Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Southeastern Mills: The Eighth Element?

Landel, Robert D.,...

Case

Southeastern Mills: The Eighth Element?

Landel, Robert D.; Goldberg, Rebecca; Moon, Andrew

OM-1393 | Published December 23, 2009 | 12 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Appropriate for courses in operations management and leadership. Owners and employees of this company spent considerable time and effort developing a unique, extremely successful high-performance work-place culture based on trust and a decentralized structure. Individuals and teams managed their areas with little direct supervision from middle and upper management. Some managers, based on sales opportunities with new, large, and demanding customers, felt that it was essential to consider how a Lean or Six Sigma program could be blended into their work-place culture. But other managers were concerned about altering what was already successful. A teaching note (OM-1393TN) is available.

Examine the elements and systematic interactions of the high-performance work place culture. Consider the appropriateness of a Lean-Six Sigma improvement initiative.