The Paradoxical Twins: Acme and Omega Electronics

Steven Biancalana

Week 3

Case Analysis #2

The Paradoxical Twins: Acme and Omega Electronics

Acme and Omega are two organizations created by a Cleveland firm to manufacture computer chips and circuit boards after the original company was sold by Technological Products of Erie. Acme retained its original management while Omega hired a new president who had been a director of a large electronic research laboratory. The case analysis describes these two companies competing for one contract which is to manufacture a memory unit that will be used in a photocopier.

Acme and Omega Goals

The organization's mission and overall goals provide a basis for developing more specific goals. Operating goals designate the ends sought through the actual operating procedures of the organization and explain what the organization is actually trying to do. (Daft, 2012, pg. 58-59)

Acme kept the organizational structure which John Tyler, the company's president feels has resulted in winning the most profitable contracts, thereby increasing profits. Tyler credits his managers for their ability to run a "tight ship." Tyler goes on to say that he has kept this is the most efficient to producing high volume manufacturing. Acme has detailed organizational charts, and job descriptions. Tyler feels everyone should have be clear as to what their responsibilities are in their narrowly defined jobs. The goal for Acme is to be a mechanistic designed firm which means that they are characterized as machine-like standard rules, procedures, and a clear hierarchy of authority. (Daft, 2012, pg. 30) The fact that Acme kept the original management structure along with the organizational charts and narrowly defined job descriptions tells me they have a centralized structure incorporating specialized tasks. A task is a narrowly deined piece of work assigned to a person. (Daft, 2012, pg. 30) Decision making authority is centralized in the top level management, and they have a top down appraoch to communication. This concept works well when the externl environment is stable. The goal for Acme is get their contracts completed fast while Tyler developes a relationship with the customer.

Omega's ne president Jim Rawls does not believe in orgnizational charts. Rawls goal is to break done artificle barriers between deprtments so that all his specialists can work together. Rawls wanted an informal work environment where communication was oral not written. He felt the company was too small to be so formal. Rawls wanted to make sure everyone understood what was needed both internally and externally. Rawls was concerned that all employees felt that they were part of the organization. The top management team were all on the same page with Rawls corporate philosophy and goals. Rawls has developed an organic design for the company. This means Omega is designed in a much looser organizational structure. Omega is more free-flowing, and adaptive. Rules and regulations are often not written down or a flexibly applied. The hierarchy of authority is looser and not clear-cut. This is evident based on Rawls disapproval of organizational charts. The for Omega is to have a decentralized structure which will allow decision making to be pushed to all levels of the organization. Another goal and typical for organic organizations where the company is decentralized is that knowledge and control activities are located with employees rather than with supervisors or top executives. (Daft, 2012, pg. 30) This can be seen by Rawls need to have all employees to be familiar with the activities throughout the organization.

I believe the best structure for this type of environment would be a divisional structure. In a divisional structure, or decentralized form, seprate divisions can be organized with responsibilities for individual products, servicies or product groups. Coordination is maximized across functional departments. Decision making would be and communication would be more vertical. In the case of Omega and Acme, where these organizations have shipping, engineering, drafting, and purchasing can coordinate their efforts and avoid making mistakes as evident with Acme.

Which Company Produced More Efficiently?

While Acme operated faster, Omega worked more efficiently. The first thing Rawls did at Omega was to call a meeting that included all department heads to discuss the potential contract. When the prints arrived he held another meeting to discuss the project. Each department walked away knowing who was to what. Acme, on the other hand, once the prints arrived, Tyler sent a memo to department heads, which said to move forward on purchasing all necessary materials for the project. Each department was told to start working on their narrowly defined jobs and told each department head that time was critical.

When Omega encountered difficulties along the way such as not being able to get certain parts on time, the department heads discussed alternatives. Key employees and managers had daily meetings to discuss the progress which kept everyone on the same page and involved. Acme set up the company so that departments had little contact with each other. Each department worked at their own speed. Each department encountered issues which the other departments were not aware of. There were a number of times Tyler discovered issues and lost his temper, putting additional pressure on an already pressure packed environment. Acme received a phone call from Rawls at Omega telling them of a problem with the unit Acme already had assembled. Tyler's people had to back up the process, make the necessary changes then continue the operation. Acme, who discovered the problem while assembling the unit, redesigned the cable overnight and continued the assembly the following day. This was done through the collaboration of many departments with ongoing communications.

The final projects for Acme were defective and delivery was delayed and incurred further delays in repairing the defective units. Omega's