Kementerian Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan

Universitas Lambung Mangkurat

Fakultas Ekonomi Dan Bisnis – Program Magister Manajemen

UJIAN TENGAH SEMESTER (UTS) SEMESTER GANJIL T. A. 2020/2021

Mata Kuliah : PEMECAHAN MASALAH & PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN
Semester : III
Hari, Tanggal : Rabu, 25 November 2020
Waktu : 120 menit
Dosen : Prof. Dr. Ahmad Alim Bachri, SE, M.Si
Dr. Nuril Huda, SE, M.M.
Sifat Ujian : Online

PETUNJUK : JAWAB SOAL BERIKUT DENGAN SEJELAS-JELASNYA

1) Terdapat 3 (tiga) bentuk penerapan berpikir: decision making, problem solving, dan creative thinking.
Jelaskan yang dimaksud ketiga bentuk tersebut dan perbedaannya masing-masing serta hubungannya satu
sama lain. Berikan contohnya.
2) Analisis kasus di bawah ini dengan menggunakan tahapan pendekatan klasik menurut John Adair
“EATON CORPORATION USES PROCESS INNOVATION TO COMPETE”
Eaton Corporation manufactures gears, engine valves, truck axles, circuit breakers, and other unglamorous parts,
largely for automobile manufacturers. It has 38,000 employees in 110 plants around the world. It prospers through
obsessive cost cutting and other actions to increase productivity. Some of the actions it takes are classic in nature,
for example, closing less productive plants and shifting work from union plants in the northern U.S. to nonunion
plants in the southern U.S. and Mexico. But the main program which has enabled it to make its U.S. plants more
productive is its version of continuous improvement.

Employees routinely make decisions about how to improve productivity throughout Eaton Corporation plants. They
have bought into productivity improvement efforts, and have been empowered through teams to make the decisions
necessary to enable the firm to become more productive. Eaton has opened its books to employees to help them make
more informed decisions. And through plant wide gainsharing programs, recognition awards, and other reward
programs, Eaton has motivated employees to actively seek process innovations. Esprit de corps is high. Teams with
names like ferrets and worms meet regularly to solve problems. Many alternatives are generated before final solutions
are implemented.

Examples of process innovation abound. For example, by making numerous small changes in production activities,
one group of workers was able to cut scrap by 50 percent. And while solving the scrap cutting problem, these same
workers learned to preheat dies before using them, saving the company $50,000 a year in one plant alone. Employees
built two automated machines on the shop floor for $80,000 and $93,000 rather than buy them from vendors for
$350,000 and $250,000 respectively. And workers have designed effective compensation programs that raise
compensation as workers progress through stages of job knowledge rather than insisting that the company pay
workers full wages to new hires before they are fully productive as would have normally happened in a union contract
situation.
Source: Thomas F. O'Boyle, "Working Together: A Manufacturer Grows Efficient by Soliciting Ideas from
Employees," Wall Street Journal, June 5, 1992, pp. Al, A4.

3) Kasus “New Shoe Company”

The New Shoe Company, based in the English Midlands, is experiencing a fall in profits. The
company measures profits in terms of the annual pre-tax return on capital employed.
The sales director says that falling profitability is a reflection of the current slump in the
market. Total demand in the marketplace is much less than it was 12 months ago, and the
company has struggled to maintain its market share at the previous level as competition has
intensified. Competition from European manufacturers has been sharpened by changes in the
EC trading regulations, and Spanish manufacturers in particular have taken advantage of their
lower cost structure to make inroads into the British market. At the same time, the New Shoe
Company has failed to take full advantage of opportunities in Europe. It has not fully developed
its market-niching strategy to allow it to gain a competitive advantage. The sales director
blames the firm’s lack of competitiveness on the poor performance of the R&D team and the
inability of the manufacturing department to control costs.
The technical director claims that the firm’s products are competitive with any that are
produced worldwide. Indeed, in her view, the firm’s products are by far the best available
at the price offered. She points to the lack of marketing effort expended by the firm in the
past year, pointing to the necessity of keeping the firm’s name before the public at all times,
especially when competition is increasing in strength. At the same time, she recognises that
 marketing effort requires financing, and that this was not adequately provided during the
period in question.
The production director points out that the company has been able to lower its manufacturing
costs substantially through the introduction of new technology into the manufacturing
process. However, he points out that the accounting practices adopted by the firm distort the
true picture. In his view, profitability has improved, though this is not truly reflected in the
company’s management accounts.
The finance director feels that the drop in profitability is attributable to recent acquisitions
that the firm has made. Ventures into retailing have not been as profitable as had first been supposed.
This might to some extent have been reflective of bad timing on behalf of the company,
given the current recession, in making such acquisitions.
The managing director points out that clearly there is a problem and that perhaps one should
pay particular attention to what competitors are doing and how the firm is responding from a
marketing viewpoint.
Question:
Consider the problems created by functional fixedness in this case. How might the situation
be resolved?

4) Kasus “Keeping up with demand”

A firm was faced with the problem of keeping up with the demand for its products. It had only
limited resources available in terms of workforce and machinery, and demand for its products
was far in excess of what it could produce. In order to try to generate some insights into the
problem the firm felt that it might be a good idea to try to get a different perspective on the
issues involved. Accordingly it decided to use the first stages of the creative problem-solving
process for this purpose. The steps it took are outlined below:
1. How to increase production in order to keep up with demand?
2–3. What are the factors of production? In what ways can we reduce production times? In what
ways can we encourage the workers to work faster? In what ways can we increase the possible
capacity of production? In what ways can we speed up the production process?
4. Could be redefined as: how can we reduce production times?
The problem has now been redefined as a more precise problem. The focus is now on production
time rather than just production. The problem has now been identified and defined in a
precise enough way for the next stage to be carried out.
The second stage is that of fact finding. It is during this stage that overall comprehension
of the problem is increased. The idea is to collect all relevant information to help one see the
problem from a new perspective.
Production times are made up of two main different factors: employee performance and
machine performance. These two factors can be broken down again into more factors.
Employee performance is related to experience, time of day, time of week, training, machine
using. The more experienced and more trained the employee, the quicker he or she works. At
the beginning of the week or day, employee performance is at its lowest; at the end of the day
or week, it is at its highest. The quality of the machine the employee uses affects how motivated
he or she is. The better the machine, the more motivated the employee.
Machine performance is related to age of machine, make of machine and type of machine.
The older the machine, the slower it is and the more frequently it breaks down. Some of the
machines are of an inferior make compared to other machines. These machines are also slower
and more prone to failure. Different machines are used for different parts of the production
line. The more complex the process, the more complex the type of machine, the slower the
production rate.
The location of the production plant and its available space are such that expansion of the
production line is not possible. However, excess storage space is available for finished goods and
raw materials. The factory runs on a single nine-to-five shift, five days a week.
A new competitor has recently started building a production plant within the local area. The
area suffers from a lack of a skilled labour pool, and the competitor will be looking to employ
workers from the local area as it has no workers yet.
After the fact-finding stage, the information revealed is used at the problem-finding stage.
In this, the third stage, this newly revealed information is used to develop the best product or
problem definition possible.
At the end of the fact-finding stage, the problem can be redefined as: ‘How can we increase
the daily production levels?’
Question:
Critically evaluate what the firm did. Can you reach different conclusions by using a different
approach? Illustrate and explain.

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