Piper

5 Pages 1283 Words

The organizational structure of Piper has changed throughout the company’s years of business due to the relocation of centers and changing of owners. Piper expanded prior to the 1970’s and had multiple locations throughout the United States. At Piper’s headquarters, the hierarchical or pyramid structure was used while it was more rectangular at the other centers. In the late 1970’s to the early 1980’s, Piper opted to retract to one main location in Vero Beach, Florida. While at this location, the organization kept a more rectangular shape. Not having established positions of leadership and authority, the rectangular organizational structure led to problems with organization and production. The company was losing money and though that downsizing would help reduce their expenses. Piper was down to just 45 employees before hitting rock bottom and filing for bankruptcy in the mid 1990’s. However, Piper’s owner sold the company and the new owner restructured the company’s organization back to the pyramid shape. Their strategic managers, the CEO and President, were at the top followed by the Vice Presidents and the head managers of the company’s departments. Piper’s departments include marketing, parts, human resources, research and development, manufacturing, and customer service. Following the managers of those departments in the pyramid were the managers of the individual cells. Under the new ownership, the company has grown to a still small employee base of 1000. The new owner also made communication between the employees and managers of the company much easier. All managers have an open door policy. Improved communication and organizational structure has served Piper well and the company’s business is now booming.
The organizational structure of a company has a direct correlation of how the company assigns tasks when completing a project. The main departments, research and development, parts, and m...