4/21/2022

NAME-479: Engineering Management

Cdre M Muzibur Rahman, (E), psc, PhD, BN (Retd)

Part-3: Organizational Behavior

Organizing: It is to arrange and relate the work, so that
it can be done efficiently by people – specifically to:
•Ensure that important work is done,
•Provide continuity
•Form basis for salary administration
•Aid delegation
•Promote growth and diversification
•Encourage teamwork, and
• Stimulate creativity Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Organizing Terms
• Authority - Power to command, act or make decisions (Legal,
position-based)
• Responsibility – Shouldering the duty to perform work efficiently
and in professional manner
• Accountability - Upwards directed obligation for securing the
desired results
• Span of control - Number of people supervised by a manager
(e.g., 7 to 20)
• Specialization - Increased degree of skills concentration in narrow
technical domains

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Line Versus Staff Organization

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Functions of Organizing

O rganizing W orkplace

D eveloping Structure

Delegating W ork

Establishing Relationship

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Organizing Own Workplace

• Set priority of daily work (attend meetings, make phone calls, write
emails, block out time to do creative work, discourage disruptions, keep
conversations short, maintain “to-do” lists, prioritize tasks, etc.)
• Create a file system for efficient retrieval
• Develop one’s own system for names and contact information
Develop Organizational Structures
• Identify and group the work so that it can be done efficiently by people.
Choices are:
(1) functional,
(2) discipline,
(3) product/regional,
(4) matrix,
(5) team,
(6) network
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Functional Organization
Technical Director

Mechanical Design Electrical Design Quality Control

System Engineering Production Engineering

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Functional Organizations (Pros and Cons)

• Permits hierarchy of skills
• Facilitates specialization
• Simplifies coordination
• Permits use of current technologies and equipment
• Encourages excessive centralization
• Delays decision making
• Compounds communication line loss
• Restricts development of managerial skills
• Limits personal growth
Functional Organizations (When to use)
• Organizations with high relative stability of work flow and limited product
diversity - certain manufacturing operations, process industries
• Startup companies
• Organizations with narrow product ranges, simple marketing pattern and few
production sites
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Discipline-Based Organization
Favored by universities, governmental laboratories and other
R&D organizations
Promote innovative pursuits in individual disciplines, allowing
employees to drill down to deeper knowledge levels without
requiring much coordination with others.

Engineering Dean

Mechanical Engineering Electrical Engineering Naval Engineering

Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering

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Product Organization
Based on types of products or consumers of products

Technical Director

Governmental Products University Products Custom Products

Consumer Products Industrial Products

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Regional Organization
Based on geographical boundaries or area-wise
arrangement

President

North America Europe Asia

Latin America Africa

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Product/Regional Organization
(Pros and Cons)

• Focuses on end products or geographical regions

• Facilitates coordination
• Encourages management development
• Provides for decentralization
• Promotes growth
• High costs due to layers, autonomy or duplicated facilities
• Requires management talents
• Technical obsolescence of specialists
• Changes take time to effect

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Matrix Organization
Functional Control

Project A

Project
based Project B
Control

Project C

Engineering Production Logistics Design

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Matrix Organization (Pros and Cons)

• Project manager focus on schedule and cost, functional managers on
quality/expertise
• Work load balance
• Excellent for individuals (to achieve exposure and interactions)
• Dual reporting
• Severe conflicts among managers
• Delicate balance of power (people versus money/time)
• Communications problems

Matrix Organization (Bases for Conflicts)

Project Managers:
Money under control
Mandate to authorize work with top management support
Rights to buy services elsewhere
Functional Manager:
Manpower, skills knowledge, facilities
Own funds to support people
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Team Organization
•Team members are “on loan”
from functional organizations Functional Control
to eliminate organizational
Team Leader
conflicts
•Team Leader in full control
•Usable for short term high-
priority tasks/projects
•Examples: Product team, Member A
special task force

•Purposes are to:

(1) create recommendations, Member B
(2) make or do things, and
(3) run things well
Member C

Member D

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD Engineering Production Logistics Design

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Network Organization
• Global business alliances/partnerships to manufacture, market,
deliver and service products (supply chains)
• Change alliance members from time to time
• Diversified alliance members (e.g., company allegiance, culture,
value system, business practices, geography, attitude,
motivation, information sharing and collaboration, etc.)

