Aristokraft Case

While the plant has many strengths, there are a few weaknesses. The two primary weaknesses are employee retention and lack of process controls. The Ferdinand plant employs roughly 1800 people and is a union facility, however, in the first 90 days new hires are not part of the union. Approximately fifty percent of the people hired for hourly jobs do not make it past the 90 day mark. This creates a real problem especially on the night shift as there is constant turnover and training is an ongoing requirement. Once people have been employed with Aristokraft past the six month mark they seem to stay and are long term employees. The challenge to the plant is to determine why people choose to leave and seek employment elsewhere shortly after being hired. The plant has changed its training strategy and has developed a DOJO to expose people to the jobs in a safe environment with no productivity goals. The plant also has several task forces and teams looking at ways to improve retention and address issues that are noted by new employees.
The second weakness is process controls. While the Ferdinand plant has an 18% return on investment and regularly purchases new
Fortune Brands has forecasted that the Aristokraft brand could begin selling 11,200 cabinets per day average beginning in the spring of 2017. This a great opportunity for the Ferdinand plant. Currently in the assembly plant there are three pods that are already staffed and a fourth pod which has all of the equipment purchased and almost ready to begin operations. The leadership of this new pod has already been identified from internal candidates however there are many unknowns and risks associated with beginning a new pod. This is over a 15% increase from 2016 sales and will pose many logistical and personnel