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This can be resolved by holding weekly meetings to prioritize weekly activities and coordinate efforts of all three departments. Once priorities for the week are set, responsibility can be divided among each of the three departments. In this way Donaldson will have a measure of accountability that is currently lacking because the division of responsibility is not clearly defined. Such meetings should include a review of the Technical Specification Action Report (TSAR) for any new product. In this review all three departments could supply valuable input that would help clarify responsibilities, underscore potential problems, and help define project and process requirements. This will also help cause less fluctuation in workload for the engineering services department. Another step Donaldson should pursue has to do with the bottleneck and fluctuating work load in the engineering services department. Currently as many as 20 new product development projects are handled by engineering services at one time, with many of them requiring the same engineering services at the same time (Schroeder 7). Al Hanson, manager of the engineering services department, has repeatedly sought more advance notice from technical program managers, but project schedules are uncertain and requirements are typically unknown until the last minute. Because of this situation, Donaldson needs to implement a tight project schedule with well-defined timelines, including k |
