CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 1
Engineering Culture at Beck
Dragan Z. Milosevic, Peerasit Patanakul, and Sabin Srivannaboon
I. PROBLEM AND SOLUTION
Problem: How can Beck Engineering adapt to the rapid and discontinuous change in demand
and technology?
Solution: Use Scrum Methodology which focuses on short, sharp delivery of projects - allowing
time for rapid feedback and speedy response to changes. There’s a huge focus on tight team
dynamics and close collaboration; teams come together to work on a “sprint” - a short period.
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Beck is a company established in 1946, and its primary income comes from projects.
However, it was operating in an environment that had fast and intermittent modifications in
demand, competition, and technology. All competitive advantages became available temporarily
due to the instability within the industry. Meanwhile, Jim Traddell is a director of a Project
Management Office partnered with Raja James to help him in the aspects of the culture since the
team was curious to learn about the engineering culture at Beck. Thus, a meeting with an engineer
was arranged to be conducted in a local restaurant. Raja was about to leave the office to meet his
informant. They found out that the new Beck was in the making for years and the senior managers
spent a lot of time creating project culture. Those platforms and derivatives products helped
employees come about. Managers appreciated that Beck would not survive if it didn’t have high-
value products that were designed and developed by engineers. That’s why they were respected
and held in high regard. Also, in terms of cost, the new Beck used the design to cost approach
whereas the target product prices must be set first then the product is designed backward. The
desire is to first obtain the real product, component, and feature prices, then determine spare part
prices. Thus, they established Kano’s maps to identify the price of each feature, thus providing
them awareness to which combinations of features make money, and which don’t. Another thing
that they found out was that Beck tried to be customer-centric whereas they help translate what
customers precisely want of the product design. They used tools of survey design, customer
segment, and custom visit documents to understand what customers wanted before the work began
and for undecided customers, they designed all of the tools and processes to help them determine
the customer’s preferences. Meanwhile, Beck is culturally different among others in the sense that
they worked very hard to show to their engineers that all products are equally made and the
customer has every right to see how long down the manufacturing line their product is. Also, they
placed a lot of determination to identify not only the product production status but where it will be
the next day, in the next two days, until its completion.
III. BRIEF HISTORY
Beck is a company established in 1946, and its primary income comes from projects. Its
annual income is approximately $ 800 million, with 4,000 employees. However, it was operating
in an environment that had fast and intermittent modifications in demand, competition, and
technology. All competitive advantages became available temporarily due to the instability within
the industry. Administrative units are inaccurately tied with a lot of entrepreneurial behavior. Any
Engineering Culture at Beck
Dragan Z. Milosevic, Peerasit Patanakul, and Sabin Srivannaboon
I. PROBLEM AND SOLUTION
Problem: How can Beck Engineering adapt to the rapid and discontinuous change in demand
and technology?
Solution: Use Scrum Methodology which focuses on short, sharp delivery of projects - allowing
time for rapid feedback and speedy response to changes. There’s a huge focus on tight team
dynamics and close collaboration; teams come together to work on a “sprint” - a short period.
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Beck is a company established in 1946, and its primary income comes from projects.
However, it was operating in an environment that had fast and intermittent modifications in
demand, competition, and technology. All competitive advantages became available temporarily
due to the instability within the industry. Meanwhile, Jim Traddell is a director of a Project
Management Office partnered with Raja James to help him in the aspects of the culture since the
team was curious to learn about the engineering culture at Beck. Thus, a meeting with an engineer
was arranged to be conducted in a local restaurant. Raja was about to leave the office to meet his
informant. They found out that the new Beck was in the making for years and the senior managers
spent a lot of time creating project culture. Those platforms and derivatives products helped
employees come about. Managers appreciated that Beck would not survive if it didn’t have high-
value products that were designed and developed by engineers. That’s why they were respected
and held in high regard. Also, in terms of cost, the new Beck used the design to cost approach
whereas the target product prices must be set first then the product is designed backward. The
desire is to first obtain the real product, component, and feature prices, then determine spare part
prices. Thus, they established Kano’s maps to identify the price of each feature, thus providing
them awareness to which combinations of features make money, and which don’t. Another thing
that they found out was that Beck tried to be customer-centric whereas they help translate what
customers precisely want of the product design. They used tools of survey design, customer
segment, and custom visit documents to understand what customers wanted before the work began
and for undecided customers, they designed all of the tools and processes to help them determine
the customer’s preferences. Meanwhile, Beck is culturally different among others in the sense that
they worked very hard to show to their engineers that all products are equally made and the
customer has every right to see how long down the manufacturing line their product is. Also, they
placed a lot of determination to identify not only the product production status but where it will be
the next day, in the next two days, until its completion.
III. BRIEF HISTORY
Beck is a company established in 1946, and its primary income comes from projects. Its
annual income is approximately $ 800 million, with 4,000 employees. However, it was operating
in an environment that had fast and intermittent modifications in demand, competition, and
technology. All competitive advantages became available temporarily due to the instability within
the industry. Administrative units are inaccurately tied with a lot of entrepreneurial behavior. Any
