Assignment (Questions 1, 4 and 5 from Test Paper)

MMP 1623 ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

12/17/2011 FACULTY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA CHANTHURU THEVENDRAM MM101341 861122-56-5697 NAME OF LECTURER: PROF. DR. AWALUDDIN MOHAMED SHAHAROUN

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Question 1 The main contributors and influence to management theory in the past can be categorized into those from the Scientific, Behavioral and Administrative School of thoughts. Explain whether these theories are still relevant to modern organizations which are IT driven, global in nature and where people interact more through the internet rather than face to face like before.

Modern organizations nowadays have been influenced by globalization for its own management. In this IT driven era, technological changes that occurred globally have changes the style of management of certain organization. However, the new generation organization still uses the old style of management as a platform to succeed. In the early days, the scientific management is much emphasized in terms of valued management. Most jobs or tasks are based on calculated and validated standards for the organization. The companies in earlier days always make the time study for creating their plans or schedule for manufacturing for instance. Nowadays, manufacturing firms used the typical standard time or cycle time calculation for their manufacturing processes. Based on these facts and figures, targets and goals are planned and achieved accordingly. Some companies may not go to the extent of forecasting sales till the effect from the nations economic growth but only to the extent of competitors challenges. Furthermore, the scientific management also believes in training the people to become experts. Till today, many IT driven companies have allocated numerous training programs or seminars through institutional, government, private consulting companies for the benefit of the employees directly and the benefit of the particular IT company indirectly. They believe that expertise and proper training will make the management work more efficiently. The administrative thoughts are never being forgotten till today by most business corporations. The administrative way of management will ease the operations of the company if there is proper division of manpower for each department in an organization, there is one boss who holds the authority, and there are experts in different but related fields.

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For instance, IT companies have many divisions for different functions. The most important for these companies is every department must rely on each other. In such, the numbers of employee based on department and weight-age of job scope is equally distributed in order to have smooth and efficient daily transactions, communications, services and immediate problem solving capabilities. Without efficient working condition, the departments may come to a point where they are unable to rely on other department, hence ending the daily operation with a failure. Looking into global business corporations, many organizations have actually concentrating on administrative means of management due to own countrys developments. They have actually trained more managerial job functioned employees instead of skillful employees. The rule of thumb is when the country realizes its status of developed nation; organizations tend to outsource their operations worldwide, finding for developing countries for investing their operations. This is an autonomous concern on the countrys economic situation. As most corporations have widened the business scopes and achieving double-digit operating profit, its time to realize that the operation run at their country is rather expensive. This mainly comes from increase of labor costs. Penetrating their operations into developing countries will actually cost the development of scientific management. On the other hand, introducing services, research and development for new products or technology will require more administrative skill of management.

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Question 4 Explain why is it important for organization to have clear goals and objectives?

Organizations without an effective and rational goal will not be able to sustain their business neither at international level nor within organization level. Even a hawker who sells fast food twice a week needs a clear goal and objective to sustain his business. A goal can be described as a direction towards desired output or achievement. If the hawkers aim is to gain his return on investment of RM20, 000 within 6 months, that would be his goal and he is determined and well concentrated towards the direction of his goal. An objective too is the purpose of the business you are running. The hawker too has his own objective that is to sell the most delicious fast food within the town. Everyone has their own business goals and objective. So does an organization. An international corporation or company will need goals at different level of management. They are divided into strategic goals, tactical goals and operational goals. Of course the highest level of management of any organization must be able to create their strategic goals. Strategic goals work as if it is the superior of all goals. The strategic goals will create subfunctions of management indirectly and the particular sub-functions will create their own details goals. This process will continue till the lowest level in the organization. Without strategic goals, the company will not have any directions of business that it may face losses in the means of operating profits, bankruptcy, and tremendous fall of market share, high turnover and other losses of business aspects. The strategic goal basically is created by the top management who can foresee or imagine his/her business growth in future years. Strategic goals are mostly built with the help of conceptual minds of the top management. A Chief Executive Officer of any company should have this conceptual mindset before creating his goal. This type of skill as a managerial will be able to foresee upcoming events of business strategies, threats, technology, changes of market share due to developing competitors and other considerations. In certain Japanese firms or manufacturing companies, it is proven that their top manager do find alternatives of business strategies for at least 5 future years. They look into wider scope or perhaps they may reach to the extent of global business threats for instance. With this concept of creating goals, the top level managers are able to secure the business hopes i.e. clear goals. They will be able to run their business smoothly with less risk

