DS 350 Sample Assignment

Introduction

Issues in the engineering sector are an increasing threat to the survival of the various engineering companies in the competitive market (McKeever, 2015). The problems and the issues are all regarded as an important aspect of the working sector to be tackled with ease and mitigated fast. Research has found that there are a number of problems, which can be considered as threats for the companies in the engineering sector (Soomro and Zhang, 2015). Some of the issues in the sector are:

• Imbalance in the gender ratio of the employees of the company.
• Reputation and proper image in the market for them to survive.
• The recruitment model which the company follows for the employees (Safdar, Malik and Anjum, 2015).
• Not able to keep the existing employees happy with the working standard.
• The increase in the use of energy in order to sustain the working of the company.
• The companies are not able to expand overseas.
• There is an overcrowd in certain of the engineering sector (McKeever, 2015).

These problems in the engineering sector forces the new companies to rise up to the level of the other companies who are successful in the market. This report is based on the study of a company for in order to find the problem, which the company faces in the market competition, and provide them with a possible solution for the same problem. The selected company for the report is MKEC Engineering, Inc.

Case study

The MKEC Engineering, Inc. was founded in the year 1982. The company was based on the principle that they would be able to provide the best superior engineering solution for the responses collected from their client (MKEC, 2018). They have come a long way and has been able to grow both in the number of client they handle and the services that they are able to offer to their clients. They have been able to compile a group of best engineers who work on different projects in order to deliver the best quality of their work. This has helped them to retain their customer profile for this long (MKEC, 2018). They consider themselves as an engineering and a land planning firm who are able to provide their clients with the widest range of consulting services. They provide services to client throughout the United Stated of America and in Canada. They are also willing to provide the support to their customers to other countries as well.

Based on their company details it can be said that the company is still working to make their place in the market. The company has still not been able to place their best work in the hands of the clients, which would help them to make a brand name easily (MKEC, 2018). Their large number of services they offer and the inversely proportional amount of employees they currently offer can determine the struggle with their work. From their website, it can be seen that they are able to work a various number of projects but they do not have the required amount of experienced employees for the projects. Understanding of the problems, which they are currently facing in their company, would help them to work on them to mitigate the issues and rise up in the competition.

Major problems

On the basis of the study of the company background it has been found that the company has a number of issues in their management working community and project acquisition. The company with the short number of employees and the huge catalogue of projects handling structure forces them to crumble down on the weight of the projects (Cheng and Lu, 2015). This section would discuss the problems the company faces based on the understanding of the company profile and background. The problems which the company is currently facing in the company are discussed as follows:

1. Low number of employees: The company has to offer a large number of services to the clients. These range from the different fields of engineering, land management and miscellaneous work profiles. Having such a large portfolio of project acquisition factor should also be followed by a large project handling team (Garza-Reyes et al., 2015). For the number of services they have to offer the company seldom has enough number of employees to assign for a particular project. Irrespective of their capability of assigning the project to the employees, most of the times the clients check the background of the company and reject it due to their insufficient working employees. They consider that the company would not be able to provide them with the required amount of manpower for the completion of their project.
2. Large portfolio of services: The large number of services which the company offers require a lot of resources to maintain and to keep the clients and employees happy. The company should now consider a reduction in the number of services they would be able to properly offer on the basis of the demand the project value they would be able to salvage from the project (Bryson, Crosby and Stone, 2015). This would help them to work properly on the project and would be able to provide the correct amount of employees for each of the projects.
3. Not a brand name: The reason for the company to not be able to work on large projects overseas is due to the fact that they are not a recognised brand name in the market. They have still not been able to make their company into a brand in the market and would require them to provide the best quality work to the customers and change their marketing plan and work structure (etkovi et al., 2015).
4. Management related issues: The management of the company can always be considered to the back dated because they have still not been able to make their mark in the market (Wong, 2015). The management related issues often make the work of the company to become slower and the wrong decision being taken make the work related to the projects to be of the lowest quality for the clients.

The above problems has been considered to be of the highest priority for the company. They should work on the above issues for which would help them to proceed towards success.

Solutions to the problems

After the study of the problems the company is currently facing in the market the solutions based on the study has been compiled and provided in this section. The solutions can be considered by the company for the process of removing the issues in their company. The solutions based on the problems are discussed below:

