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Case Study On
Indian Metals Corporation (Case 10)
“Production & Operations Management (MGT 3224)”
Section: D
Submitted To
Parag Jafar Siddique
Lecturer
School of Business & Economics
United International University
Submitted By
Submission Date: 26th
December, 2014
Letter of Transmittal
Name ID
Zakia Nigar Khan Barsha 111 121 041
Asibuzzaman 111 121 363
Mozammel Hossain 111 121 476
Md. Samsul Islam 111 121 134
Iftekhar-Ul-Karim 111 121 364

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26th
December, 2014
Parag Jafar Siddique
Lecturer,
United International University.
School of Business & Economics
Dear Sir,
Attached please find the case study entitled “Indian Metals Corporation”. This report explains in
detail the work to be completed at Indian Metals Corporation by us as United International
University students in BBA during the Fall of 2014 for our course.
We would much thankful if you read through our report and help us to find our faults. So that, we
can learn and make it correct next time.
If you have any questions or comments about this proposal, please do not hesitate to ask us.
We’ll be glad for you interest.
Sincerely,
Acknowledgment
Zakia Nigar Khan Barsha 111 121 041
Asibuzzaman 111 121 363
Mozammel Hossain 111 121 476
Md. Samsul Islam 111 121 134
Iftekhar-Ul-Karim 111 121 364

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First of all by the grace of Allah we have successful to complete our report. To make this report
we have got enough support from our group members. We have tried to solve the case with our
own opinion based on the Indian metal corporation & we have tried to provide our best decisions
about the corporation and their working process. We have also tried to provide different
decisions about their planning, controlling, productions and operations of their services. To
complete this report we want to Thank to our group members, Google and our honorable teacher
(Parag Jafar Siddique, Lecturer) who always support us, teach us accordingly, never let us down
and always encouraging us to do new things. The topic of our case is Indian Metals
Corporation (Case 10). We tried our best to complete our report.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction about the case study on Indian Metal Corporation.......................6

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2 Indicative questions related to the case study....................................................7
3 Q1:Evaluate the ethical issues concerned with the operations management
decisions of the IMC plant.........................................................................................8
4 Q2. Comment on the maintenance strategy at the plant. Are there any
alternative methods that would be suitable?.........................................................10
5 Q3. ‘John wondered, realistically, if the plant could ever be changed.’ If you
were to carry out improvements at the plant, what would your ethical priorities
be?11
6 Conclusion:........................................................................................................13

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Executive Summary
We have done our report on the "Indian Metal Corporation". To complete this report we have
found different situations of the corporation faces but they are properly focused on the particular
situation that can cause serious accident in any time. Through the case we have found the
weaknesses of the workplace, safety of the worker in maintaining risk machine or other things
and so many things. We have also faced some question regarding the report and we tried our best
to answer all the questions appropriately and enclosed our decision about the corporation
workplace which is suitable for them. We have enclosed different situational activities if the
company follows our decision their workers will be benefited both in the workplace and their
own lives. If the workers get beneficiaries through their company, they will try their best to
perform well for his or her company. We also enclosed some decision in particular session like
planning, controlling, production and other sectors of the workplace. To complete the report we
have tried our best to answer the entire particular questions according our own basis.

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1 Introduction about the case study on Indian Metal
Corporation
The case is based on the ethical issues being faced by a refining plant located in India. An
elaborate discussion of the issues and their related influence on the personnel and the residents of
the region have been conducted. In this case study we have found some key issues and they are
given below:
 Moral issues in the workplace processes.
 Inability to maintain safety at the workplace and protect the community from probable
harm
 Readjustment required in the priorities of the management.
The case study is an excellent source of information in terms of providing an overview of the
issues that an organization is likely to face in its operations. The case has specifically focused on
issues related to workplace safety, maintenance issues and safety precautions taken on outside
the firm for the community. Such a wide array of issues are most likely to occur in developing
economies of the world such as India, due to inadequate monitoring and control of government
officials and head office personnel. However, these issues are not limited to the developing
countries only as ethical problems can also arise in well established business entities in highly
developed nations. Therefore the case has implications for both scenarios. We can also
understand through the report of the John Delay and the team. They shows us in different ways
of the plant are polluted and so many things through their investigation.

