千电子伏的汽车厂Kev’s Autoworks

弗莱德塔德纳姆是凯夫的汽车制造厂的总经理。他成功的总经理的父亲的早逝在去年的位置。凯文塔德纳姆，凯夫的汽车制造厂的创始人，开始在墨尔本的一个郊区一个学徒技工时只有十八。当乔治佩雷拉助理，凯文知道他所知道的一切关于汽车科学生汽车从他。Fred Tuddenham is the Managing Director of Kev’s Autoworks. He succeeded to the position of Managing Director after his father’s untimely death last year. Kevin Tuddenham, the founder of the Kev’s Autoworks, started off as an apprentice mechanic in a suburban area of Melbourne when he was only eighteen. Working as an assistant to George Pereira, Kevin learnt all he knew about automechanics from him. 

他是一个热心的学习者和佩雷拉喜欢这样的人。他在凯文看到了很多的潜力，并曾对一个同事说：“当凯文完成了一项记录的工作之后，他有一天会有一个自己的工作室”。二十一岁的时候，凯文已经成为最快和最巧妙的力学，佩雷拉曾教过。五年后，凯文成立了自己的车库在Ballarat，墨尔本西部的一个城市，，约115公里。他对汽车科学生汽车的天赋，凯文的小作坊发展到成为非常成功的千电子伏的汽车制造厂今天。He was a keen and enthusiastic learner and Pereira liked people like that. He saw a lot of potential in Kevin and once remarked to a fellow worker ‘that kid is going to own a workshop of his own someday’ after Kevin completed a job in record time. By the age of twenty-one, Kevin had become one of the fastest and most skilful mechanics that Pereira had ever taught.  Five years later, Kevin opened up his own garage in Ballarat, a city approximately 115 km west of Melbourne. With his natural talent for automechanics, Kevin’s small workshop prospered until it became the highly successful Kev’s Autoworks of today.  

It had been taken for granted that Fred Tuddenham would one day succeed his father as Managing Director of the company. Kevin was conscious of this and wanted Fred to have a solid background in automechanics. He did not want Fred to be taking on a job which would be beyond his capacities and training when he took over the business and thus, sent Fred off to a technical school for training.  The company’s office was based in downtown Ballarat, but the workshop was situated some distance away on the outskirts of the town. Working in the workshop were the six mechanics employed in the business. 

Gary Myers, aged fifty-five, was the foreperson in charge of the workshop and a veteran at Kev’s Autoworks. He had been Kevin’s long time friend and had been with the company since its inception. He was the most experienced and skilled worker at the company.  Myers was basically responsible for some administrative work in addition to the usual work at the workshop. He was the one who sorted out work for the other mechanics, although there was no formal job description for his job. Myers was an informal sort of leader. He would often join in the fun with the others and treated them as his equal. Everyone at the workshop was a member of a closely knit group and there was little need for Myers to keep them in line. The atmosphere suited him extremely well.  Alex Stevanov, aged forty-four, was the next most senior mechanic on the floor. He had been with the company for the last twenty years, and in many ways was considered a veteran too. Like Myers, he was fast and very competent in his job.  Michael Lam, aged thirty-five, had been with the company for the last decade. He was just as skilled as both Myers and Stevanov, but lacked the years of experience which made them faster.  Jonathan Wabira, aged twenty-one, was the only apprentice in the workshop. The workshop was at the moment short of one mechanic. The last, Simon Schultz, had left for Melbourne, preferring the glamour of a bigger city. His unexpected departure left the workshop one man short. As good mechanics were not easy to come by, Myers decided  

to train a mechanic himself. Wabira, therefore, was supposed to learn, while helping Myers, Stevanov or Lam. He had been in the workshop for the last year.  Finally, there was Bob Miller, aged thirty-six, and a newcomer to the workshop. Hired three months ago, Miller had been working for his father, Peter Miller, at the Miller Workshop. The Miller Workshop had initially handled their trucks as well as trucks from other firms. However, lately the Miller contracts with several firms had expired and these firms refused to enter into new contracts. Soon Peter Miller found that his workshop was in fact operating at a loss. This was due to the fact that they were only servicing their own trucks. 

