Application of the Five Management Functions in Amazon’s Packing Department

The paper is a business proposal that will focus on explaining the application of the five management functions (Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Leading, and Controlling) in Amazon’s packing department. It discusses how, as a manager of a new plant of Amazon Company, the warehouse operations will be  overseen for the team of 100 employees (90 packers and 10 supervisors) guided by these management functions to promote efficiency and productivity.

Planning

            As a manager in charge of the Amazon’s Warehouse operations, the areas that I will focus on in regards to the planning function are building an effective team and positive work culture. The situation will preliminarily require that I consider the employees as the most important resource in the Amazon’s packing department. As a result, the systems and processes that I plan to use to help build an effective team and culture will be the creation of team-oriented working, assigning team goals, and encouraging the development of informal teams.

            First, as posited by Nemati, Steiger, Iyer, and Herschel (2015), in regards to creation of team-oriented working, one of the things that I will do is to give employees the freedom and authority to get their packing jobs done in their individual terms while ensuring that they complete the assigned jobs on time and accept the associated responsibilities for their work results. Second, concerning the assigning of team goals, as the manager, I will use a mix-it-up approach when making decisions by considering both the inputs and ideas of the supervisors and workers to promote conventional wisdom that promote effective operation in the Amazon’s packing department. Third, as supported by Heizer (2016), I will encourage the development of informal teams by addressing the opportunities and issues geared towards allowing the employees to solve their concerns by themselves without having to elevate all the decisions to the management so as to promote efficient operations.   

Organizing

            Though the present structure that has been set up by Amazon in its organizing functions is effective, it is necessary that some changes should be made to the organization more effective and efficient, specifically in the packing operations. Therefore, as a manager responsible for overseeing the activities in the packing department, the organizational structure that I will use and implement is the departmentalization. Departmentalization will be tailored towards dividing the packing department into different specialization sections where there are various employees responsible for packaging, labeling, maximizing space utilization, cleaning, safety control, and inventory management (Heizer, 2016).

The departmentalization structure fosters efficient organization of the packing department that will enable Amazon to run its business smoothly. For instance, packaging and labeling using the modern technology forms such as scanners and barcodes promote easy navigation with clear labels that help ensure the accuracy and ease counting, picking, and moving the products to improve order efficiency. Besides, maximizing the utilization of available space will help to not only use the horizontal but also the vertical space better to store more materials in the warehouse without incurring additional expansion cost. Moreover, ensuring that the warehouse is clean and safe propels efficient operation since the employees can move around easily to get things done. Finally, establishing an inventory management system will help to reduce the error rates that might be associated with picking and packing of the ordered goods by ensuring that there are specific personnel responsible for placing the inventory on the warehouse’ storage shelves and logging the inventory into the department’s tracking system (Nemati et al., 2015).

Staffing

            As the manager, I intend to staff my packing department and replace the members who might leave or get promoted by using the human resource process of “networking.” I will seek referrals from the employees, board members, advisers, and friends when seeking to hire new employees (both the supervisors and packers) to replace those who have left or promoted. The reason I intend to staff my department through the use of networking HR process is that, in most cases, if not all, the referees will always recommend the people who they have the self-belief and surety to successful and competent in their duties to avoid tarnishing their reputations.

For instance, in the cases where an employee or board member recommends someone whom he or she feels can occupy the vacancy left by those who leave the organization or get promoted, there is a high likelihood of the recommended person meeting the requirements of the new job position to be filled. Besides, the recommended personnel are always much likely to be in possession of the necessary skills and knowledge that are in alignment with the demands of the jobs in which they will be employed. Most importantly, the use of networking process will help the organization to save cost as it is not only easy but also inexpensive (Nemati et al., 2015).      

Leading

            The leadership theory and style that I will use is the transformational leadership. The reason I will use transformational leadership style is that it seeks to motivate the employees. It encourages the followers to be driven by inspiration rather control when performing their duties so as to increase the general competency of the performance of the assigned organization duties. Therefore, the use of transformational leadership will enable me as the manager to have an idealized influence on the employees in the Amazon’s packing department who I am overseeing to help build trust and confidence by encouraging them to be adaptive to new challenges affiliated with changes.

Changes are most unavoidable situations in an organization. However, as a transformational leader, I will make my employees understand the contributive purposes of any change planned to be introduced in the organization and inspire to be receptive to the same. As a result, the use of transformational leadership will motivate the employees to bring the best out of them. The situation, in turn, will make the employees working in the Amazon’s packing department to channel their fullest efforts coupled with maximum personal commitment and sense of work ownership towards the performance of their responsibilities. Consequently, there will be an increased overall productivity which will subsequently result in enhanced profitability in the organization (Koontz & Weihrich, 2015).  

Controlling

            The controls and measures that I will implement in the Amazon’s packing warehouse department are establishing standards, making decisions, measuring performance, and comparing performance. First, establishing standards will provide the knowledge on input requirements, the process procedures, the time of the procedure, and expected out of the warehouse operations. Second, the making of decisions will guide the control functions regarding receiving, replenishing, and shipping of goods. Third, measuring of performance allows for the understanding of the variance in the warehouse input and output processes as well as how to make appropriate corrections to facilitate optimum operation. Fourth, comparing performance will enable the Amazon’s packing department to institute the standardized best practices. These practices fuel operations in relation to the acquisition and sharing of information and faster completion of task regarding distribution and warehousing (Heizer, 2016).

References

Heizer, J. (2016). Operations Management in Amazon: Warehouse Packing Department. New York, NY: Pearson.

Koontz, H., & Weihrich, H. (2015). Essentials of Management: Leadership Perspective. Journal of Business Management, 20(1), 65-71.

Nemati, H. R., Steiger, D. M., Iyer, L. S., & Herschel, R. T. (2015). Knowledge warehouse: An architectural integration of knowledge management, decision support, artificial intelligence and data warehousing. Decision Support Systems, 33(2), 143-161.