CASE STUDY 14
MOTOROLA’S GUADALAJARA PLANT
Presented by
Satrio Haryoseno
Motorola
Motorola has attempted to increase the levels of
quality
it had to be innovative in its approach to quality
control
a major pat of Motorola’s success was due to its Six
Sigma quality enhancement program
Motorola management spread its vision of total
quality by teaching its employees how to think and
learn about quality issues
One of the main problems facing any international
organization set on improving quality is motivating and
communicating with individuals from different cultures.
Early in the 1980s, Motorola moved its discrete semi-
conductor plant to Guadalajara, Mexico, to take advantage
of cheap labour costs and a favourable business climate
By 1987, however, top management were displeased with
this production rate and the level of quality in the
Guadalajara plant
A massive change was needed to actualize Motorola’s
Sigma Six program in its struggling Mexican facility
Both the plant’s management and its Mexican workers
suffered from low morale
The local plant official, who ere mostly Americans,
had little latitude to create their own innovative
policies since the factory was over-seen by the division
office in Pheonix, Arizona
when problems in production began occurring, the
plant managers did little about the situation,
believing that the problem should be solved at a
higher level, as the organizational charts mandated.
The Mexican workers were unmotivated
as a result of the country’s hyperinflation, even though the factory was
one of the most modern and prestigious in Mexico
even though Motorola’s employees were paid better-than- average
wages, they were still losing their buying power day after day at the
marketplace.
traditional American motivational techniques proved to be ineffective,
as Mexican worker tended to be more group oriented and less willing to
offer individual opinions on problems
The employees also valued family and the church far more than they did
work
Therefore, Motorola staff members were faced with the challenge of
developing a workable plan that gave incentives for improved
performance an enhanced employee involvement in decision making.
in order to improve quality, the plant in Mexico had to be
given more autonomy.
Managers and regional staffers met to work out a new
system that provided the plant with more decision-
making power
The goals were based not on production alone but on
quality improvement in all areas
the local managers were given the leeway to organize the
factory in ways they considered appropriate
by empowering the Guadalajara managers, they would be
more motivated to solve problems themselves
the managers in Guadalajara needed to develop a plant that
would motivated their employees to improve both quality
and quantity
individual incentives were generally not effective
Recognizing that the family was one of the most important
elements in any Mexican’s life, Motorola set out to make
the Mexico factory more domestically oriented.
Management aimed to make the workplace an ‘extended
family’ by developing programs that gave family members
the opportunity to tour the plant and see what their
relatives did for a living and establishing workers’ picnics
and other family events.
Motorola’s management also designed work schedules around
Mexican cultural traditions
Unlike North Americans, Mexican eat a large lunch that is
considered the main meal of the day.
the Guadalajara factory allowed its workers to enjoy extended
lunch hours
they soon became more relaxed and comfortable during they work
shifts.
Finally, Motorola offered its workers health insurance, an
extremely rare benefit I Mexico.
By offering medical service, Motorola management took a big step
in making its employees feel like a special part of the Motorola
family.
The managers at the Guadalajara plant also knew that input
was needed from all levels of the organization in order to
increase quality.
In order to bring out the valued opinions of its workers, the
Guadalajara management designed a system of incentives
that rewarded group thinking
The employees felt comfortable with this style of dialogue,
and they provided important insights for management.
The managers, while gaining valuable insights from their
employees, also used the group meetings to describe an
reinforce Motorola’s vision of quality
As a result of all these changes, quality levels at the
Guadalajara plant increased dramatically
Workers understood the company’s new vision for
quality control and could see how their job fitted into
this vision because they had input on how to
improve quality
All of this activity was based on an atmosphere of
family and cultural security that made the Mexican
employees more comfortable about management in
general.
Integrated Motivation Model
Unsatisfied needs stimulate wants and behaviours. In choosing a
behaviour to satisfy a need, a person must evaluate three factors:
Past experiences – all the person’s past experiences with the situation at
hand enter into the motivational model. These include the satisfaction
derived from acting in a certain way, any frustration felt, the amount of
effort required, and the relationship of performance to rewards.
Environmental influences – the choices of behaviours are affected by
the environment, which in a business comprises the organization’s
values as well as the expectations and values of management.
Perceptions – the individual is influenced by perceptions of the
expected effort required to achieve performance and the value of the
reward both absolutely and in relation to what peers have received for
the same effort.
In addition to these three variables, 2 others are at
work: skills and incentives. Skills are a person’s
performance capabilities; they result from training.
Incentives are factors created by managers to
encourage workers to perform a task.
The motivation is now looked at from a business perspective:
Unsatisfied needs stimulate wants. In this situation a first-level manager feels
a need to be respected;
Behaviour is identified to satisfy the want. The first-level manager identifies
the behaviours that can satisfy the want. To consider which behaviour to
choose the first-line manager evaluates the rewards/punishments associated
with the performance; ability to accomplish the activities identified; and past
experiences, environmental influences, and perceptions.
The individual takes action. The first-level manager selects the best option and
then takes action.
The individual receives feedback. The response the manager gets from top
management constitutes the feedback in this case. If the response is positive,
the top manager has helped the first-level manager meet the need. The top
manager has also increased the likelihood that the first-level manager will
behave similarly in the future
The integrated motivational model is useful in
exploring theories of motivation in two categories:
content and process theories.
Content theories emphasize the needs that motivate
people. If managers understand workers needs they
can include factors in the work environment to meet
them.
Process theories explain how employees choose
behaviours to meet their needs and how they determine
whether their choices were successful.
