CASE STUDY – WORKFLOW ANALYSIS AND JOB REDESIGN

RFM Corporation was incorporated in August 16, 1957 as Republic Flour Mills Inc. to manufacture flour in the Philippines, despite wheat not being grown in the Philippines. In 1963, RFM began manufacturing cooking oil and margarine. Two years later, started manufacturing poultry and hog feeds. In 1971, RFM integrated forward into hog and poultry breeding. It entered into a licensing agreement with Peterson Farms and H&N, Inc. to breed day-old chicks. In 1973, RFM entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Swift & Company to use the brand “Swift” for its meat processing business (in 1987, RFM purchased ownership rights for its exclusive use in the Philippines). For the next 15 years, RFM concentrated on growing its established core businesses and also introduced other grocery products, such as cake mixes, hotcake mixes, and ingredient mixes.

Sales of its grocery products are handled by the Grocery Sales Division, headed by a Vice-President. The division organizational chart is shown below:

I am not able to copy and paste the organizational chart, but Grocery Sales Division is in a chart above the others listed below.  They all follow underneath the Grocery sales division box.  

Grocery Sales Division

Credit and Collection

Shipping

Marketing and sales

Order and billing

FG Warehouse

Below is the sales process work flow for the purchase of grocery items from the company.

Marketing and Sales-Order is recieved

Order and Billing-PO Generated

Marketing and Sales-Salesman assigned

FG Warehouse-Items withdrawn and delivered

Order and Billing-Post sales documentation

Credit and Collection-Collection of Payments

The whole sales process for a purchase of grocery items, from the receipt of an order to the collection of payments involves a series of steps involving clerks and a salesman. Each clerk, performs specific functions within the sales process while the salesmen’s jobs are limited to the delivery of the purchased items. All grocery salesmen, sales assistants, as well as all clerks are paid a fixed monthly salary, and are not entitled to sales commissions. The chart below shows the details of the sales process.

Details of the grocery sales process and the responsbilities: 

    Marketing and Sales  – This section is responsible for the advertising and sales of grocery items. Sales assistants are tasked to look for and solicit sales orders from customers both retail or wholesale. Orders received are then referred to the Order and Billing section for processing.  

 Order and Billing  – When orders are received, OB clerks, prepare purchase orders (POs) , then sends the POs back to the Marketing and Sales Department .

 Marketing and Sales –  Sales clerks receive the POs, prepares waybills, then gives the waybills and the POs to sales supervisors who will then assign salesmen to handle the sale and the delivery of the products. Salesmen receives the waybills and the POs, then proceed to the warehouse to withdraw the grocery items for delivery.  

 FG Warehouse-  FGW Clerks, release the grocery items indicated in the waybill to the salesmen and loads them into the sales trucks. 

 CUSTOMERS – Salesmen delivers the grocery items to the customers, who then acknowledges receipt of the products and are issue receipts. If the PO indicates Cash on delivery (COD),  the salesmen are authorized to receive payments from the customers. 

 Order and Billing – After delivery, the waybills, POs, and payments are turned over to and received by the Order and Billing section. A collection memo is then generated and given to the Credit and Collection Department, while payments received are turned over to the cashier.    

 Credit and Collection- The CC Clerks starts process of collecting payments.

Over a period of time, the salesmen have been complaining about their alleged low salaries. They have been requesting and fighting for an entitlement to sales commissions. RFM management believes that since the job of the salesmen involves only delivery of purchased items, they continue to deny the salesmen’s request. 

Recently, a labor union started giving seminars, inciting the salesmen to organize and form a union so they can bargain collectively with RFM’s management. Through discreet reliable sources, the HR Manager found out that about 90% of the salesmen will be joining the union because they were unhappy with their job. The main issue that the salesmen were complaining about were their alleged low salaries and the failure of RFM Management to grant them sales commissions. When the HR Manager reported this to CEO of the company, the CEO asked the HR Manager:

1. To redesign and reorganize the Grocery Sales Division to become more efficient and effective.

2. To resolve issues so that the formation of a labor union could be aborted.

3. To develop a strategy on how to effect the changes with minimum resistance from all personnel involved and at minimal cost to the company

If you are the HR Manager, what will be your overall recommendation? In answering this question, I want you to follow the format below:

I Background Information

II Statement of the Problem

III Analysis of the Problem

IV Generate and Justify Your Alternatives 

V Recommendation

Your overall recommendation must be thorough, detailed, and well supported. You will also be required to draw diagrams to show responsibility and accountability, if you are proposing a reorganization or a change in the process or both.