8.3. Two Case Studies
Douglas Aircraft Company. We had the opportunity to help the Douglas Aircraft Company (a division of McDonnell Douglas Corporation) design and implement a companywide performance improvement effort. The top management team was determined to fight the 'j ust another program" (BO-HICA) attitude and to implement a quality and productivity effort with teeth.
They began by identifying what they called the company's Significant Business Issue: "SatisfyYour Customer Through First-Time Quality." They set up a structure in which natural work groups, which are either vertical (work-unit groups) or horizontal (cross-functional groups), meet regularly, assisted by line people who are trained as full-time facilitators. The teams went ...
Get Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
