Acme Manufacturing Company

Acme Manufacturing Company

When Steve Arnold, a production manager at Acme Manufacturing Company,

drove into the parking lot Tuesday morning at 8:45, he was already 45 minutes

late for work. Steve had overslept that morning because he was up late the night

before finishing the monthly production report for his department. He parked his

car and entered the rear of the plant building. Passing through the shipping area,

Steve spotted his friend George Summers and stopped to ask how work was

progressing on the new addition to George’s house.

Entering the office at 9:05, Steve greeted his secretary, Ruth Sweeney, and asked

whether anything urgent needed his immediate attention. Ruth reminded him

of the staff meeting at 9:30 with Steve’s boss—Frank Jones, the vice president for

Production—and the other production managers. Steve thanked Ruth for reminding

him (he had forgotten about the meeting) and continued on to his adjoining inner

office. He went to his desk and began looking through the piles of papers to find

the memo announcing the meeting. He vaguely remembered getting the memo

last week, but had not had time to read it or look at the attached materials.

The phone rang and it was Sue Bradley, the Sales vice president, who was

inquiring about the status of a rush order for one of the company’s important

clients. Steve promised to look into the matter and get back to her later in the

day with an answer. Steve had delegated the rush order last week to Lucy Adams,

one of his production supervisors, and he had not thought about it since then.

Stepping back into the outer office, Steve asked Ruth if she had seen Lucy today.

Ruth reminded him that Lucy was out of town at a training workshop and would

be difficult to reach. Steve asked Ruth to leave a message for Lucy to call him

during a break in the training.

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Going back into his office, Steve resumed his search for the memo...