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2 Indicative questions related to the case study
1. Evaluate the ethical issues concerned with the operations management decisions of the IMC
plant.
2. Comment on the maintenance strategy at the plant. Are there any alternative methods that
would be suitable?
3. ‘John wondered, realistically, if the plant could ever be changed.’ If you were to carry out
improvements at the plant, what would your ethical priorities be?
We try to our best to complete the answer of the indicative question related to the case study. We
try to solve the question with the discussion and through the team work. And the answer of the
each question is given on the next page according the sequence of the question.

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3 Q1: Evaluate the ethical issues concerned with the
operations management decisions of the IMC plant.
The Company built houses in a far away from their families for workers and luxurious for senior
management for contract workers. In this agricultural area local villagers are hampered by the
truck going to and from the plant. Living expenses and transportation costs were paid by the
company.
The plant had only operated at a maximum of half its capacity level. And The Zinc refinery has
to run continuously to prevent damage to the equipment. Large levels of buffer stock are needed
to keep the refinery running because of the pre-product units are unreliable and liable to shut
down Zinc refinery area is too dangerous. There was dust everywhere. Worker was not wearing
any protective clothing because of no protections for the workers in that area. A man always
stood on a 50 mm away from the hot Zinc blocks which temperature around 250 degree Celsius
and if a worker misbalanced and fell down in the block then the worker would burn to death
before anyone could help him.
In the plant the workers work seven days a week from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. The hours are excessive
compared to other places although the payment is low. By investigation the authority found that
half of the contractors were female because of they were cost less. But the employment of
women in lead mines and processing plants is illegal. The shift manager is not sure about his
responsibilities exactly. Sometimes he was confused what does he do. Here the manager did not
take any kind of decision, if he was not sure about this unless the high command takes strict
action against him. He could be punished for his wrong decision.
Most of the staff and workers are lazy, defective, illiterate and useless. So that they cannot do
any work properly and the manager has to make all the decisions in this plant because he cannot
trust anyone. They have no practical experience although half of the staff has university degree
and higher education certificate.

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In this plant, total 2800 people worked over here. To compare with the plant of Europe or US the
number of workers is 800 that show the overflow of employees in this plant. Between 2800, 800
were staff whose has the company uniform and the remainder was contractors. Some gangs of
people were hired casually. Many members of staff were also employed as tea-makers, chair-
setters and general helpers for management.
The general manager takes the decision that no women were employed in the plant. The
contractors were paid for non-technical manual labor such as digging trenches, loading and
uploading raw materials and cleaning. But the female workers cost is low so that the contractors
using them for digging trenches and man workers for loading and uploading raw materials. It is
totally unethical and illegal for this plant because of the company sign the agreement with the
contractors on that basis of no women work in this project.
Most of the staff did not were their respirators and the contractors were not issue them. There
were no safety posters within the plant itself. The company organizes the health and safety
exhibition but the workers did not know about the exhibition. The driver of the tanker was often
responsible for loading the sulphuric acid and had not been issued with any protective clothing.
Apart from the maintenance of a safe workplace, the use of ethical practices in the workplace
also includes the implementation of organizational culture that is supportive of ethical and moral
choices. Therefore, ethics should be given the top most priority by the management. However, in
this case ethics were not given the required priority. Perhaps one of the reasons for such an
attitude is that implementing safety measures in the workplace is seen as an additional cost. Such
an approach is likely to influence the quality of output and the level of production. It can also be
seen that the ethical problems are based on the cultural orientation of the employees and the
workplace culture as well. Since the employees do not expect the management to take care of
their safety at the workplace, the management is not propelled to take any action

