Hamdan

FHE Inc.

FHE manufactures pumps used by the automotive and appliance industries. They also manufacture fluid handling equipment used to transfer liquids from paint to food supplies. During 2005 their profits after tax were $5,470,000 after having sales of $105,200,000. Even though FHE’s sales and profits are improving, Lum Donaldson, product development engineering manager, believes there are problems in coordinating the technical program managers and product managers. He has concerns that the division of responsibilities is not clear and the fluctuating workload in the engineering services is off balance.

The cause's problems are issued because of the lack of clear process and no effective communications between departments.

We are seeing that they should be implementing a new management information system that can make control and keep clear records from the beginning to the end.

Question 1:

What steps should Donaldson take to improve the new-product development process at FHE?

Restructuring:

Phil Thomas, vice president of corporate development and marketing is currently responsible for both areas of marketing and design engineering. His responsibilities need to be split and another manager put in charge of either marketing or design engineering. This way there can be clear direction designed for the coordination of successful introduction of new products. Because of the amount of coordination and planning for the production of new products, Donaldson should be in charge of the planning and engineering. His duties would include the planning and coordination of the product managers and the technical program managers. Distributing responsibilities in this matter will lead to better coordination and planning without one person fielding several questions and some important matters being overlooked.

Question 2:

What could be done to clarify the organizational relationship between product managers, technical program managers, and manufacturing...