North East Research Laboratory

(A case study)

By: Girik Dave

09503

Company Background

• Multidisciplinary research and development organization

• Aprox. 1000 professionals

• Variety of technical talents

Main sectors

Economics and Business

administration

Physical and natural

sciences

President

Vice president

Characters involved Person Designation

Gray Kenny Vice president of Exco

Tod Denby Assistant to Kenny (liason officer)

Mac Davidson Associate head of physical science division

Dr. Alan North Associate director of chemical laboratory Project Leader

Person Designation

Robert Kirk Director of materials laboratory New Project leader

Charles Fenton Employee in Electromagnetic laboratory

Ronald Benton Director, Process Economic Program

Inception

Study had two main parts

An experiment program to examine the effect of microwaves on 50 ores and minerals to select those processes appearing to have most promise

A basic study to obtain an understanding of how and why microwaves interact with certain minerals

Task A Task B

• Denby emphasized on early start

• Appointment of project leader

• North drafted a five page letter substitute for a formal proposal

Many labs involved

• It did not restrict to just one lab

It required 3 labs to work in team:

1. Chemistry laboratory

2. Materials laboratory

3. Electronics laboratory

Intuition of Director

• Ross, director of chemistry laboratory (sceptical)

• Dr. Perkins, director Electromagnetic Science laboratory

(characteristics of power supply---inadequate)

Conduct of the project

• North was unclear of his work

• Denby began to pressurize for speedy work

• Denby emphasized more on experimental work than theoretical work

Contd….

• At 6th milestone, Denby expressed his increasing dissatisfaction

• Risks of changing results without proper foundation was brought to notice

• Relationship between Denby and North strained

Major breakthrough

• North’s discovery: Vertile could be obtained from iron ore

• NRL felt it could be handled commercially in rotary kiln

• Exco’s team declared it infeasible

• North warned against the process suggested by Exco

• Kenny said he did not get timely information

Personnel challenges

• Denby asked north for removing Fenton from project

3 weeks later:

Denby met Davidson and Lacy

Asked them to replace North from the project

New project leader

• Reluctantly Davidson appointed Robert Kirk

• Record became more difficult

• Denby became more skeptical about project value

Lacy’s problem

• Kenny wrote a letter to terminate the project

• Why Denby’s changes to proposal were not documented?

Denby’s proposal

• 3 other breakthroughs were not documented

• Difiiculty with Denby

• Decisions on project not well documented

Contd…

• Client top management not well informed

• Inadequate coordination between North and Electromagnetic science laboratory

Lacy’s conclusion

• It was high risk project

• Should have been treated accordingly from beginning