Tolko Athabasca (TA) is a division of Tolko Industries and is in the Strand Based Business (SBB) product sector of Tolko’s corporate departmentalization strategy. Tolko Industries is a forest products company serving the North American, Japanese, and Australian markets with dimensional lumber, plywood, Oriented Strand Board (OSB), and Laminated Strand Lumber (LSL) products. A 30,000-foot view of Tolko Athabasca's organization would reveal that the uppermost departments are categorized functionally. The maintenance managers span of control is all maintenance activities and maintenance personnel in the electrical and mechanical departments, as well as planning, stores, and their own maintenance administration staff. The production manager
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There are secondary lines of reporting from the corporate level to departmental manager level. One example of this would be the TA technical manager, this role reports to the operations manager, as well as the corporate product development and quality manager. This complex matrix system is further evidenced by the hourly technical staff reporting to both technical coordinators and production team leaders.
Drilling down and evaluating the scope of work involved in each department, one would see that functional departmentalization makes sense for an operation like TA. Most would agree that production concerns are best addressed by employees working in the production department, or those technical employees would have little expertise or experience organizing the work of maintenance employees. However, for TA to be truly successful their strategy in organizing their departments closely resembles a matrix departmentalization system with a focus on decentralizing decision making down to the lowest possible …show more content…
Employees in all departments are empowered to make decisions to correct problems that fall into any of the three departments areas of responsibility. Maintenance employees take direction from both the production and technical departments, maintenance employees are empowered to stop the process and fix oil leaks that are affecting the appearance and quality of TA's products. Driving decision making down to the lowest possible level strengthens the relationship TA management has with the employees, empowers, engages, and increases morale and job satisfaction.
A fly on the wall in TA's management meetings would be able to tell you that decentralization decision making starts at the top. TA's general manager and operations manager expect their management team to be involved in all aspects of the business. It would be difficult to draw the line of command from manager to manager, through to direct report when observing this management team discuss issues or topics. This culture of involvement and team-based decision making creates a high level of internal motivation amongst the members of the management
There are secondary lines of reporting from the corporate level to departmental manager level. One example of this would be the TA technical manager, this role reports to the operations manager, as well as the corporate product development and quality manager. This complex matrix system is further evidenced by the hourly technical staff reporting to both technical coordinators and production team leaders.
Drilling down and evaluating the scope of work involved in each department, one would see that functional departmentalization makes sense for an operation like TA. Most would agree that production concerns are best addressed by employees working in the production department, or those technical employees would have little expertise or experience organizing the work of maintenance employees. However, for TA to be truly successful their strategy in organizing their departments closely resembles a matrix departmentalization system with a focus on decentralizing decision making down to the lowest possible …show more content…
Employees in all departments are empowered to make decisions to correct problems that fall into any of the three departments areas of responsibility. Maintenance employees take direction from both the production and technical departments, maintenance employees are empowered to stop the process and fix oil leaks that are affecting the appearance and quality of TA's products. Driving decision making down to the lowest possible level strengthens the relationship TA management has with the employees, empowers, engages, and increases morale and job satisfaction.
A fly on the wall in TA's management meetings would be able to tell you that decentralization decision making starts at the top. TA's general manager and operations manager expect their management team to be involved in all aspects of the business. It would be difficult to draw the line of command from manager to manager, through to direct report when observing this management team discuss issues or topics. This culture of involvement and team-based decision making creates a high level of internal motivation amongst the members of the management