Engineering Management Report: Alstom Company Analysis and Review

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Alstom, a locomotive manufacturing company, focusing on its engineering management practices. It begins with an introduction to management principles and Alstom's company background, including its operations in Australia and its contributions to the railway industry. The report presents survey results that assess Alstom's performance across various aspects, such as alignment, distributed leadership, integration of effort, and customer value. It delves into the organization's cross-cultural awareness policies, particularly CRM practices, and their impact on management processes. The report also explores industry best practices employed by Alstom, highlighting strengths and weaknesses identified through the survey and analysis. Recommendations are provided to address challenges, along with lessons learned and an examination of EA competencies. The report concludes with an overview of the key findings and a list of references.

Running head: ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Engineering Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Company Background and Description.....................................................................................3
Survey Result.............................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the organization’s cross culture awareness policies and impact on the
management processes...............................................................................................................6
Industry Best Practice................................................................................................................8
Company Strengths and Weaknesses.......................................................................................11
Recommendations....................................................................................................................13
Challenges and lessons learnt...................................................................................................13
EA Competencies.....................................................................................................................15
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
Management is the aspect of any business, which does not have the similar particular
duties like other business have. While a consultant knows clearly about the responsibilities
towards any engineering firm as he have broader skills to consult the better suggestion for the
organization to grow in the market by handling the challenges. In this paper, the chosen
organization is Alstom, which is a locomotive manufacturing industry. This industry provides
the potential solution to the infrastructure for the locomotive (Ballois et al., 2016). Alstom
supplies the Signalling, Rolling Stock and the associated services to the railway industry of
Australia. This organization provides the most efficient mobility system while enhancing the
environmental friendliness (Tartakovskyi, Gorobchenko & Antonovych, 2016). The aim of
this report is to discuss the ambition of the organization to accompany all the transportation
of thee stakeholders to change the mobility challenges. This report identifies the four practice
principles of the organization, which are planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
Two surveys are done in this report for identifying the best practices of the
organization and the best cross cultural awareness policies are implemented in the
organization for providing better environment for the organization and the staffs. This report
identifies the strength and weaknesses of the organization by the survey. Depending on
the organization's needs, this paper discusses the different procedures and policies lay down
rules for employee behaviour, enrolment, code of conduct, confidentiality and other fields
related to the employment terms and conditions of Alstom. There is a second survey from
which tis report discusses the alignment of the behaviour of the staffs, distributed leadership,
integration of effort of the organization, out-front, up-front, resourcing, time management,
bias for action, learning focus, discipline, customer value, capabilities creation and
management and development skill of the organization. This report highlighted some of the

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weaknesses and challenges of Alstom and some recommendation as well to identify and take
proper measures against those challenges.
Company Background and Description
Alstom is a locomotive manufacturing business that is providing sustainable solution
for infrastructure in New Zealand and Australia for about 100 years (About Alstom. 2019).
Current numbers of employees in the organization is about 450 over 10 sites, which includes
manufacturing facilities, offices and workshops. Alstom supplies Signalling, Rolling Stock
and the associated services to the railway industry of Australia. From 1940 to 1950, the
manufacturing business includes the electric or diesel locomotive in Brisbane and then the
business made a successful step in 1999. This is established as local industry for the
components overhaul, renovation and rolling stock. In the recent years, Alstom provides the
support to the national transport industry (Baert, 2013). The suburban network of Melbourne
with the Citadis trams are dominated by the X’Trapolis trains. This is operated in Adelaide
and Melbourne. In Sydney, the company supplies the latest rolling stock of Metropolis and
signalling system of CBTC with the 15 years of maintenance.
Survey Result
From the second survey of Alstom, following are the things that the study has
analysed:
Alignment: Alstom has aligned the behaviour of the staffs and the employees with
the direction and values greatly of the organization. From the survey result of Alstom, it is
analysed that the cross-cultural awareness policies are being followed in the company are
communication clarity, cultural activities, reinforcement policies, CRM practices and self-
awareness. In which the CRM practice is the prime cross-cultural policy in the company.

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Therefore, the self-awareness is the next best policies that the employees of the organization
are following to hold the best cross cultural awareness policies.
Distributed leadership: Distributed leadership in Alstom is not to strong. The work
team or individual are accept and assigned for the performance improvement and operational
decision-making, which is still needed to upgrade in Alstom (Harris, 2013).
Integration of effort: There is a medium integration of effort in Alstom. The
business is not the hierarchical or functional organization (Zhong et al., 2017). However,
being a locomotive industry Alstom focused on the value creation or on the process.
Out-Front: Alstom is leading in the locomotive industry greatly in the market. This
industry takes the lead to determine the practices and the standards of the industry. Robust
network is the strongest aspect of the organization as it is providing strength to the
organization to emerge the organization with their products and services. Alstom has the
leading position in the market in the locomotive industry and the organization has the highest
turnover in the market according to the survey analysis.
Up-Front: Sometimes the industry applies the openness and high integrity standards
in every process for the manufacturing of locomotive parts in Alstom. Huge portfolio of the
products is the key aspect that holds the lead of the organization in the market. This
organization has held the position in the market because of its current practice that is helping
the organization in emerging.
Resourcing Medium term: The business of Alstom is able to balance the medium
term and the short-term requirements and issues largely (Prior et al., 2013).
Time Based: Time is the hugely vital organizational value in Alstom. Alstom
maintains the time very well, which add value to the organization greatly.

