ForeFront Wood Products manufactures high quality wooden door sets. The company is facing capacity constraints and inefficiencies resulting processes and culture. As a result, it is struggling to be profitable. The parent company ForeFront, in ForeFront Holdings, plans an initial public offering in 2007. He recently hired a new operations manager with a mandate to turn the plant around. As Operations Manager begins the work he drives the production facilities for the collection of information on the production process and the factors influencing power, cost and compliance. Describes the production of the company and management processes. Many issues are discussed, including high costs, low productivity, reported defects and equipment that is not working close to its rated capacity. Organizational and change management challenges, including high turnover, excessive use of overtime, and the inability of leaders to observe or report employee errors are also described. "Hide
by Chris J. Piper, Nigel Goodwin Source: Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation 15 pages. Publication Date: 06 Oct 2006. Prod. #: 906D20-PDF-ENG
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