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factors inputted into their goals, provided that the below levels follows these goals accordingly in order to achieve their given targets. The lower level managers function is to create the tactical goals in conjunction with the strategic goals created by the top managers. These goals are important in order to fulfill targets set by middle line managers. The targets of tactical goal are more likely to relate to divisions in the organization such as the manufacturing division, finance, sales, human resources and other related departments. When lower level span of management study the strategic goals of corporate level, the number goals basically increases, hence more objectives are actually drawn. The goals become more precise and narrowed down to fulfill respective departments goals. The goals set in this level is more structured and directive to towards the department. The deeper goals are then set after tactical goals are being created. These goals are called the operational goals. Operational goals are set on the purpose to create target plans for sectional achievements. Some departments may consist of several sections that run different types of operations. These operations are the most bottom level of the management. Goals in these levels must be set very clear and must be in conjunction with tactical goals. Employees in this level must also be able to understand the basic purpose of the goals hence also learning why these goals are necessary to be achieved. The answer is to achieve higher level of managements target. In the end, they must be clear in mind to realize the benefit they gain from achieving the operational goals.

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Question 5 There are 4 basic management functions of planning, influencing, organizing and controlling. Why are these functions important for an engineering manager to know and practice well?

An engineering managers role can be described as very subjective. They make decisions within an organization thus influencing their corresponding departments in many scenarios. Of course an engineering manager tends to follow the basic management functions such as planning, influencing, organizing and controlling. These functions are just part of their daily routine tasks. The planning job is given to a manager with the assumption that strategic goals set by the top management are to be achieved for instance. The planning job basic idea is to set their goals that to be achieved. A tactical goal, for example, to achieve 1.2% defective ratio of parts manufactured in the department is then translated into tactical plans on how to achieve the particular target. Managers usually brainstorm the idea or concept on how to achieve the target. Some of them get their sub-ordinates to join discussion together with experts or advisors. From the discussions, basically the team will brainstorm for the root causes of the particular defective. Upon finding out the root cause, the team will suggest countermeasure plans to reduce the defectives thus the defective ratio of 1.2 % can be achieved. This is a simple idea of how planning should be done and led by the manager. Without good and effective planning skills, managers are yet close enough to achieve their targets. Influencing is indeed an interesting function that to be discussed. Furthermore, how does a manager utilize this management function wisely? Influencing is basically to make plans and goals being achieved through human contribution. It is more likely to perform counseling and advice to sub-ordinates on how to make their plans work according to given time and cost. Sometimes, managers do motivate their sub-ordinates through providing interesting rewards and appreciation tokens. Through this approach, employees are more willingly to achieve the given targets. Managers need human skills to motivate their employees. Without human skills, manager will not be able to make their tasks concentrated towards achieving their goals.

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The organizing function i.e. can be described as organizing skills is an important function in management criteria, perhaps very essential for engineering managers. Managers need to work smart in organizing their team members. The team members need to be organized in proper span of management in order for the smooth tasks distribution. In addition, their portfolios i.e. job description need to be explained as detailed as possible. This is to ensure the team is working towards their goals. Every team members contribution towards the goal can be foreseen if they are well organized by the managers. Daily meetings and discussions within an organization are most likely to ensure their goal achieving direction is not detouring. Controlling is another element of management function whereas the managers need this essential skill to ensure their goals are not carried away in the wrong direction. Here, managers are to make decision from time to time as of any issues that tend to be an obstacle for achieving the goals. Decision making skills are more important when this particular management function is discussed. Managers must make good decision within the right the time frame; otherwise the scenario is most likely to be carried away farther until the manager is unable to solve it. For example, when there is a quality issue found in the manufacturing line, the first thought by the manager is he going to achieve the defective ratio target? Secondly, how would he reduce the defective from occurring at that particular time? The best decision of many choices is to stop the current production, solve the problem by analyzing the root cause, and finally make necessary countermeasure actions immediately. In a nutshell, engineering managers need to find suitable ideas for planning, organizing, influencing and controlling. They also should be able to utilize their human skills, technical skills and conceptual skills in these management functions in an organization. As a result, the targets or goals can be achieved according to corporate level goals.