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Bias for Action: The business of Alstom is very sophisticated in implementing the
strategies and ideas to the manufacturing of the locomotives. Most important aspect of the
organization is the technology that is being served to the passengers and the positive
experience of the passengers because of the fleet management.
Learning Focus: In this aspect, Alstom is facing little challenge as not every staff in
the industry is involved in the development or learning program.
Discipline: Alstom has invested in the standards, policy and procedures and it applies
a strong view or perspective in the organization. The employees of the organization are
following various management policies for keeping the best management practice in the
industry. Privacy policy and technical impact are the best management practices of the
organization, which ranked the most in the survey. Then the confidentiality and the
disciplinary actions are the next best practices of the organization management.
Measurement and publication: The measures of the business of Alstom and the
report of their employees and staffs, performance information of financial or non-financial
greatly needed to excel.
Customer Value: In the business, all the staffs moderately strive for enhancing the
customer value creation (Soosay et al., 2016). Combining the social media information and
the real-time travel, the OrbanMap always fulfills the demands of the passengers for the
comprehensive data of the surroundings for getting the most out of the city with the optimet
real time occupancy of the train.
Capabilities creation: The capabilities of business and organization are greatly
defined as the priority area for the investment and development of the organization. Iconis

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security is one of the key practices of the organization that provide security to the passengers
in the train.
Micro to Macro: The employees and staffs know their effort that is contributed to the
success of the business of Alstom.
Analysis of the organization’s cross culture awareness policies and impact
on the management processes
Being an international company, wherever Alstom operate across the entire product
and business line, Alstom has created an internal culture policies in which the cross culture is
recognized. By bringing the people from the diverse background together and providing them
every opportunity for contributing the knowledge skills, perspective and experience, the
organization has created the shared value for the stakeholders (Ang & Van Dyne, 2015). The
employees of Alstom embodies the abstract of the cross cultural awareness policies such as
CRM practices, cultural activities, self-awareness, reinforcement policies and clear
communication among the staffs. The inclusion creates the environment and culture for work
where all the distinction are valued, leveraged and respected without any biasness. Cross
culture teams provides the boost and perspective of the innovation and performance.
CRM practice is the implementation of the set of functions that establish the
relationship with the clients. CRM practice is implemented for obtaining the extensive
knowledge of the relationship with the customers and increase the value of the customer in
the organization (Rudin-Brown, Roosenboom & Finch-Field, 2017). That is why CRM is the
best practice of the cross-cultural awareness policies in the organization by the analysis of the
survey result. Self-awareness, cultural activities, reinforcement policies and clear
communication are the cross-cultural awareness policies of this organization. Self-awareness

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is identified as the important interpersonal skills for the efficient leadership. Organizational
and individual outcomes are the extremely dependent on self-awareness of the individual
staffs. Cultural activities help the staffs to create positive culture in the organization. These
are the best cross culture policies of the organization that create a positive environment in the
organization.
Policies for cross-cultural consciousness can provide a basis of knowledge and creative
ideas to improve profitable status of the organization (Noe et al., 2017). Practicality,
multicultural workers is connected with a wider spectrum of benefits that have overlooked
some of its insignificant disadvantages such as social consciousness, conflicts of character
and communication issues. Some of the distinctive advantages of varied social workers are
outlined below:
A. Appropriate rise in capitalism, businesses and staff shifting around the world
B. Due to mistakes of HR management, major issues occur in international operations.
Thus, understanding HR management in a worldwide situation becomes compulsory.
C. HR has increased involvement in international operations (Marchington, M. (2015).
D. Developing management skills in the global business environment
E. Comprehensive appreciation and understanding of employee diversity to build an
efficient, effective and profitable organization (Canda, Furman & Canda, 2019)
F. Identifying the comparable characteristics that particular groups of staff contain and,
at the same moment, coping with staff as individuals with an efficient use of diversity
gives strength to the efficiencies of the organization.
G. The competitive advantage of awareness is achieved by:
 Increasing organizational system flexibility
 Creativity has been added.
 Improving product range on the industry

