Indian Metals Corporation Case Study

1177 Words5 Pages
The case “Indian Metals Corporation” discusses the operation management of a refining plant located in North India. It can be seen that several ethical issues concerned with the operations management decisions are faced by the plant. This essay exams the ethical issues and the maintenance strategy of the Indian Metals Corporation (IMC). It is then concluded by the discussion on a possible ethical prioritization regarding the issues. As seen in the case, 3 main ethical issues are faced by IMC as follows: 1) Unhealthy working condition Firstly, the plant operation is exposing the employees to risky and hazardous situations, without any safety concern on them. Employees are required to work in dangerous environment with no precautionary…show more content…
As shown in the example of furnace, even if a problem is noticed, the General Manager will still refuse to stop the plant for maintenance. This policy threatens the safety of employee and leads to a high number of accidents in workplace. Thirdly, employees are required to work for excessive hours. For example, shift manager has to work seven days a week, 14 hours a week and being on call at night. Continuous excessive work load may affect both the physical and psychological health of personnel. It can be seen that moral principle in the workplace has a low priority in IMC. The importance of workplace safety and the human rights to work in a safe environment are neglected. The attitude of superiority plays an important role in the poor working condition. Proper safety guidelines are not given to the workers; even regulations are imposed to protect the workers, such as wearing respirators, they are not enforced and followed. Besides, implementation of safe working practices, such as and regular maintenance of equipment are considered as unnecessary expenses and activities. 2) Lack of pollutants…show more content…
Unlike Preventive Maintenance, maintenance is not performed according to pre-determined schedule but only when a problem or failure is observed. It requires a buildup of skilled employees who are trained to deal with the maintenance issues. Compared with Preventive Maintenance, it has the advantage of shorter machine downtime and lower costs for parts and labor. However, as firm commitment is also a crucial factor of Predictive Maintenance, this may not be a favorable approach in an organization based on the culture of hierarchism and centralized decision making. Therefore, Preventive Maintenance would be more suitable for IMC
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