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4 Q2. Comment on the maintenance strategy at the plant. Are
there any alternative methods that would be suitable?
The maintenance strategy at the plan is almost very specific and realistic. The plant Management
is currently practicing the maintenance strategy of using low cost and low quality machine’s
spare parts. The maintenance is only initiated when a sever disturbance occurs in the plant, such
as complete breakdown of a machinery or its unit. Regular maintenance is viewed as a costly
approach, thus it is avoided. Even if the operations department notices some issues in the plant,
the paper work involved in gaining the approval for the maintenance process is time consuming.
In most of the cases such delays result in failure of machinery, which reduces the productivity.
Furthermore, poor maintenance also results in exposing the employees to hazardous situations at
the plant and increased pollution. Instead of being a cost saving approach, such a process is
inflicting additional cost to the plant.
From many of the alternative methods which are suitable for the plant is the implementation of a
‘Preventive Maintenance Policy’. Such a policy will enable the management to carry out a
routine inspection of the plant and its machinery, checking out for any problems and taking quick
remedial action. The management can also divide the responsibility of implementation of this
policy among operations and maintenance department. Another alternative method suggested for
the plant is the use of “Condition-based Maintenance”. This includes the development of a
trained group of employees who are provided with the skills to deal with maintenance issues.
However, such an approach may not be in alignment with the organizational culture that is
significantly based on centralized decision making. So that the preventive strategy will be more
suitable for the plant organization

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5 Q3. ‘John wondered, realistically, if the plant could ever be
changed.’ If you were to carry out improvements at the plant,
what would your ethical priorities be?
Currently, the organization is facing the following ethical issues:
 Safety of employees and community
 Lack of environment friendly practices
 Living standard of employees at the plant residential colony
 Legal issues
 Being socially responsible
 Being answerable to shareholders in terms of risk and hazard management
if I were to carry out improvements at the plant in product and service,planning,controlling, my
ethical priorities would be-
 Absence of recycling
 Use of energy
 Employers residence
 Impact on environment
 Employers workplace safety
 Waste management
 Pollution control
 Safety of personnel
 Safety of plant visitors
 Use of material and waste management
 Organizational stress
 Recruitment policies
 Use of energy source
 Safety employers in warehouse
 Handing on inventory
 Failure to stop the process
On the basis of these ethical issues we try to give our opinion about the Indian metal
corporation;

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1. I would have clean the working conditions of the plant so that there couldn’t be any piles of
lead & zinc dust anywhere and regulations would have been there to make it compulsory for all
the employees to wear protective clothes.
2. I would have made the responsibilities clear to the shift manager so that he would know what
he can & what he can’t do.
3. I would have given priority to the transportation of sulphuric acid to the customer as the
customers tankers used were old & rusty and liable to spill. The driver of the tanker was often
responsible for loading the acid. So I would also give priority to his training & protective
clothing.
4. I would make long term & short term planning within the company so that the company’s
financial year would have progressed & successive monthly targets were not missed.
5. I would have separated the repair & maintenance teams so that the company would increase
the percentage of utilizations. Lastly I would have given priority to arrange seminars or meetings
or get together or set up some more phone lines through which the employees or the staffs,
staff managers & general managers could easily communicate with each other’s, the managers
would encourage the staffs to do their tasks properly, the staffs could share their problems they
were facing within the company & the general managers would easily know what his staff could
easily do.

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6 Conclusion
We have completed our assignment on the Indian metal corporation. To complete this assignment
we have found some key issue like- Moral issues in the workplace processes, Inability to
maintain safety at the workplace and protect the community from probable harm, Readjustment
required in the priorities of the management. We also face some questions to solve this report.
Through the study of overall case we have enclosed our decision through answering the entire
questions. In the answering of the questions we have enclosed our decision that if the
management of the corporation follows our decision they can motivate their worker, they can
ensure their worker safety with proper dress up, practical training on the difficult project and so
many things. If the company maintains the entire government rule and so many barriers outside
of the company the company can be successful in future.