically leave work a few minutes before the end of their shift

BAD NORM

Employees who are temporarily assigned to the packaging

department also seem to adopt the packaging crews informal
schedule when as signed to that department.

Analysis

Team Effectiveness Model

Organizational and Team

Environment
Team members tend to work together more effectively when they receive some
team-based rewards, when the organizations leadership is supportive of teamoriented work structure, when the organizations structure assigns teams distinctive
clusters of work activity, when information systems support team coordination, and
when the physical layout of the teams workspace encourages frequent
communication. (McShane, p. 194).
The packaging department are so segregated and isolated from the rest of the
organization.
No sense of belonging
Receive inadequate supervision and support from the team.
Not conducive physical layout for regular interaction between departments
Difficult for other departments supervisors to provide direction and feedback

Team Process
Leaders often have the capacity to alter existing norms. By speaking
up or actively coaching the team, they can often subdue
dysfunctional norms while developing useful norms,Mc Shane (2015)
The team being isolated and formed bad team norms
No close monitoring by the supervisor
Lack of supervision in the department
Social loafing was the acceptable norm
Abuse of time is tolerated in the packaging department, motivated
to take longer breaks and leave early

Team Design
Increased productivity, packaging departments should
rearrange the task in the team
The team does not have issue of inadequate of employees
since it has mentioned there were temporary employees in the
team to support the increased productivity.
The company exhibits team design of Sequential
Interdependence -affect other department significantly.
The ineffectiveness team size and task coordination caused
the dropped quality
Should assign effective internal controls in the packaging
department

Question 1
WHAT SYMPTOMS IN THIS CASE SUGGEST THAT
SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG?

What symptoms in this case suggest

that something has gone wrong?
1. The packaging department decreased productivity
The decreased productivity resulted a large backlog of finished product is
stockpiled outside the packaging building.
Recent years the companys rating started to decline.
2. The packaging department is under production
The packaging department has added Saturday overtime shifts as well as
extra hours before and after the regular shifts for the packaging department
employees to process the backlog

3. AbreCorp suffered from poor-employee disciplinary

The employees in packaging department tend to leave work a few minutes
before the end of their shift.
Social loafing occur in packaging team, their being much more trouble than they
are worth. They able to influence a temporary assigned punctual and productive
in other department loss pattern after a few days in the packaging department.

Question 2
W H AT ARE T H E M AIN C AU SE S OF TH E SE SYM P TOM S ?

What are the main causes of

these symptoms
1. No permanent managing supervisor
The packaging department, it didnt have its own supervisor. The department only
have planer supervisor responsible on the morning shift and the sawmill supervisor
responsible for the afternoon shift. So, this means that the staffs dont have
someone to monitor their activity.
2. Lack of communication between each department
More and more product stockpiled outside the packaging building. Supposedly,
each department should communicate with each other. If they know that
packaging department having hard time to finish processing all the stockpiled
product they shouldve discussed and come out with the relevant solution

Question 3
WHAT ACTIONS SHOULD EXECUTIVE TAKE TO CORRECT
THESE PROBLEMS?

What actions should executive take to correct these problems?

Importance of packaging department quality assurance
They need to compete with packaging because of the product is almost the
same as others. So the market is have competitive price
Buyers will look at the packaging whether to buy from AbreCorp or other
mill's product
Boismarch will give award to company that has the higest score in
packaging to encourage their packaging better.
Suddenly the AbreCorp's rating has declined over the past a year or two.
As a result the buyers have turned to other company

HIRE A SUPERVISOR
The only problematic department
Other departments have no problem like packaging department because
they have supervisors
Unreasonable supervisor distribution
AbreCorp has 16 supervisors! At least give on for packaging department.
Marketing is the only business strategy can compete
The only department that need to increase the productivity because
packaging department is the only business startergy that able to compete in
the lumber market
To solve backlog problem
To monitor operation in order to avoid backlog