Read the case given below and answer the questions given at the end.

CASE STUDY 2

The Big Cookie Burnout

What seemed like a simple problem with an obvious solution turned out to be anything but that? It happened in the baking department of one of the nation's largest cookie makers. Too many batches of cookies, more than 10,000 dozen of them, were spoiled due to overheating. And when the finger-pointing was over, it was Arsenio, the department supervisor, who ended up being the fall guy.

Arsenio hadn't intended it to be that way. In fact, he was so sure that Joanna, the chief baker on the oven line was at fault that he suspended her on the spot. It had seemed like an open-and-shut case. Chief bakers were supposed to monitor oven temperatures continuously, even though temperatures were automatically controlled by a sophsticated series of thermostats. The chief bakercould override th eautomatic controls,however, if at any time she felt that the oven was getting hotter or colder to "Manual" and then manipulating a lever to increase or decrease the flame levels in the oven
Monitoring was easily accomplished by observing a number of temperature indicating devices. The main temperature indicator was an automatic recorder mounted at the chief baker's workstation at the front end of a 200-foot-long oven. It was there that the raw cookies entered the oven. The cookies had previously been formed by an extruding machine that squeeezed the dough mixture through a battery of nozzlesonto a stainless-steel conveyor belt. After entering the oven, the belt automatically carried the cookies through the oven at a predetermined speed. According to the kind of cookies being baked, it took from 12 to 18 minutes for them to move from one end of the oven to the other.

Besides the main temperature recorder, temperature indicators, were mounted every 50 feet or so so along the oven's side. The automatic temperature controls could be switched to manual control at each of these points.

On the day of what came to be known as the Big burnout, the cookies were just not "overdone", they were burned to a crisp. So after first blowing his stack and shunting the spoiled cookies to the garbage truck, Arsenio demanded of Joanna, "How could you ever hav elet this happen?" "I can't understand it," said Joanna. "I never left my workstation. I must hav elooked at the recorder a dozen times during that period. And whil eoven temperatures were nudging the high side occasionally, they always seemed to be within the control limits."

So," said Arsenio," you were too lazy to get off you duff and check the oven-side thermometers".

"That's not true. I can't remmeber whether I checked them because I was talking with the extruder-machine operator at that time about a problem he was having with his equipment. That distracted me" "That's no excuse," said Arsenio, "and I don't believe for a moment you were talking, machine problems. You were probably arguing about last night's ball game. Anyway, your job is to watch ovens, not to chat with every person in the shop. And no matter what the main recorder indicated, you're supposed to be monitoring the oven-side thermometers. It's obvious that somewhere along the line, temperatures got too high and you should hav ebeen there to take over. By not doing your job right, you made a big mistake that cost the company a lot of money.

So I'mm going to suspend you for a couple of days to give you a your headd straight about this job".

To Arsenio' dismay, Joanna's suspension did not stick. Th ereason? After listening to Joanna's story, the bakery manager asked the plant engineer to examine the oven equipment. The plant engineer found that temperatures indicated by the main recorder were accurate, as were all th eoven-side thermometers. He also checked the automatic temperature controls and found that they were functioning properly. He then asked the extruder-machine operator, "and I've had to shut the belts down from time to time to clean them".

"Don't you realize", said the plant engineer, "that when you shut the belt dow, the belt in the oven stops, too? It is no wonder the cookies burned up. Next time you want to stop the belt, be sure to let the chief baker know in advance. Meanwhile, we'll see if we can't adjust the automatic control system to avoid this problem".
"Don't you realize", said the plant engineer, "that when you shut the belt dow, the belt in the oven stops, too? It is no wonder the
cookies burned up. Next time you want to stop the belt, be sure to let the chief baker know in advance. Meanwhile, we'll see if we
can't adjust the automatic control system to avoid this problem".
Questions

1. Coment on Arsenio's approach to handling this problem.

2. (i) Of the five alternative opinions provided below, which do you think is most appropriate and why?

(ii) Rank the alternatives on a scale from 1 (most appropriate) to 5 (least appropriate). Also justify your ranking.

(iii) You may add another alternative, if you wish.But justify your opinion.

a. Arsenio was justified in suspending Joanna because he had no way of knowing the whole story at the time.

b. The suspension was justified because no matter what the extruder-machine operator had done, the chief

baker should have discovered the belt stoppage befor damage was done.

c. Arsenio's only mistake was that he did not clearly identify and specify the problem to begin with.

d. Arsenio's biggest mistake was to jump to a conclusion without having all the facts.

e. Arsenio solved the problem as best he could under the circumstances