Performance Enhancement by Organizing:

(1) Keeping the structure flexible
(2) Promoting innovation
(3) Interfacing design and manufacturing properly
(4) Heightening employee motivation
(5) Adopting high-tech marketing interface

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

(1) High Performance Enhanced by Flexible Structure

• COMPOUND ANNUAL GROWTH RATE (CAGR) - 1994 to 1998

• Name CAGR (%) Average Growth Rate of Next Three

Largest Competitors in Industry (%)
• Trilogy 75 49
• First USA 60 21
• Dell Computer 51 39
• Starbucks 46 23
• Home Depot 25 17

Source: Nora A. Aufreiter, Teril Lawyer and Candance D. Lun, "A New Way to Market," The McKinsey
Quarterly, New York (2000).

(2) Organizing For Innovation

• Key Trade-off: Talents versus control
• Vertically Integrated Structures: Systemic Innovations (requiring close
coordination and information sharing)
• Virtual Flexible Structures: Autonomous innovations (independent inventors
with breakthrough ideas withoutCdre
coordination).
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(3) Design-Manufacturing Interface

• Difficulty created by a lack of coordination.
• Design is “thrown over the wall” and check on produceability may
require undoing design. The ultimate result is: “Silo effect”.
Methods to eliminate silo effect:
(a) Manufacturing sign-off,
(b) Focus on opportunity not crisis,
(c) Develop cross-functional team,
(d) Integrate/Combine both functions into one department

(4) Heightened Employee Motivation

• AES Corporation - Runs 90 plants in 17 countries as contract generator
using regional and local teams (5- 20 people each)
• Local teams for power plant operation and maintenance. Members
“own” the work they do and are extraordinarily motivated
• Employee mobility is encouraged after skills are verified by company
exams Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

(5) High-Tech Marketing Interface

High-Tech:
(1) products/services with scientific-technical bases,
(2) products become obsolete quickly by new technology
(3) products create new markets, if built on emerging
technologies. Examples: semiconductors, microcomputers,
robotics.
Strategy of marketing:
• Market-Driven: Products fit to customers’ needs, but may
cause potential delay of innovations, giving preemptive
advantages to competitors
• Innovation-Driven: New innovations may not be needed by
customers, producing no value to company

• Teams with members from both camps

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Cross-Functional Team
• Representatives of all functional groups are participating, in
addition to procurement, financial, vendors/suppliers and
customers
• Issues related to product design/development are considered
early on and concurrently
• Create an optimum product in the shortest time, at the lowest
cost, while satisfying constraints and meeting customers’ needs

Benefits of Cross-Functional Teams:

• Reduction of product development time: 30% to 70%
• Reduction of number of engineering changes: 65% to 90%
• Reduction of time to market: 20% to 90%
• Improvement in product quality: 200% to 600%
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Cross-Functional Team Formation

Team D iscipline

Team Lear ning

Team Effect iveness

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Team Discipline
• For achieving “blow-the-roof-off” performance, teams must have discipline:
(1) common purpose,
(2) specific goals of performance,
(3) complementary skills,
(4) commitment to how the work gets done (each pulling the same weight),
(5) mutual accountability - commitment and mutual trust, being accountable to each other
- “being in the same boat together”
Team Learning
• Team must learn quickly all needed skills (working together, using design tools)
• Factors affecting team learning speed:
(1) composition (a mix of expertise)
(2) culture of risk taking allowing experimentation
(3) people-oriented leadership Style
Team Effectiveness
• Team Goals are clear, of high impact, measurable and with top management support.
• Members are results-oriented, efficient, having complementary skills and experience, high
energy level, positive attitude to collaborate, each staff with specific expertise.
• Work Environment is excellent (easy to use communications tools, opportunity for self-
expression, pleasant work atmosphere, Cdreetc).
Muzib, psc, PhD

Roles of Team Members

• Team Leader - Keeps team moving forward
• Conceptual Thinker - Sources of original ideas, with imagination and vision
• Harmonizers - Assuring team harmony, foster collaboration, resolving
conflicts
• Technicians - Specialists with expertise
• Planners/implementers - Bring methods to tasks of team, autocrats with
inflexibility
• Facilitators - Offering help and support, being adaptable
• Critical Observers - Making sure the team is on target
• Radicals - Not accepting conventional thinking and solutions, offering new
approaches to problem-solving
• Power Seekers - Wanting to be right all the time, shaping the teams’ view
• Diplomats - Coordinating inter-team relationship, getting information for
the team

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Check your mentality as Team Player

1. Do you compliment your co-workers when you observe them doing a good job?
2. Are you enthusiastic about helping your teammates in any way you can?
3. Do you always do your job thoroughly and completely?
4. Do you take advantage of every opportunity to support the team effort?
5. Do you have a professional respect for everyone on your team?
6. Can you follow through and support policies and rules with which you personally
disagree?
7. Do you attempt to avoid undermining those around you for personal gains?
8. Are you enthusiastic about your company and the direction in which it is headed?
9. Do you show appreciation for the efforts of others and acknowledge their
contributions to the big picture?
10. Do you seek new relationships and acquaintances through the company?
11. Do you take responsibility for your mistakes and easily admit when you are wrong?
12. Does your attitude have a positive effect on those around you?
13. Are you personally dedicated to making the company the best in the industry?

