The Paradoxical Twins:

Acme and Omega

Electronics Submitted By- Group 6

Aman Jain (024006)

Gnaneswara Kumar Maripi (024018)
Pulkit Dhanava (024036)
Ronit Guha Roy (024042)
Piyush Kukreja (024070)
Background

 Year 1955 – Technological Products of Erie, Pennsylvania was bought by a

Cleveland Manufacturer

 Cleveland firm sold two manufacturing units of printed circuit boards to

different investors

 After divestment, one unit was renamed Acme Electronics (Waterford,

Pennsylvania) and other unit was renamed Omega Electronics Inc. (Erie)

 Both Acme and Omega were in same segment of business (manufacturing

of PCBs) and often competed for same contracts
Differences between Acme &
Omega
Acme Omega

Acme retained its original management and Omega hired a new president and upgraded
upgraded GM to president several of the existing personnel within the plant

The annual sales of Acme was $10 Mn The annual sales of Omega was $8 Mn

Acme had 550 employees Omega had 480 employees

Greater net profit Relatively less net profit

Organization structure was retained Doesn’t believe in organization structure

Contract of Photocopy
Manufacturer
 Year 1966 – Shift in market environment as demand for Integrated Circuits (ICs)
started growing in electronics industry

 One of the major photocopy manufacturers was looking for a sub-contractor for
IC’s

 Contract was to assemble the memory unit for its new experimental copier

 Projected sales: $5-$7 Mn annually

 Both Acme and Omega were geographically close, submitted highly

competitive bids for production of 100 prototypes

 Deadline for prototype development: 2 weeks

Comparative Analysis – On
Functioning
Acme Omega
At Omega, Jim Rawls (President) had already
When John Tyler (President) received the
informed all the department heads about the
blueprints at Acme, he sent a memo to the
potential contract they were about to receive
various departments and started working on the
and once he received the blue prints, he
project
informed the head that production could begin
When a particular component was not available
at the time of assembly, Acme decided it to still They did an analysis whether to make or buy the
go ahead with the production and install the missing component and decided on ordering
missing component later, which was very time Japanese substitutes for the missing parts
consuming
There was a friction between the methods
Omega found an error in the connector cable
engineer and the production foreman as the
design, they redesigned it and asked for
normal procedure to contact method engineers
approval from the manufacturer
for setting up the assembly line was not done.
Comparative Analysis – On
Functioning….. Contd
Acme Omega
The process was inefficient and not well
coordinated and the method engineers felt
useless in the company
All the units had to be taken apart first to
conform to the new blueprint and second time Omega conducted quality test on all the units
again to install the missing parts in the units before shipping them
There was a delay in the production and
shipping of units and Acme shipped off the
goods by inspecting only one sample out of the
50 units
Retrospect
Acme Omega
Ten of Acme’s final memory units were ultimately Omega’s units passed the photocopier’s firm
defective test
Acme’s delivery was delayed Omega’s delivery was on time

Reasons for the final contract being handed over to Acme-

 Extensive cost cutting helped them to reduce the costs by a huge margin-
20%
 They placed the lower bid initially
 Acme’s market standing was better than Omega as they had greater sales
and greater net profits
Analysis – Working Style of Acme
 Organization Structure was defined and rigid

 Compromised on quality to meet the deadline

 Decision making was only with John Tyler and gave little scope to the
engineers to give their inputs

 Flow of communication was from top to bottom and inefficient as the

method engineers felt unwanted in the organization

 The plant manager was biased and had a short term vision where he
wanted the prototypes to be out by any means
Analysis – Working Style of Omega
 No organizational chart, written memos were prohibited and oral
communication was promoted
 No proper division of labor with job description
 Decision making lied with the management
 Omega was aware of potential contracts it may be awarded and it showed
they were proactive
 Efficient in their work as they studied the design carefully, detected an error
and re-worked on the manufacturer’s blueprint
 Supplied prototypes to the manufacturer before the stipulated time
 Took the formal approval of the photocopier manufacturer on design
changes which showed professionalism
Thank You