Sri Vinayaka Garments: Who Is Allowed to Decide?
Sri Vinayaka Garments, a school-uniform manufacturer in Bengaluru, began in 2014 with 12 workers. It now employs 140 workers and has three shift supervisors and one production manager. The proprietor, Mr Ramesh, still personally approves every purchase above ₹2,000, signs all leave applications and takes customer complaints on his own mobile phone. Supervisors say they cannot reallocate work within a shift without his nod, and two have resigned in the past year. The production manager says he learns of delayed deliveries only when the customer calls. Quality inspection reports to the production manager, whose performance is measured on monthly output; rejected pieces have risen from 1.5% to 4% in six months. Mr Ramesh believes that nothing gets done unless he checks it himself, and his solution is to appoint two more supervisors rather than change how work is assigned.
1. Identify the organising problems in this firm and explain each with the relevant concept (span of control, delegation, centralisation, departmentation).
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Three separate problems are visible, and they need separate treatment.
1. Centralisation carried past its useful point. Mr Ramesh keeps decision authority over routine operating matters - a ₹2,000 purchase, a day's leave, a complaint. Centralisation is sensible where decisions are costly, strategic or need uniformity; it is wasteful for routine matters that a supervisor can settle on the spot. The symptom is that a supervisor cannot reallocate work within a shift, so every small adjustment waits for the proprietor.
2. Delegation without authority. Delegation requires authority, responsibility and accountability to move together. The supervisors carry responsibility for the shift's output but have no authority over work allocation; the production manager is accountable for on-time delivery but hears of a delay only from the customer. When responsibility is assigned without matching authority, the subordinate is set up to fail - two resignations in a year are the visible cost.
3. Faulty grouping of activities. Inspection reports to the production manager, who is measured on output. Quality and output pull in opposite directions. Grouping inspection under production means the check is judged by the person with an incentive to pass doubtful pieces, and the rise in rejections from 1.5% to 4% is the predictable result.
Note what is not the problem: the proprietor has only four direct reports, so his span of control is not wide. Adding layers will not cure an authority problem.
2. Should Mr Ramesh appoint two more supervisors? Advise him on how authority and responsibility should be redistributed, including where quality inspection should sit.
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Appointing two supervisors treats the symptom. The supervisors' complaint is not that there are too few of them; it is that the ones already there cannot decide anything. Two more supervisors under the same rules will produce two more frustrated employees and a larger payroll.
A workable redistribution:
- Write down decision rights. Purchases up to ₹10,000 approved by the supervisor, up to ₹50,000 by the production manager, above that by the proprietor. Leave sanctioned by supervisors with a monthly exception report. This is delegation with defined limits, not abdication.
- Give complaints an owner. One named person with authority to replace or repair up to a stated value, and a duty to inform the proprietor only of cases outside that limit.
- Move inspection out of production. Create a small quality assurance function reporting to the proprietor or to a separate manager. This is a modest move towards a functional structure and, more importantly, keeps the check independent of the person being checked.
- Review by exception, not by approval. A weekly meeting on a one-page report of deviations replaces daily sign-offs.
- Then look at workload. If the second shift genuinely has no supervisor, appoint one - but justify it by work volume, not by distrust.
Mr Ramesh remains accountable to customers; delegation does not transfer that accountability. What changes is that he reviews results instead of pre-approving actions.