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 The foundation for the purchase of resources has been extended.
H. Arriving at all stages of organizational hierarchy in distinct and fresh forms of
discovering alternatives to organizational issues and decision-making.
 It provides the advantage of competition.
 Promote employee development and creativity (Mittal & Dhar, 2015).
Industry Best Practice
Understanding or defining the best practices for the organization is not a hard thing to
do. The task for most of the organization is to operate within the framework of preconceived
concepts as to what good exercise really implies and misunderstanding how it needs to be
implemented efficiently. As it is known, the best practices will have an important effect on
the organization’s capacity for enhancing the efficiency in the development cycle of the
software development and implement value products on moment and on expenditure.
Unfortunately, it can turn into an aspect that does not generate the expected or wanted
outcomes. The path forward is for the organization to comprehend how to acknowledge the
best practices, what allow the execution effectively and eventually how to identify the own
best practices. Entirely owned subsidiary of Alstom, fleet management solution incorporate
countless on board devices and secluded elements, offering real-time, service-wide efficiency
data are some of the best practices of Alstom (Worth & Escartin-Claveria, 2014). The easy
and comprehensive sensory assistance, the Optimet real-time track occupancy system,
developed by Metro-lab, enables redistribute station and track occupation, allowing smoother
activities. Combining real-time transport data and social networking material, Optimet
OrbanMap meets fresh requirements for comprehensive information about their environments
from travellers and residents take full advantage of their town (Sammouri et al., 2013).
Maintaining clean, secure activities involves checking all safety problems on a network and

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responding quickly on the floor and on data technologies for passengers. To these critical
requirements, Iconis security system provides an extensive and configurable alternative.
Planning
 The manager plans to meet the goals and objectives of the company. This plan
consists of the delegating responsibilities and the resources of the employee with the
completion standard and timelines (Ford, 2014).The managers plan according to the
requirement to check the team progress continuously for making minor adjustment as
per requirement.
 The manager plans for determining the responsibilities that is given to the employees
and sets the priority for the particular task with timelines. Manager deals with
company leadership for discussing the company goals.
Organizing
 With the planning the organizational skill of the manager helps for ensuring that the
departmental units are running smoothly (Child, 2015). From the internal process
establishment to have the knowledge about the specified task allocated to the
employees and keeping everything organized is the most important operation of the
management.
 Organization does not delegate the task only they also ensure that the employees are
having everything to complete the allocated task. Managers are able to identify the
new challenges (Burke, 2017). This process comes in the practice of the management
to adjust the timelines of the reallocated task from a team to other team. It means to
change the roles and the internal structure of the team for the company growth.
Leading

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 Managers are confident and comfortable to command to the team members for
completing the daily task and the challenge and significant modification as well
(Davis, 2014). This protects the potential sense of the leadership and direction while
setting new communicating process, goals, service and internal policy.
 Leadership manifests itself, which consist of the identification of the praise and
reinforcement of the employees to handle the conflicts among the team members
(Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis, 2015). Manager’s functions as the leader while the small
personal communication by motivating, encouraging and supporting.
Controlling
 For ensuring, the other functions are working or not to the success of the organization
Alstom, the manager monitors the performance, efficiency, reliability and quality of
work of the employees of any complete project (Hyndman & Athanasopoulos, 2018).
 Quality control in the management is to ensure the final goals of Alstom are met
efficiently and modified necessarily.
An efficient leadership framework of strategies and processes guarantees promoting the
client's picture of a well-developed organization.
It requires hard work, energy and difficulties to pose this beneficial task in any
business or industry. Even for larger organizations, a strong strategy and method leadership
scheme can assist produce a seamless and successful picture while maintaining them
consistent in today's fast-paced company sector (Herrmann & Felfe, 2014). Smaller
organizations can succeed in ensuring that they have the direct group devoted to handling
strategies and processes, such as a monitoring squad. This group does not need to be
particular to the leadership of strategies and processes, but as portion of their regular practice,
they can handle these duties. Many tiny organizations will select several organizational

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leadership officials to monitor all present procedures and processes while identifying
effectiveness differences and creating changes where appropriate.
Policies are often simply a path or concept that a business must follow to conform to
law or business norms. However, processes are just as crucial; they ensure that those policies
are implemented as efficiently as possible. When enforcement problems are discussed in
larger businesses and the workforce, organizations need to carry on a process strategy that
guarantees that those organization's staff have grasped and studied the rules and processes.
Companies are increasingly demanding that even the bigger companies conform to the
legislation and rules lay down by the various organizations (Reason, 2016). Ultimately, it has
resulted to enhanced amount and debate of employee strategies and processes. Company
strategies and processes set the laws of behaviour within an organization, outlining both staff
and wage’s duties. Company strategies and processes are in position to safeguard employee’s
freedoms and wage’s company concerns (Berman et al., 2019). Depending on
an organization's needs, different procedures and policies lay down rules for employee
behaviour, enrolment, code of conduct, confidentiality and other fields related to
the employment terms and conditions.
Company Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths of the company as per the survey are as follows:
 The Robust network is the most important factor of the Industry to provide strength
 This industry is maintaining its market leading position in the market
 The product portfolio involved, helps to build the good position in the market
(Abdullayev, 2016)
 The turnover production is high according to the business analysis