Brecorp Ltee Case Study

1. Summary

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BRECORP LTEE is a sawmill operation in Quebec, Canada that is owned by a major forest products company but operates independently of the parent company. There is one general manager, 16 supervisors and supports staffs, and 180 unionized employees. The employees are being paid every hour of their shift while the support staffs and management are paid by their monthly service to the mill. The mill is divided into several operating activities that is being rendered to their clients. These are boom, sawmill, planer, packaging, shipping and maintenance

Abrecorp’s product is sold on the international market through Boismarche Ltee. The agency encourages their clients to package their products better, Boismarche gives and sponsors the monthly package quality award. The packaging informs the clients how their products are being done and every packaging is tightly and sealed properly. But after few years the rating of the mill started to decrease. Some of the clients complained the appearance of the finished product.

The different departments of the mill significantly increased productivity over the past couple of years. They set a new record of their productivity on a single day. But some departments remained constant. But one has a decreasing productivity which is the packaging department. Due to this there are backlogs that were being piled outside the building. Backlogs were added to Abrecorp’s inventory costs and increase the risk of damaged stock. They added additional shift during Saturdays just to process the backlogs.

Lastly, people in the packaging were being abusive for extending their lunch and coffee break for 10 minutes and 5 minutes respectively. They also leave work a few minutes before their shift ends.

1. Case Facts

1. There is no permanent managing supervisor

It is a certain fact that each department has a supervisor for every working shift. However, the packaging department didn’t have its own supervisor. It only has 2 supervisors, the planer supervisor that is responsible for the morning shift and the sawmill supervisor that is responsible for the evening shift. Due to this, the staff doesn’t have someone to supervise their actions and activity.

1. Staffs of packaging department are demotivated.

It is a certain fact that the staff of packaging department breaks rules. This clearly shows a job dissatisfaction. If job dissatisfaction exists in the workplace, employees tend to decrease their job performance. This started to happen when the management decided to have working shifts.

1. Communication lacks for each department

It is a certain fact that more product are stockpiled outside the packaging building. Each department should communicate with each other. If they know that packaging department are having hard time to finish processing all stockpiles, they should have discussed and come out with relevant solution.