Case Study Electrimex
Case Study: Electrimex
Electrimex was established by Gerald Ortiz in Tijuana in January 1988. Tijuana is a City in Mexico just over the United States border. This makes the location perfect for the plant to supply less expensive Mexican labor workers to make the household electrical products that are shipped back over the border for sale at stores such as Wal-mart and Home Depot. Electrimex is a “wholly owned subsidiary of a U.S. manufacturer” (Jenner 18). Gerald Ortiz currently serves as the General Manager of the plant. The issues plaguing the Electrimex plant include communication, production, engineering, quality assurance, maintenance, accounting, and relations issues. Some of the major communication issues are due to supervisors being unable to speak English. The supervisors have weak supervisory skills and it is difficult to equip them with proper skills due to the language barrier. Some of the production problems are due to the high employee turnover. Currently turnover is approximately 7% of total employee population costing the company $13,650 per month (Jenner 20). Most line workers are young and inexperienced, which can explain some of the high turnover rates. Managers and supervisors are underdeveloped and too busy to perform all of their duties successfully. In the area of engineering the lack of documentation and subsequent lack of planning rushed the projects to completion. The lack of communication doesn’t stop with just the engineering department. The communication issues are running rampant throughout all departments in the company. Quality assurance is having some problems as well. Regular maintenance is not always done on machines despite having a dedicated maintenance team. The maintenance team is being motivated by overtime pay which causes them to “milk the clock”. A better way would be to motivate through goal setting and rewards for meeting said goals. One area that seems to be running smoothly is the
Electrimex was established by Gerald Ortiz in Tijuana in January 1988. Tijuana is a City in Mexico just over the United States border. This makes the location perfect for the plant to supply less expensive Mexican labor workers to make the household electrical products that are shipped back over the border for sale at stores such as Wal-mart and Home Depot. Electrimex is a “wholly owned subsidiary of a U.S. manufacturer” (Jenner 18). Gerald Ortiz currently serves as the General Manager of the plant. The issues plaguing the Electrimex plant include communication, production, engineering, quality assurance, maintenance, accounting, and relations issues. Some of the major communication issues are due to supervisors being unable to speak English. The supervisors have weak supervisory skills and it is difficult to equip them with proper skills due to the language barrier. Some of the production problems are due to the high employee turnover. Currently turnover is approximately 7% of total employee population costing the company $13,650 per month (Jenner 20). Most line workers are young and inexperienced, which can explain some of the high turnover rates. Managers and supervisors are underdeveloped and too busy to perform all of their duties successfully. In the area of engineering the lack of documentation and subsequent lack of planning rushed the projects to completion. The lack of communication doesn’t stop with just the engineering department. The communication issues are running rampant throughout all departments in the company. Quality assurance is having some problems as well. Regular maintenance is not always done on machines despite having a dedicated maintenance team. The maintenance team is being motivated by overtime pay which causes them to “milk the clock”. A better way would be to motivate through goal setting and rewards for meeting said goals. One area that seems to be running smoothly is the
Cited: Jenner, Stephen, San Diego State University. Electrimex. Selected Cases for Global Dimensions of Business. Ed. Lynn Nordbrock. McGraw-Hill Custom, 2002. Print.