Tool Craft Case Study Essay

In this case study we are introduced to a manager named Burt, who is the owner and current manager of Tool Craft a company that specialises in selling high quality tools to small contractors and individual craftsmen. The company currently has a small group of staff who handle fairly simple tasks however Burt has been finding new clients causing there to be an overload of duties for Burt and his staff, damaging the overall structure of Tool Craft. In order for the company to function properly again Burt needs to implement a middle line of managers and standardise work to ensure everyone’s happiness and decrease errors. Simple structure to start describes a small organisation that operates on a top-down communication flow with one person in …show more content…
As this happens Burt’s employees begin to complain about how as employee A words it, “Burt won’t tell anybody what to do anymore”, this shows loss of direct supervision as the Strategic apex acts as the qualified person to tell the staff what jobs has to be done. Another employee mentions Burt’s absence, “I think he likes those sales lunches more than he likes the hard work of making this place run”, the reason behind these statement can be traced to how Burt has not been able to address his staff important information because he has been meeting contractors in expanding Tool Craft. Employee D mentions how Burt promise customers “we can get you whatever you need, just name it”, which causes times where staff would have to inform the customer they don’t carry a certain tool when they don’t even stock it, this is an example of overload, when the amount of messages for an individual or organisation exceeds the capacity of the individual or system, Burt has taken too many tasks more than what his organisation is capable of (Kehoe 20). As he receives more chores, maintenance, one of the two crucial functions that enable an organisation to keep its department in operation and as maintenance deteriorates so does production, the second crucial function that is in charge of managing and improving the efficiency of an organisation’s conversion process so that more items are created. Through these statements and observations it is evident that Tool Craft has outgrown it’s original system of simple structure and in order to continue the production and maintenance function, the company will have to go through corporate restructuring, which is what I will illustrate in the following