Reference no: EM133035769

Europlane Airlines has headquarters in Vienna, Austria. They have just adopted a methodological approach in the undertaking of the research design and planning phase of a project to streamline its procurement and inventory management operations. The agreed solution involves the merger of these two departments under the current functional structure into a single "inventory management" department located in a foreign European country - Luxembourg. The change has been facilitated by the emergence of a new integrated Supply Chain Management system allowing activities to be seamlessly managed by a single entity.

The main driver behind the choice of location - Luxembourg, was cost, which is much lower due to cheaper labour and land costs, along with a very flexible employment framework. Implementing these plans will necessitate the closure of the 3rd floor of the existing facility headquarters in Vienna, resulting in hundreds of compulsory redundancies.

Using the information from the case above:

a) Explain how "BP Trends Process Redesign Methodology at the Operational Level" could be used in implementing the new integrated supply chain management system at Europlane Airlines. For each phase of the methodology describe the major activities that need to be undertaken and also the expected outcomes of each phase.

b) Identify THREE important reasons why staff at Europlane Airlines will be resistant to change. Advise management with THREE effective recommendations that would lessen the staff resistance, as part of the change management process.

c) Union pressure is indicating that an alternative to such significant redundancies would be to change organisational structures from the current functional approach to Matrix Management. In relation to Europlane Airlines - Explain what matrix management means, draw an appropriate matrix management diagram and discuss TWO associated benefits and TWO challenges of this alternative approach for Europlane Airlines.