Conflict Among Departments

Conflict among Departments

Joshua Houghton

Ashford University

BUS610 Organizational Behavior

October 15th, 2012

Conflict among Departments

In a printing facility conflict between departments can occur at many different levels. Conflict may be defined as a circumstance in which one party negatively affects or seeks to negatively affect another party (Baack, 2012). Most conflicts that arise in a manufacturing atmosphere are due to the difference between departments and their procedures, culture and quality standards.

In this paper, a conflict between the press department and the finishing department will be addressed. The following will be identified, the possible source of the conflict, the level of conflict, how the conflict was resolved and three conflict outcomes that came from the resolution.

The Conflict

In the printing industry, quality is a major element when producing a printed piece. Quality is measured in every step of the process of printing. Conflict occurs between departments when one department supplies the other department with product with poor quality.

A conflicted occurred when the press department produced a component of a catalog that that was folded below the normal standard, causing the finishing department to occur downtime, extra overhead and affected the overall quality of the finished catalog. Due to the poor fold of the signature, it would not flow through the finishing machine efficiently, causing pocket jams and increase waste and lowering profitability.

The Source

The source of this conflict involved a quality level that was not met in the press department while producing the printed signature. The issue of poor quality issue was due to a new employee with limited experience operating the part of the press that makes the fold. Proper quality checks were not performed and as a result bad product was produced.

Level of Conflict

The level of this conflict would be considered an intergroup...