Background
FMC Green River facility employs 1150 people and produced 5 million tons of trona ore a year. Recruitment in Green River was easy; the town had about 15,000 people. People traveled long distances for the opportunity to apply and work at the facility. They began operating in 1948 and completed in 1953 producing about 1.3 million tons of a single grade of soda ash. They have the largest sodium tri-polyphosphate plant in the world. Green River was a part of the Alkali Chemicals Divisions of FMC that supplied sodium-based chemicals to the detergent industry, the glass industry and large commercial pants. Daily it sent out a 80-100 ton hopper car train full of product. In essence their freight composed 25 percent of the final cost.
Aberdeen's structure was simple, staff of 100 people and has only one product, and one customer. The two plants are very different in age and industry as well, with Green River as an older company in the chemical industry, and Aberdeen, a five-year-old "start up" company in the defense industry
Looking at the Green River facility and the length of time it has been operating, any/all major changes might prove to be difficult at first. Green River's work force is significantly larger than that of Aberdeen. Where as Aberdeen has put in place an effective management strategy, Green River could also do the same, but only by gradually working in Aberdeen's management model slowly. The implementation of the self-managed team model might take time, as we know not everyone adapts to change in the same way. This is a good model to implement, as it will make the employees accountable for his/her work. Self-managed teams allow for the employees opinions, feelings, thoughts to ...