Downsizing and Consolidating LO12138

MR GEOFFREY F FOUNTAIN (TFYY93A@prodigy.com)
Wed, 22 Jan 1997 20:35:36, -0500

My site is and will most probably continue to go through downsizings for
the foreseeable future. To meet the dwindling budget, the prevailing
thinking is - to reduce costs, consolidate/centralize the organizations.

My department currently has four geographically separated, facility- based
organizations (each with dotted and solid line functions reporting to
facility managers) along with a few support organizations. The current
thinking is to centralize these facility and support organizations to a
higher level which will reduce the numbers of managers and theoretically
improve efficiency so the number of workers can be reduced.

The structure at play here might be described as the pendulum affect.
Every so often organizations swing from centralized to decentralized to
centralized.

Just recently I was asked by the department manager to discuss the
application of systems thinking concepts at our weekly staff meetings.
The opportunity may be there to present this cyclical structure as well as
the systemic implications of downsizing and consolidating. I would
appreciate any references to research papers, etc that discuss this
phenomena from a systems view, as well as any suggestions for the LO
community on how to effectively use this opportunity to help the
organization. Thank you.

--

Geof Fountain tfyy93a@prodigy.com

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