Acme Manufacturing Company - Case

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 forty-five 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 if there was anything urgent that 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 so that he could find out what it was about. 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 ofa 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 replied that Lucy had been in earlier and then left without saying where she was going or when she would be back. Going back into his office, Steve rummaged through a pile of work orders on his desk looking for the work order and also for the memo about the meeting. Finally,...