Jebs Fleet Auto is a distributor of bulk customized automobiles and trucks for business and government customers.
Question:
Jeb’s Fleet Auto is a distributor of bulk customized automobiles and trucks for business and government customers. It buys cars and trucks in large volumes from major automobile manufacturers, customizes the vehicles according to the client’s specifications, and delivers them to the customer site.
One important process for Jeb’s Fleet Auto is the contracts process, since the contract must contain detailed descriptions of what Jeb’s mechanics will do to customize the vehicles and a carefully worded financial statement of what the customer will pay to Jeb’s for the vehicles.
The documented process for drafting a customer contract is presented below.
Description
Two problems have recently come up in this process:
The contracts process is intended to take fewer than 5 days, but it currently takes more than 15. The approval stages are taking considerably longer than expected as the senior manager, legal, and finance all have new requirements of language to be inserted in contracts to reduce the company’s liability.
Customers are noticing major errors in the drafting of the contracts. The most common errors are in the section on pricing, though there are also errors in the vehicle specifications the customer has requested. Recently the errors in vehicle specifications led to the return of a major customer order, costing Jeb’s a significant amount of money.
As the OD consultant, it will be your role to help the team come to agreement about how to resolve these problems in the contracts process. Consider the following:
- What concepts will be important to consider or apply to this case?
- 2. What intervention(s) would you create to help the team? Would you create a workshop or event? How might that be structured? What would be your role?
3. What do you expect will be the challenges in working with this team? What questions will you ask to begin the discussion
An Introduction to Management Science Quantitative Approach to Decision Making
ISBN: 978-1337406529
15th edition
Authors: David R. Anderson, Dennis J. Sweeney, Thomas A. Williams, Jeffrey D. Camm, James J. Cochran