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

DELEGATION
• Objective - To improve manager’s overall efficiency by selectively
distributing work for employees to do.
• Process - Managers delegate the responsibility and needed
authority of doing specific work to employees and create upward
accountability in them for securing the anticipated results.

ELEMENTS OF DELEGATION
• ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY: The superior asks the
subordinate to perform a particular task in a given period of
time
• GRANT OF AUTHORITY: It is the power to order or command,
delegated from superior, to enable the subordinate to discharge
his responsibility
• CREATION OF ACCOUNTABILITY: It is the obligation of a
subordinate to perform the duties assigned to him
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Why Delegating?
• Improve quality and quantity of work done
• Allow manager to do manager’s job
• Become knowledgeable of employee’s capabilities
• Distribute work load efficiently/equitably
• Develop leadership capabilities in people
• Improve operating decisions - reducing cost
• Facilitate teamwork, making job more satisfying to employees
• Create opportunities for employees to gain recognition,
encouragement and incentives
• Allow employees to develop new skills and knowledge, fostering
initiative and competence, and gaining self-confidence
• Encourage employee growth/development
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Delegation Matrix
1: Employee

Can 1 3 2: Neither; if must,

then to be done
by engineering
Employee manager

2 4 3: Delegated to
Cannot
Employee

4: Engineering
manager
Cannot Can

Engineering Manager
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What to Delegate:
• Problems/Issue requiring exploration, study and recommendation
for decision making
• Activities coming within the job scope and capabilities of employee
• Tasks fitting company’s needs and promoting employee
development and growth
• Activities, if done right, would save manager’s time

What Not to Delegate:

• Planning (to define the right things to do)
• Resolve morale problems, differences and conflicts in groups/units
• Coaching and developing employees
• Review, evaluate and correct performance
• Own assignments from big bosses
• Others (own “pet” projects, tasks absent of talents)
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

How to Delegate:
• Communicate the importance of task, set goals and performance
indicators, check on understanding/confidence
• Delegate responsibility for quality of work
• Allow operational decision making (resources, method, sequence
of tasks, etc.)
• Trust the employee and give recognition
• Retain own upward accountability

Barriers to Delegation:
• Own technological obsolescence - Employee may learn and grow
technically
• Organizational barriers - unclear roles and responsibilities, line and
staff positions

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Establishing Work Relationships

• Purpose - To create an environment in which people
can work together efficiently
• Steps: (1) clarify roles and (2) resolve conflicts

Type of Conflicts:
• Technical (e.g., design, analysis, results interpretation)
• Operational (how to do tasks, who is responsible?)
• Emotional (ego involvement, hurt feelings)
• Political (who should have a say on what? who’s turf it is?)

Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

How to Resolve Conflicts

• Dominance (Dictation of solution)

• Compromise (Bargain - reflect relative power)
• Collaboration (Find win/win solution by
finding ways for both parties to achieve
objectives)
Key Requirements: Openness, mutual respect,
common interest to see project success

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Collective Bargaining
• Disputes escalate when employment contracts expire and need to
be negotiated
• Procedure that defines the rights and privileges of both sides
involved and establishes the terms of employment and length of
contract
• If labor and management cannot come to an agreement, they may
submit their disputes to:
– Mediation
– Voluntary arbitration
– Compulsory arbitration
• Mediation: A neutral third party listens to both sides and suggests
solutions.
– It carries no binding authority
– Both parties are free to reject or accept the mediator’s decision
Cdre Muzib, psc, PhD

Collective Bargaining
Voluntary arbitration: Both sides willingly submit their
disagreements to a neutral party.
• The arbitrator's decision must be accepted by both sides

Compulsory arbitration: An arbitrator who dictates a solution

that is binding on both sides and can be enforced in a court of
law.
• The government appoints when the labor-management
dispute threatens national health and safety or will damage
an entire industry.

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