Eventually, he decided to close down the workshop and signed a contract with Kev’s Autoworks to service his trucks. This, however, left Bob Miller without a job. Peter Miller thus approached Myers and asked him if there was a vacancy for a mechanic at Kev’s Autoworks. As Wabira was still an apprentice and the workshop was in need of another mechanic, Bob Miller was hired.  In the beginning, Myers had told Miller about the way in which things were done around the place. Miller seemed very understanding and accommodating. He seemed quite happy and enthusiastic about his newly found job. This was despite the fact that he was the second lowest paid worker there. The pay was based on both seniority and skill. Miller, of course, lost out on seniority, but appeared not to mind this. Myers thought that it was probably because he felt lucky to even have a job.  The workshop opens at 8.00 a.m. daily and the mechanics are assigned jobs by Myers. At 10.00 a.m. there is an unofficial coffee-break where the entire crew would go across the street for a cup of coffee. This is looked upon as a social gathering, where the men would get to know each other better. Being an unofficial coffee-break, it is customary that anyone who does not complete his first job by 10.00 a.m. would forego his coffee-break for the day.  Although skilful, Miller seemed to constantly miss his coffee-breaks as he was not as fast as Stevanov, Lam or Myers. During his first three weeks at Kev’s Autoworks, he only managed to attend one coffee-break. 

By the end of the fourth week, trouble was brewing. Miller had become quite alienated and dissatisfied with his job. He tried to hurry though his work so that he could make it to these social gatherings. Furthermore, he did not want to appear to be the slowest around. His haste, however, led to one of the trucks which he repaired breaking down because of a faulty gasket. Hearing about this, Myers spoke to Miller in his usual mild-mannered fashion. He basically advised Miller to be more careful with his work and to take his time. Miller acknowledged this with an unfriendly shrug of his shoulders.  Over the next few days, Miller’s dissatisfaction grew even more as he tried to hurry his work, yet making an effort to be careful. Unfortunately, he still missed his coffee-breaks. At lunch, he chose not to associate with the rest of the crew and there was little communication between him and the others. Soon Miller began complaining about various things. He went up to Myers and told him that the workshop was too dirty, so dirty that he found it hard to work in it. Myers tried to explain to Miller that they were understaffed at the moment and, besides, workshops were naturally dirty. Miller responded by saying ‘it was always clean at my father’s workshop’. Not long after, Miller complained about the noise from the loudspeakers. The men had always worked with the radio on so that they could keep up with the latest news and sports scores,  

particularly in summer during the cricket season. Miller once shouted, ‘turn off that damn thing, how’s a man supposed to work in this kind of noise?’  By this time the rest of the men had enough of Miller and his temperamental behaviour. They ostracised him from their activities, which led him to believe that they were talking about him behind his back. One thing led to another, and things gradually went from bad to worse. Miller started spying on the others when they worked on his father’s trucks and also complained about Wabira to Myers. Miller told Myers that Wabira was more concerned about going off for the coffee-break and was not at all interested in his work or learning from Miller. These two incidents led the others to dislike Miller even more. His spying on them implied his suspicions that they were not doing their work properly. This insulted the men.  

Gradually, Miller became bolder about his suspicions, and constantly lurked around his father’s trucks. He insisted that he, and only he, should work on the Miller trucks. Myers replied that that was quite impossible, as sometimes, multiple Miller trucks were in in need of maintenance or repairs at the same time. Miller’s reply was that he would work on as many of them as he possibly could. As a result of all these commotions, Miller’s competence as a mechanic fell drastically. He seemed to be more careless in his job and paid little attention to work other than that on his fathers’ trucks.  The final show-down came when one of the trucks which Miller had worked on broke down again. This time the front axle was dislocated. Miller had apparently not tightened the nut properly. The accident could have been fatal if the driver had been driving at a faster speed. To make matters worse, the truck belonged to the same owner of the truck which had broken down before.  The following day, Fred Tuddenham paid an impromptu visit to the workshop. There he met the staff and Myers took the opportunity to relate what had happened to Miller. Myers mentioned that Miller had reached the point where he would do more harm than good to the company, but on the other hand, the Miller account was quite a large one. 

Therefore, firing Miller would mean losing the Miller account, and thus quite a substantial amount of business.  Once made aware of the situation, Fred Tuddenham decided that it was necessary to call in outside consultants for help. He seeks advice from your consulting company. Please provide a detailed analysis of the situation to date followed by recommendations for future action to ensure the company operates effectively and efficiently.