Change management as an integral part of successful project management : utilization of change management steps in a change project in production company

Abstract

The automotive industry in Slovakia is very important and dynamic industrial sectors. Its dynamism is reflected through OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to their suppliers and their employees themselves. Periodic changes are not just about customer referrals in production, as well as changes in technology, materials and demands for qualified people. All these changes in production companies don´t happen erratically or individually. Successfully functioning company runs them through project management. Not all Tier suppliers have project management as formal organizational structure, it is usually linear structure. Through project management is a cross functional interaction of people in dealing with day-to-date business now very common. This will be also due to Industry 4.0 and the trends that the automotive industry is expecting within next 15 years. Whether it's an intelligent car connected through Internet of Things, large data stored through cloud services or significantly higher robotics and automation in production processes. This Master Thesis was based on the initial situation of some indicators before the change in MATADOR Industries, a.s. (eg. work productivity, OEE, costs of internal non-quality, fulfillment of planned contracts in %, recruiting cycle time, turnover of employees). Through the different steps of change management will follow how the project team managed achieved improvements in individual specified areas, how employees in the company perceive the change that has overlapped the entire company. The survey gave us the answer which steps were implanted good and which ones weren´t. Highlights the successful steps and key factory of success. As lessons learned be focused on those steps of change management which weren´t implemented well. For better understanding of the change management in the research the author of this Master Thesis chose the 8 steps of changes implementation method by J.P. Kotter. From the outcomes obtained by evaluating the questionnaires the author of the present Thesis found that none of the changes implementation steps is omitted, which creates a very strong basis. To improve the course of individual steps it will suffice to implement quite a small number of corrective measures. This finding is very interesting, because by strengthening just few competencies it is possible to achieve a strong acceleration of people and processes and to use this further in other activities, duties or processes.