As a firm grows the lines of communication are often stretched

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2) As a firm grows the lines of communication are often stretched. To overcome this meetings could be set up to keep people informed. The company's span of control could be re-emphasised so that workers know whom to report to and who to inform of their orders. A clear structure and hierarchical pyramid will reduce arguments in the short term. Team building exercises are a modern way of improving morale, team spirit and efficiency. They are a long-term measure to keep all managers striving for the same aims and goals for the company as a team.

When a company needs to improve in a certain department a lot of companies often turn to bench marking. In this case they would try to find a company that has either got very strong lines of communication, or recently grown dramatically. Japanese "Kiritsu," such as Mitsubishi would be a good example as they are run like a giant family with good communication.

Freshbake could also have trained their managers to be multi skilled so as to understand what goes on in other departments. A clearer understanding would make for better forecasts and reasonable deadlines. To take the alternative would be to turn to cell production, where each manager would be responsible for getting his or her department running efficiently. Making people responsible for their work is often motivational. Weak links are also clearly visible.

We are told that Freshbake recruited more managers as they grew. This is possibly because they felt empowering their current staff was too risky at the time as it could have led to a slower production rate. To bring in new workers would keep the amount of work each individual had down, this would allow the person to specialise. Once a person is specialised then they are extremely efficient.