Jajurie, Nur-Ranji C.

CE 257
2012-53949 October 2020
CE297 Discussion Questions – ACME Medical Imaging Company

Homework 4, pls submit via UVLe using our standard file naming format.

Reading Assignment:

ACME Medical Imaging Company

A Project Management Methodology

1.) Describe the organizational structure of ACME.

ACME’s organizational structure can be describe based on its geographic

locations and functions.

ACME’s product design team is based in Italy and Arizona, its software
development team is found in Minnesota, its operations team is in
Connecticut, while its manufacturing team is located somewhere else. The
physical separation among various functions created communication
inefficiencies as they are often limited to emails, phone calls, and other
long-distance communication methods.

ACME also had organizational silos, as the CEO of ACME favored the
design team and created an “engineering-centric” culture in the company.
This promoted other business division to work independently instead of
acting as a collective whole to achieve the company’s goals.

2.) Does ACME have a project management system?

ACME does have a project management system. In fact, the company

follows some individual standard practices within its departments, however,
because of the poor leadership and the separation among the different
functions, the collective project management system becomes flawed.

3.) Does ACME have well defined business processes?

ACME does have well defined business processes, in fact, most of these
are even segregated by geographic locations. These processes are the
following: (1) Product Design, (2) Software Development, (3) Operations,
and (4) Manufacturing. However, cooperation among these functions
become problematic as ACME currently have a weak leader and its people
have no clear direction on the company’s strategy in order to achieve its
vision.
Jajurie, Nur-Ranji C. CE 257
2012-53949 October 2020
4.) Describe ACME Medical’s product delivery process.

ACME’s product delivery process can be described as “simple and stupid”.

However, because there were no formal commercialization processes, the
ACME’s simplistic two-phase process: Conceptualization and Production
Readiness still became foreign to most team members. There were also no
due dates existed for key deliverables which often results to teams missing
their target dates of deliveries.

5.) Are ACME’s business goals clear?

The CEO of ACME had clear visions on where he wanted to take ACME.
These visions enabled the company to initiate an aggressive project which
will produce a new series of products which shall have competitive prices
and utilize the breakthrough technology in the medical industry. However,
the company’s strategy on how to achieve this vision was unclear. The
CEO’s vague or incomplete instructions, poor strategic planning, and bias
towards design, resulted to project delays and poor cooperation among the
departments of the company.

6.) How was ACME going to design and develop the WiMAX?

ACME which initially utilizes the Digital Imaging and Communications in

Medicine (DICOM) standard. However, as WiMAX standard became the
new trend for the transmission of data, ACME had to transition to the new
technology in order to meet the demand for WiMAX-compatible products.

ACME originally planned to have a U.S. based company supply the

company’s chipset and software for WiMAX. However, after 9 months in
the project, the CEO of ACME decided to shift to a Taiwan based company
which could potentially help them reached their product development
goals. This decision prompted the design of the product to shift to
separating the radio and modem functionality into unique circuit boards
which must be done in 2 months.

Initially, this was accepted by the Operations Team as it appeared that the
change in modular design brought easier management of the bill of
materials and supply chain and reduced overall production cost. However,
as the creation of the new design progress, it was realized that more board
assemblies were required to be created leading to a more complex
management of the supply chain, a review on the production costs also
revealed that it was actually higher than what was expected.
Jajurie, Nur-Ranji C. CE 257
2012-53949 October 2020
7.) Describe ACME’s current CEO.

The current CEO of ACME prefers the role of Chief Engineer and quasi-
project leader more than the role of the CEO. This resulted to the CEO
being too involved in the product development decisions of the company.
And because of this bias, other functions of the company were often led to
act independently, whilst, having limited decision-making responsibilities as
every major decision has to be approved by the CEO.

The CEO also had poor project management skills as it failed to set
deadlines or project schedule for their transitioning project, which resulted
to everyone in the design team acting the usual, instead of being agile in
order for the company to win the race against its competitors.

8.) What do you think of its leadership? Is it strong or weak? Why?

The leadership of ACME is weak as it has an autocratic CEO. This

weakness lead to the suffering of the team as they were often misguided in
the requirements of the project that the CEO would want to create. The
leadership in ACME does not provide the adequate direction on how the
members of the team function to achieve the goals of the company.

9.) Does ACME need a new leader? What traits are needed?

ACME needs a new CEO and one that does not only have vision for the
company, but also have the receptiveness to be able to listen to every
departments or fellow executives, the motivation to bring out the best out of
his people, the adaptability to the changes in industry that can take the
impacts on the current company’s strategies, and finally have the trust of
the stakeholders so as to maintain the cohesiveness of the company and
prevent the creation of organizational silos.