Ultimate Door Case Study

Directions: Read through the case study and answer the question below. Submit your answer
to Blackboard.

Jim Delaney, president of Ultimate Doors, has a problem. No matter how often he tells his employees
how to do their jobs, they often end up “deciding to do it their way” as he puts it, and arguments ensure
between Jim, the employee, and the employee’s supervisor. One example is the door-design
department, where the designers are expected to work with the architects to design doors that meet
the specifications. While it’s not “rocket science”, as Jim puts it, the designers invariably make mistakes
– such as designing in too much steel, a problem that can cost Ultimate tens of thousands of wasted
dollars, once you consider the number of doors in, say a 30 story office tower.
The order processing department is another example. Jim has a very specific and detailed way he wants
the order written up, but most of the order clerks don’t understand how to use the multipage order
form. They simply improvise when it comes to a detailed question such as whether to classify the
customer as “industrial” or “commercial”.
The current training process is as follows. None of the jobs has a training manual per se, although
several have someone out-of-date job descriptions. The training for new people is all on the job.
Usually, the person leaving the company trains the new person during the 1- or 2-233k overlap period,
but if there’s no overlap, the new person is trained as well as possible by other employees who have
filled in occasionally on the job in the past. The training is the same throughout the company – for
machinists, secretaries, assemblers, engineers, and accounting clerks, for example.
Questions:
1. What would you do to improve the training process at Ultimate? Please provide specific details.