How Stella Saved the Farm by Vijay Govindarajan

Author:Vijay Govindarajan [Govindarajan, Vijay; Trimble, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250022240
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-05-04T23:00:00+00:00

“I’ve heard enough,” Rambo replied, and he shut down production for the day.

Stella witnessed the entire debacle in the yarn-making facility. With production at a halt, she contacted Alejandro. Help! she texted him. Do you know any experts in making alpaca yarn?

Five minutes later, she got a reply. I’ll set up a call with my uncle. He’s been in textiles all his life.

After the call, Stella understood the problem.

Rambo’s operation was geared toward turning bulk commodity sheep wool into yarn in the most efficient way possible. The team included specialists that handled each step in the process—separating, skirting, washing, teasing, carding, roving, spinning, winding, finishing, and shipping.

But in Peru, textile producers specialized not by step in the process, but by product. Alejandro’s uncle, for example, had specialists for different grades and weights—for basic, everyday alpaca wool; sort-of-luxurious alpaca wool; finest-in-the-world alpaca wool; and so forth. Each specialist carried batches of wool through the entire process.

Stella immediately recognized the implications. There was no way to organize Rambo’s team in two different ways at the same time. Even a small step in that direction would be extremely disruptive to existing operations.

Stella hurried to tell Rambo and Mav what she had learned. She found the two of them in a heated discussion. “There’s just no way we’ll ever succeed in combining yarn-making operations,” Rambo was shouting. “It’s too much trouble!”

“We’ve been over this! We can’t afford a separate shop!” Mav was frustrated. Why was combining yarn making so much harder than combining animal care?

Stella attempted to defuse the situation by explaining what she had learned. Mav, though tightly wound at the moment, seemed to understand. He later agreed that a dedicated production facility, while expensive, really was a necessity.

Soon, Mav made the proposal to Deirdre, who listened carefully and asked several questions. She saw there was just no getting around the necessity of assigning activities that were beyond the narrow, specialized capabilities of her existing organization to the dedicated team. The thought of these additional expenditures worried her deeply, but there was no choice. She approved Mav’s request for a separate manufacturing facility.

That night, as the colts watched their favorite reality show, So You Think You Can Prance, Deirdre updated the org chart once again.

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