Custom Chip

Integrative Case 4.0 – Custom Chip, Inc.

Jennifer L. Lane

Amberton University

Why does conflict exist between the departments at Custom Chip, Inc.? The three departments involved with the creation and manufacturing of Custom Chip, Inc.’s products, custom chips are Application Engineering, Product Engineering and Manufacturing. The chief reason conflict exists at Custom Chip, Inc. is the lack of common goals and objectives between the departments. Conflict such as that experienced at Custom Chip, Inc. is a natural outcome of the close interactions of people who pursue different objectives and have differential access to information and resources within the organization, (522). These three groups are experiencing intergroup conflict which is conflict among departments and groups on organizations. The causes of intergroup conflict which are all present within Custom Chip, Inc. are goal incompatibility, differentiation, task interdependence and limited resources. Each department is doing what they can to meet their set goals however with their goals being different one department meeting it’s goal may cause them to take some shortcuts with actions they may not view as important as it is not set as one of their primary goal however that action may truly be important in the success of another department meeting their goals. An example the objective of Application Engineers is to satisfy customer needs through innovative designs, the product engineer’s objective is to maintain control yields on assigned products and the Manufacturing departments objective is to meet productivity standards and time schedules.

A major deficiency at Custom Chip, Inc. causing conflict was the inability of the manufacturing department to meet it’s goal if the product engineer was not available. If there was a question regarding how to build a product during a run the manufacturing supervisor would call the Product Engineer assigned to that product. Since the Manufacturing group...