1. Low number of employees: On the basis of their service portfolio the company should work their process of recruiting more number of employees in order to provide sufficient number of employees for a project (Stewart-Weeks and Kastelle, 2015). Apart from this when the client review the background of the company the number of employees also suggest the efficiency of the company. Larger number of employees means that the company is able to maintain large number of projects are would also be able to provide sufficient amount of employees to them for their project.
2. Large portfolio of services: The next major step for the company to work on is to reduce their number of services from the large number they are currently providing. This would also help them in focusing in the more important project rather than reserving resources and employees for the other projects. This would also help them to target the market more easily and work up the market chain easily. The small number of services would be able to help them use their resources effectively.
3. Not a brand name: In order to survive in the market and make a better name for them they should consider the fact that they ought to make a brand name in the market. Most of the large companies has been able to survive in the market due to their brand name. Most of the companies are able to receive the project with the help of the brand name they have been able to make with the help of their project quality (Van den Bergh and Delarue, 2015). The company should start considering this issue as a threat to the work. The company should start delivering their project with the best quality and keep a good client relationship in order to gain their trust. Publicity by the word of mouth often helps in the making of a brand name in the market.
4. Management related issues: Issues related to the management sector of the company often makes the company fall back on their progress. Improper management makes the workers to not be compatible with the work they are doing at the company. The management is responsible for making the decisions for the company. Decision making process should be utilized and proper steps should be taken which help in the benefit of the company in the future would run of the work. The proper decision would help the company to clear out their other three problems easily and progress in the competition.

These solutions has been provided based on the company’s working structure. These solutions has been analyzed to fit the work profile and would be suitable to be implemented into the system.

Defense to the solutions

It is customary for a problem solver to provide a justification for the solution that is being presented for the problems. This would help in the proper understanding of the solutions. This has been considered for this report also and this section would discuss the justification for the solutions which had been provided in the previous section. The justification is as follows:

1. Low number of employees: increasing the number of employees facilitate the collection of a larger variety of projects from different clients. The clients are often impressed with the number of employees the company controls and ask them to work on the project. This way the company would be able to increase their name and revenue income.
2. Large portfolio of services: With the reduction in the services the workers would be able to focus their work on the better projects which are able to provide them with the correct amount of value in the market. This would eventually help in the management of the projects and the effective use of resources better.
3. Not a brand name: Making a brand name in the market would provide the company to collect more projects from clients. People have the tendency to support and put their faith on the companies who are have a proper brand name in the market. Thus having a brand name and a positive proper image in the market helps in the acquisition of projects from the clients.
4. Management related issues: It can be considered that the management related issues are the most severe type of issue which many of the companies face in the market. The company has to follow the rules and the decisions taken by the management which are often harmful for the company and the work they are doing. This needs to be strongly considered and the process of collection of the projects needs to be changed by the management. It is hence considered to be efficient when the decision making system is compiled into the work of the company to make the working environment of the company bearable for the employees.

Conclusion

To conclude this report, it can be said that the issues, which the company, MKEC Engineering, Inc. faces in the current market scenario, can be easily outgrown with the help of the solution shared in the report. The following of the solution would be the best option for the company if they are willing to thrive in the market competition and rise up in the brand scale. Apart from this, this report has been completed with the help of analytical arguments, which has helped in the judgment of the problem for the company. The solutions, which has been shared within this report, has been clearly identified with the help of cause and effect relationship between them.

References

Bryson, J. M., Crosby, B. C. and Stone, M. M. (2015) ‘Designing and Implementing Cross-Sector Collaborations: Needed and Challenging’, Public Administration Review, 75(5), pp. 647–663. doi: 10.1111/puar.12432.

etkovi, J. et al. (2015) ‘Primary directions and advancements in competitiveness of montenegrin construction sector’, in Procedia Engineering, pp. 780–790. doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2015.08.254.

Cheng, J. C. P. and Lu, Q. (2015) ‘A review of the efforts and roles of the public sector for BIM adoption worldwide’, Journal of Information Technology in Construction, pp. 442–478.

Garza-Reyes, J. A. et al. (2015) ‘Adoption of operations improvement methods in the Greek engineering sector’, in IEOM 2015 - 5th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Proceeding. doi: 10.1109/IEOM.2015.7093947.

McKeever, B. (2015) ‘The Nonprofit Sector in Brief’, The Non-Profit Sector in Brief 2015, 2007(October), pp. 1–16. Available at: http://www.urban.org/research/publication/nonprofit-sector-brief-2015-public-charities-giving-and-volunteering.

MKEC (2018). Excellence in Engineering Solutions, Founded on Principle. [online] MKEC. Available at: http://www.mkec.com/engineering-planning-landscape-architecture/ [Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].

Safdar, W., Malik, A. N. and Anjum, N. A. (2015) ‘Configuration management and its implementation barriers in public sector engineering organizations of Pakistan: An empirical study’, in IEOM 2015 - 5th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Proceeding. doi: 10.1109/IEOM.2015.7093745.

Soomro, M. A. and Zhang, X. (2015) ‘Roles of Private-Sector Partners in Transportation Public-Private Partnership Failures’, Journal of Management in Engineering, 31(4), p. 4014056. doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000263.

Stewart-Weeks, M. and Kastelle, T. (2015) ‘Innovation in the Public Sector’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 74(1), pp. 63–72. doi: 10.1111/1467-8500.12129.

Van den Bergh, K. and Delarue, E. (2015) ‘Quantifying CO2 abatement costs in the power sector’, Energy Policy, 80, pp. 88–97. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2015.01.034.

Wong, K. V. (2015) ‘Sustainable Engineering in the Global Energy Sector’, Journal of Energy Resources Technology, 138(2), p. 24701. doi: 10.1115/1.4031783.