Finance

Questions

1. As Program Manager, what did Jack Smith do that was effective? –

2. What should he have done differently?

3. Time to decide

Background:-

Vision:

Explore building a small car, with a small engine.

The above is the “differentiator”.

Joint Venture with BMW

Sharing cost and working in collaboration to grow faster, produce profits and sharing risks and rewards.

Why BMW is a good choice?

1. BMW has high standards, sophisticated designs and outstanding strength plus it is a German technology.
2. BMW has planned to design a small engine made for Rover.
3. BMW has planned to upgrade productivity at Rover by making plant investments and rationalizing productions.
4. BMW planned to lower costs by using common suppliers, transferring significant purchases out of the UK, and reducing Rovers traditional supply base.

Question 1: As Program Manager, what did Jack Smith do that was effective?

Jack Smith is a talented manufacturing manager but he is well aware about his limitations of running large and complex operations.

Smith and Ludlow sought outstanding people inside and outside Chrysler with requisite skills.

What did James Smith do right?

1. Aligning the Organization:-

1. He created Best Practices, because the processes should be standardized.
2. He ensured that there is knowledge transition.
3. The mission statement is clear to the team.
4. The team is empowered.
5. Everyone in the team were heard and would discuss any issues.

1. Collocation of Team:-

1. The team was moved to the same suite at Chrysler Technology Center, this would bring the team closer to each other.
2. The above would improve dynamics between various functional team and would facilitate problem solving.

1. The Contract book:-

1.  The contract book defined the program goals and how to accomplish them.

The team members signed the contract book.

1. Steps taken by Jack Smith for achieving the organization goal

• Encouraged Team meetings & Interactions :

1. 2 weekly staff meetings to encourage cross functional ownership of issues.
2. Monthly meeting to discuss PSR, near term goals and provide forum to facilitate working level feedback.
3. Quarterly meetings with sponsors from Chrysler and BMW to discuss progress.

• Assessment Measures

1. 12 Panel Chart that summarized key program objectives and tracked the status.
2. Spider Charts which provided a comparison of major program objectives and their process and product benchmarks
3. Integrated Program timing charts that identified key program milestones and specified who was to do what and when.
4. Program Dashboard which provided real time visualization of the status of key activities, tasks and processes.

Question 2: What should he have done differently?

The involvement of Advanced Management Engineering team and Product Engineering should have started from the beginning of the cycle. Rather AME team was last function to become fully staffed.

Thought process of both the teams were as per their mental model.

AME team were focused on manufactural design and were concerned with issues like engine reliability, manufacturing defects, scrap and production assembly flow whereas the PE had strong functional objectives and were concerned with demanding performance targets such as torque, horsepower and fuel economy.