THE CASE OF THE MEXICAN CRAZY QUILT “The mission of the projectwhich you will head is to get our new Mexican subsidiary ready fortake-over by Mexican managers. My hope is that you will be able todo this in about two years,” explained Robert Linderman, presidentof Linderman Industries, Inc., to Carl Conway, newly appointedmanager for “Operation Mexicano.” Conway had been hiredspecifically for this assignment because of his experience inmanaging large defense projects in the aerospace industry. “Thefirst thing that I will have to do is put a project team together,”said Conway. “I imagine that you have in mind my drawing peoplefrom the functional divisions.” “Yes, I have already sent memorandato the division managers informing them that you will be asking forsome of their key people to work under you for about two years,”said Linderman. “In addition, I have advised them to be prepared toprocess work orders from Operation Mexicano with the personnel andequipment of their organizations. Later on in the project’s life,you will begin to get Mexican personnel, both managers andtechnicians, into your organization. These people will have Mexicansupervisors, but until the mission is accomplished, they also willreport to you. I will have to admit that you are going to have somecomplex authority relationships, especially as you personally willbe responsible to the president of the subsidiary, Felix Delgado,as well as to me.” Conway began to make his plans for the projectteam. The plant building was available and empty in Mexico City,and it was important to get equipment purchased and installed assoon as possible. A plant layout would have to be prepared, butbefore page 780that could be done there would have to be amanufacturing plan. Therefore, he needed to recruit an industrialengineer, a production planner, and an equipment buyer. They, inturn, would have to build their own staffs. He made an appointmentwith Sam Sargis, corporate manager of industrial engineering. “Ihave had a preliminary talk with Bob Cates about his joiningOperation Mexicano, and he is quite interested,” Carl said. “Willyou release him to me?” “Why, I’m grooming Cates to take over myjob when I retire,” replied Sargis. “He is my best man. Let me picksomeone else for you, or better still, you just tell me whatindustrial engineering work you want done, and I will have it donefor you.” “Sorry, I want Cates,” said Carl firmly. “And besides,you are not due to retire for five years. This will be goodexperience for him.” For production planning, Carl had in mind BertMill, an older man with extensive experience in managing productionoperations, but Mill rejected his offer. “I talked it over with mywife,” he said, “and we feel that at my age I shouldn’t take achance on not having a job to come back to when Operation Mexicanois finished.” Carl next talked to Emil Banowetz, who was assistantto Jim Burke, the vice president for manufacturing, and Banowetzdecided that he would like to join the project team. However, Burketold Conway that if Banowetz were forcibly taken away from him, hewould give Mr. Linderman his resignation, so Carl decided to backdown. He finally accepted a man that Burke recommended. Filling theequipment buyer’s slot was easy. The director of procurement phonedCarl and said that a senior buyer, Humberto Guzman, had requestedpermission to ask for the assignment, and that he stronglyrecommended him. Guzman has been purchasing agent for a largemining company in Mexico for about 10 years. Carl had about thesame experiences in getting the people he wanted for the functionsof engineering, quality control, cost, marketing, and advertisingas he did for the first three positions; in other words, he wonsome confrontations with the division managers and lost some. Forpersonnel, he got Dr. Juan Perez, who was slated to be personneldirector of the subsidiary company, to affiliate temporarily withthe project team. The first brush that Project Mexicano had ingetting a functional division to do work for it came when Carl’sengineering man, Frank Fong, reported to him that the engineeringvice president, who was formerly Fong’s boss, refused to authorizetop priority to the changing of dimensions in the productiondrawings to the metric system. Carl had to take this issue toLinderman, who ruled in his favor. The defeated vice president, ofcourse, did not take kindly to the decision. The next incidentrevolved around Carl’s desire to have a pilot run of products madewith metric measurements for shipment to Mexico. The purpose was totest the market acceptance of the Linderman articles. Jim Burkestated flatly that there was no way that his production workerscould be trained to work with metric drawings. Carl quickly sawthat this was an issue that he was not going to win, so he had hisbuyer, Guzman, work with the newly appointed manufacturing managerfor the subsidiary in getting a run of the products subcontractedin Mexico City. Bob Cates made a special trip from Mexico City topresent Carl with an interesting problem. The Mexican industrialengineer, whom Bob was supposed to be training, had his own ideasabout plant layout. When they differed from Bob’s as they usuallydid, he would take his complaint directly to Felix Delgado, thepresident of the Mexican subsidiary. Because Delgado’s competencewas primarily in finance, he would not know how to decide theargument and would simply table it. Carl took examples of some ofthe disagreements to Bob’s former boss, Sam Sargis, who quiteunexpectedly ruled against Bob’s proposed methods. Carl saw thatthere was bad feeling by Sargis against Bob for leaving hisdepartment, which boded ill for Bob’s return. To solve theimmediate problem, however, Carl asked Dr. Perez to try toreconcile the situation in Mexico City. Despite these problems, andmany more of a similar nature, Project Mexicano was successful, andthe transition to Mexican management was made in just a little overtwo years. By a curious twist, through Dr. Perez’s intercessionFelix Delgado became very impressed by Bob Cates and convinced himto accept the job of director of industrial engineering for theMexican company. Humberto Guzman also stayed on to head theprocurement operation. Other members of the project team were notso fortunate. Linderman Industries was laying off personnel whenthe project ended, and only the project production man was able toget a job in the company at as high a level as the one he had whenhe joined the team. The cost expert elected to leave Lindermanbecause he said the glamour of Project Mexicano had spoiled him forany routine job. Carl Conway had a difficult decision of his own tomake. Robert Linderman said that he was extremely pleased with hisperformance and that something good would open up in the companyfor him soon. In the meantime, there was a staff assignmentavailable for him. Carl had seen enough project managers in theaerospace industry who had figuratively rotted on staff assignmentswhen their projects were completed to be somewhat wary. QuestionsWas Linderman Industries’ adoption of project organization anappropriate one for getting the Mexican subsidiary started?
4. Why would Conway take his problem with the engineering vicepresident to Linderman and have it resolved in his favor, yet backdown in two disputes with the manufacturing vice president?
