Team 2 – Aseltine, McRea, Modi, Shukla, Sullivan

purchasers, as each site was independently responsible for finding its own suppliers and

negotiating individual prices for goods and services. As a result, the company was conducting

business with more than 500,000 suppliers.

WMI has sense incorporates a one-company, collaborative approach to procurement. The

company has invested nearly $5 billion in goods and services, which translates into a buyer’s

advantage. WMI leverages this position to pick and choose its suppliers and implement uniform

standards for procurement throughout the company. This translates into significant savings

and cost control for the company.

"We pick our suppliers on purpose," as WMI executives like to say (www.wm.com).

Responsibility of the Procurement organization is to ensure that company gets its supplies

regularly and consistently. The overall organization culture is to provide services in the most

economical and customer specific manner. Innovation and alliance are essential parts of the

underlying work ethic principles.

4.1.5. Structure

Structure of the firm is constructed through three internal structures, namely Infrastructure,

Social Structure, and Superstructure.

Infrastructure is defined by the organization’s framework. This can be investigated by studying

the company’s organizational chart and chain of command. This structure defines how the

company has been set up by its leaders and how the values and culture of the company is

designed and communicated to everyone in the company. Looking at the organizational chart,

we can easily see that WMI wants to strengthen its geographical diversity while maintaining a

centralized management style.

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 Team 2 – Aseltine, McRea, Modi, Shukla, Sullivan

From PPT presentation of organization

In addition, the organizational chart of operations sheds light on the importance of operations

management with WMI’s overall strategy. As WMI aligns its operations with new strategies, it

is important to cover all bases of operational management such as; site monitoring, safety, fleet

operations, compliance, and environment management.

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 Team 2 – Aseltine, McRea, Modi, Shukla, Sullivan

From PPT presentation of organization

The two organizational charts above show that chain of command and strength of operation are

the key factors in management’s point of view. However, WMI is also committed to its

geographical operations and consider this a core strategy as well.

The social structure of the company is how its human interactions are devised and

implemented. WMI stresses its human resources as a valuable ingredient of the company,

hence management has an open interaction between the teams and across the various groups.

Formal communication structures are lowered to allow free interactions and the generation of

new ideas as well as innovation and communication.

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