Case Study
Summarize the Case The Custom Woodworking Company is a small-to-medium sized custom furniture and cabinet making company located in Someplace, British Columbia. It is represented by Ron Carpenter, CEO, his wife Emelia Carpenter, the president and their son John Carpenter, the director. The company is privately held with approximately 850 employees. Throughout the years, they quickly gained reputation for attractively designed and well-constructed furniture and built up a loyal staff and work force.
In 1989, Due to a mini-boom in commercial construction, Bruce Sharpe, the company’s VP Sales and Estimating persuaded directors to expand their manufacturing business. There were two options for the company to go and there were either stay in the premises and expand or relocate to completely new and more modern facilities. Due to various personal views on this issue and polarization of opinions, Ron Carpenter, also called “Woody”, organized a meeting of directors and key personnel to come to a resolution regarding this matter. Based on the meeting, project concept was settled that the company will remain at the existing property but will expand the current facility by 25%. The premises will be modernized with new equipment, software and hardware and the directors’ premises will be renovated. The budget available for the changes was set at $17 million and a target date of 18 months.
The project got the name “Project Woody 2000”. Spencer Moneysworth, VP Finance and Administration were named responsible for the project. He didn’t involve production people into the project but immediately invited EID (Expert Industrial Developers) reasoning that their knowledge of industrial work would result in lower total project cost which