Situation Analysis

Sakthivel is the Plant In charge of Lube Blending Plant, Indian Oil, Chennai. He was in deep
thoughts as was advised by his Executive Director, K.L. Murthy to double the small pack
production at Chennai Plant within the tenure of 3 months. The main issue here was the lack
of adequate manpower to operate and execute the required changes. The management
expected the plant to use existing manpower to operate the additional machines. So, he had to
plan a negotiation with Central Union Leadership and Regional ER Group to bring changes in
the existing norms of manpower or target production per machines. He also had to come with
multiple options to accept trade union’s potential demands in order to achieve the target set
by his executive director.

Problem Analysis
Lube Plant at Chennai was operated on a general shift and manpower available would operate
2 machines per day. Around 1200 KL was the volume production per month. Main issue was
underproduction due to multiple reasons like lack of ample manpower, shortage of empty
containers, packing materials along with other space constraints.

Steps taken to tackle the issue of space:

 Providing mezzanine floor in small can section

 Extending warehouse
 Purchasing a greater number of pallets to store filled stock

Issue:

 Increment in number of machines being operated in a day

 Bring down number of workers per machine