PARADOXICAL TWINS: ACME AND OMEGA ELECTRONICS

After Technological Product was sold out its two plants under electronic
division become two firms Acme and Omega Electronics. Both of the firms
are competitor if each other, Acme had annual sales of $10 million and
550 employees and Omega had annual sale of $8 million and 480
employees. Acme is consistently more effective and achieve greater net
profits.
ORGANIZATIONAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACME AND OMEGA
Acme
Retained original management and promoted GM to president. (Mr. John)
Well defined organizational structure
Decisions taken by top management without consulting manufacturing
dept.
Well defined job responsibilities
Omega
Hired new president and upgraded several existing personnel within plant.
(Mr. Jim)
Organizational chart seems like artificial barrier.
Filling people who could not contribute to solution (participative
management)
No well defined job specification
Both of these firm competed for a major photocopier manufacturers
project. Photocopier firm gave 2 weeks time to manufacture 100
prototypes each. Based on the prototype photocopier manufacture will
award the final order.
Prototype Development at Acme
Mr John president of Acme, issued a memo to purchase department,
drafting department, Industrial Engineering dept. and all heads and
executives indicating time constrains.
Purchase dept. notice that a component could not be purchased for next 2
weeks. Acme decided to built the prototype except for the one component
and add component later.
In haste to make things going production foreman ignored the normal
procedure of contacting the methods engineers and set up assembly line
and started assembly.
Method engineers complained to head industrial engineer, who
immediately complaint to plant manager. Plant manager ignored the
complaint.
Later, a design error was identified and photocopier manufacture
instructed Acme to rectify the problem. The alteration in design, lead to
disassembly and unsoldering of several connections.
After design error was rectified missing components were installed by
again disassembly. This increased the time of production and final
prototype was sent without inspection.
Prototype Development at Omega
A meeting was called with all head of the departments, criticality of issue
was explained and department heads agreed to start process at their end.

Purchase dept. notice that a component could not be purchased for next 2
weeks. Head of the engineer suggested for substitution. Head of
mechanical department stated that in absence of the component
assembly time and cost will increase.
Electrical department inspected the design and came up with substitute.
While building the unit they discover the error in design, Error was
corrected and changes were approved from photocopier manufacturing
firm.
They developed the prototype before the deadline and final prototype was
sent after inspection.
RESULT
Acme had delivery delays. Acmes 10 /100 units were found defective.
Omegas all prototype was passed. The final contract was split between
the two firms. Acme reduced its unit cost by 20 percent and was
ultimately awarded the total contract.
CASE ANALYSIS
Acme had a well defined organizational structure but was information flow
was unidirectional. Direct contact between management and technical
experts was lacking. As one of the employee has mentioned that, I wish I
had a little more information about what is going on. Interdepartmental
communication was only possible at management level.
In case of Omega, Its president was from a research laboratory and thus
respect input of every one. Organizational structure and work allocation
was not clear. Departmental communication was strong, when purchase
department raise concern for delay in a particular component there was
prompt response from electrical department for substitution and
mechanical department told that without this particular component cost
and assembly time will increase. Information was flowing in both
directions without routing it from president. This enabled Omega to
manufacture at time.
In long run, as we know that Acme was more successful than Omega. This
could be attributed to the fact that job allocation was not clear. Moreover,
information flow was better in Omega but sometimes such information
flow also create hindrance by creating interference in each others
domain.