Assessment of the Consultant’s Preparation with Kenworth Motors

Assessment of the Consultant’s Preparation with Kenworth Motors

By

Christopher Munro

Kenworth Motors’, truck manufacturing operations is located in Kirkland, Washington, and has an excellent reputation for building a wide range of vocational trucks since 1923 (Kenworth). Robert Denton is the Plant Manager of the operations center and has been on the job for eight months. He contracted for an Organizational Development (OD) consultant, who shall remain nameless, and was highly recommended by a mutual colleague of Denton’s. The mutual colleague believed that the OD consultant could help Denton. Denton wanted an OD expert to evaluate the plant operations, since he believed that Kenworth’s management team was not working together, even though production of the plant was operating effectively and efficiently. After little to no preparation by the OD consultant, he drove cross-state to meet Denton at Kenworth Motors’ operations plant. Once arriving, the OD consultant made small talk with Denton, and introduced an option of interviewing workers even though there may be risks associated with this type of analytical method. . After Denton realized that was not a route he desired to go, the OD consultant offered to organize a retreat that would be geared towards finding causes of friction and dysfunctionality within the company. After Denton agreed to go this route he asked the OD consultant, “How would we do this”? And the OD consultant responded that Denton would just have to trust him (Cummings, T. G. & Worley, C. G.).

Problem Significance

The problem in this situation is that neither Denton nor the OD consultant did their jobs by performing their research or following company processes, resulting in both parties jumping into a “plan” without any formal research, analysis, or planning. The OD consultant came across as very apathetic because he did not do his part in researching the company prior to the meeting and assumed he was pretty much handed a client based on his relationship with another client, who was a mutual friend of Denton’s. Denton, did not follow procurement management procedures, as most likely Kenworth Motors has processes on hiring outside consultants. It was not good management protocol by only taking the word of Denton’s colleague without verifying the OD consultant’s qualifications, experience, and success factors that would contribute to an effective assessment of the plant’s operations. In most cases, there would have been a request for proposal and a statement of work drawn up, so the OD consultant would know what the requirements of the assessment would