Cerberus Corporation* Cerberus is a successful producer of specialty chemicals. It operates nine…

Cerberus Corporation*

Cerberus is a successful producer of specialty chemicals. It
operates nine large campus sites in the United States, with a number of
different business units on each site. These business units operate
independently, with direct reporting to corporate headquarters. Site functions
such as safety, environmental, and facilities management report to a host
organization—typically the business unit that is the largest user of their
services.

SUSAN STEELE

Susan Steele has worked in the Facilities group at the
Cerberus Richmond site for the last two years. The Facilities
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Cerberus Corporation*

Cerberus is a successful producer of specialty chemicals. It
operates nine large campus sites in the United States, with a number of
different business units on each site. These business units operate
independently, with direct reporting to corporate headquarters. Site functions
such as safety, environmental, and facilities management report to a host
organization—typically the business unit that is the largest user of their
services.

SUSAN STEELE

Susan Steele has worked in the Facilities group at the
Cerberus Richmond site for the last two years. The Facilities manager, Tom
Stern, reports to the General Manager of the largest business unit on site, the
highly profitable Adhesives and Sealants Division. Susan started with Cerberus
when she graduated with her business degree from Awsum University. She was
excited about her new assignment—leading a project for the first time. She
remembered Tom saying, “We’ve got office furniture dating back to the 80s.
There are those ugly green-top desks that look like they came from military
surplus! I’m especially concerned about computer workstation ergonomics—it’s a
major issue that we absolutely must fix! I want you to lead a project to transition
our office furniture to the new corporate standard.”

Susan assembled her project team: Jeff, the site
safety/ergonomics engineer; Gretchen, the space planner; Cindy, the move
coordinator; and Kari, the accounting liaison for Facilities. At their first
meeting, everyone agreed that ergonomics was the most urgent concern. All five
business units responded to a workstation survey that identified injury-causing
ergonomics. The team was developing a plan to replace old desks with new,
ergo-adjustable furniture by the end of the year. Susan asked Kari about the
budget, and Kari responded, “Facilities should not pay for this. We want the
individual business units to pay so that the costs will show where they are
incurred.”

Gretchen spoke up: “You know, we’ve got lots of department
moves going on constantly. Everybody is always jockeying for space and location
as their business needs change. Besides the ergonomics, could we say that only
corporate standard furniture gets moved? That would force changing some of the
stuff that’s just plain ugly.” Everyone agreed that this was a great idea.

Susan presented the project plan to Tom and got a green
light to proceed.

JON WOOD

Jon Wood is a planning manager, with 22 years experience at
Cerberus. His business unit, Photographic Chemicals Division (PCD), is losing
money. Digital photography is continuing to reduce the size of the market, and
PCD is having trouble matching the competition’s relentless price-cutting. Jon
recently transferred to Richmond from corporate headquarters, where he ran the
economic forecasting group. He is considered a new broom, and he is determined
to sweep clean.

One of Jon’s early actions was to negotiate with his general
manager for a department move. Money was tight, and the site facilities
function charged an arm and a leg for moves (covering all their fixed overhead,
the operations people groused). However, Jon felt it was important to move from
Building 4, where they were next to Production, to Building 6, where they could
be close to Marketing, Forecasting, and Accounting. His General Manager agreed,
and there was lots of excitement in his team about their upcoming move. Jon
assigned one of his planners, Richard, to work with the Facilities team on the
layout and move plan for the group. Things seemed to be going fine—Jon saw
Richard sitting down with the move coordinator, and they seemed to be on track.

The day before the move, Jon hung up the phone from a
particularly tense telecom ference with a Canadian subcontractor. Production
was not going well, and product availability would be tight for the rest of the
quarter. Clustered around his desk were Richard, Cindy, and a person he hadn’t
met yet, Susan. After hurried introductions, Susan told Jon that his filing
cabinets could not be moved. The cabinets are large lateral files, five feet
wide and two feet deep, a combination of both filing cabinets and bookshelves.
Jon brought them with him from Corporate because he thought they looked nice
with their dark grey steel sides and wood veneer tops. Susan told him that he
would have to replace them with new corporate standard cabinets, virtually the
same size. Jon said, “You mean you want me to throw away perfectly good filing
cabinets and spend another $2,000 on new ones, just so they match? I won’t do
it!”

Susan replied, “Then I won’t authorize the movement of the
old cabinets.”

Jon said, “You’re joking—these cabinets are grey, the new
ones are grey—the only difference is the wood top! You’d throw away $2,000 for
nothing?”

Susan replied stiffly, “I’m sorry, that’s the policy.”

Jon said, “I don’t care what the policy is. If I have to
move them myself, those cabinets are not going to the dump. My division is
losing money and I’m not going to throw money away. If you don’t like it,
you’re going to have to get your general manager to convince my general manager
to make me do it. Now would you please leave so I can get some work done.”

1. If you were Susan, what would you do?

2. What, if anything, could Susan have done differently to
avoid this problem?

3. What could the management of Cerberus do to more
effectively manage situations like this?

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