Fauquier Gas Company Case Study

Fauquier gas company case study
Name
Institution

Major facts
Fauquier Gas Company shows that various personnel do not adhere to the outlined protocol that every organization has. The protocol obliges that the senior personnel should be answerable to or should not execute tasks without the approval of their seniors. In Fauquier Gas Company, Mr. Murphy is the manager of supply management, and he is in charge of purchases of materials used in gas distribution at the same time he oversees procurement of furniture, stores management, and materials forecasting and control. This means that Mr. Murphy is the overall determiner of purchasing items requested by the construction management. However, the case study depicts that Mr. Clive Byers, the construction project manager, and Mr. Charlie Buck, the design superintendent have breached the protocol by designing the needed pipes without submitting the final copy to the supply management so that the purchasing can be made on time and allow the arrival of the pipes to adhere to the planned schedule of the commencement of the construction. The protocol is also breached in the sense that Mr. Charlie Buck, the design superintendent did not consult Mr. Clive Byers, the construction project manager about the approval of the designs in order to confirm that the designed pipes were right for the impending construction; rather, he contacted Sam Law the construction project engineer.
Therefore, adhering to the recommended protocol means that the supply management, the design department and the construction project management would coordinate in a manner that after the designer designs the pipe and grant all the necessary specification to the construction project engineer for approval, the same specifications would be sent to Mr. Byers, the construction project management. The project construction manager would then submit the work to the vice president of operations, who would them submit the requirements to the supply management, which is headed by Mr. Murphy. The supply management would then proceed to contact suppliers (mills) and get quotations on prices and deliveries. Mr. Murphy would also forward the quotation to the finance department for financial processes.
Major problem
The major problem that Fauquier Gas Company is experiencing is communication breakdown. Ideally, in Fauquier Gas Company, the supply management, the design department and the construction project management are executing tasks on their own without consulting the other coordinators within the department or outside the department. For instance, Mr. Murphy had his own perceptions about the purchase of the pipes, which was based on prior purchases of the same items. Thus, Mr. Murphy knew that the pipes would have the thickness of 3/8 inches and a length of 40 feet with a plus or minus of 5 feet. This means that Mr. Murphy intended to proceed with the purchases based on previous quotation; yet, Pat Wilson the design engineer had different pipe specifications that he was adjusting without informing the supply management. This depicts that the construction department did not communicate with the supplies department at all and each department executed tasks on their own without seeking consent from the concer...