The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the directors of a company that
manufactures parts for heavy machinery: “The falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn, are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology, and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should, therefore, move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
It is very difficult to survive in today's competitive world. Companies apply various revenue generating and cost cutting strategies to stay afloat in the competition. In above argument the author is saying that change of jobs (roles and responsibilities) should be done with managers of few departments. On deep analysis I don' think this is a wise decision. I think that above suggestion depends upon few assumptions and in order to make a correct decision the directors of the company should look for supporting data and evidence.
First of all, statement is attributing the falling revenues completely to delays in manufacturing and in turn to poor planning in purchasing. But the author hasn't provided data that backs his statement. It could be that overall demand has gone down or cost of raw material has incresed signficantly and these reasons are main reasons for change in revenue. Moreover, he also needs to provide data to prove that manufacturing is experiencing delays and planning is doing poor job. Author can provide last few years data (broken up by month or a qurter) about average, median and maximum throughput time and queue time for manufacturing as well planning. With these data the author will be able to enforce his claim about poor job done by planning and manufacturing.
Secondly, the statement is holding the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials completely responsible for poor planning. The author needs to provide his claim. It could be that factors other than manager such as unskilled employees or poor forecasting model are culprits for bad planning. If the author compares performance of this manager with previous successful managers then author might be able to prove his claim.
Moreover, the author assumes that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials should be aware about the properties of materials. But I think that manager's job is to manage entire group and it doesn't matter even if he doesn't have excellent knowledge of that field. Anyways, the author can provide data about educational background of previous successful manager's of same department or of successful managers from same industry to prove his claim. Along with above point I am not totally convinced that a scietist will be able to do manager's job efficiently. A scientist could be lacking managerial skills required for the job and he will fail miserably in the job. Similarly moving the purchasing manager to the sales department could prove to be a bad decision.
Therefore, I think that more data is required to make the decision. Data, as mentioned in above paragraphs will make the author's claims strong and will help to make a correct decision.
manufactures parts for heavy machinery: “The falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn, are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology, and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should, therefore, move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
It is very difficult to survive in today's competitive world. Companies apply various revenue generating and cost cutting strategies to stay afloat in the competition. In above argument the author is saying that change of jobs (roles and responsibilities) should be done with managers of few departments. On deep analysis I don' think this is a wise decision. I think that above suggestion depends upon few assumptions and in order to make a correct decision the directors of the company should look for supporting data and evidence.
First of all, statement is attributing the falling revenues completely to delays in manufacturing and in turn to poor planning in purchasing. But the author hasn't provided data that backs his statement. It could be that overall demand has gone down or cost of raw material has incresed signficantly and these reasons are main reasons for change in revenue. Moreover, he also needs to provide data to prove that manufacturing is experiencing delays and planning is doing poor job. Author can provide last few years data (broken up by month or a qurter) about average, median and maximum throughput time and queue time for manufacturing as well planning. With these data the author will be able to enforce his claim about poor job done by planning and manufacturing.
Secondly, the statement is holding the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials completely responsible for poor planning. The author needs to provide his claim. It could be that factors other than manager such as unskilled employees or poor forecasting model are culprits for bad planning. If the author compares performance of this manager with previous successful managers then author might be able to prove his claim.
Moreover, the author assumes that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials should be aware about the properties of materials. But I think that manager's job is to manage entire group and it doesn't matter even if he doesn't have excellent knowledge of that field. Anyways, the author can provide data about educational background of previous successful manager's of same department or of successful managers from same industry to prove his claim. Along with above point I am not totally convinced that a scietist will be able to do manager's job efficiently. A scientist could be lacking managerial skills required for the job and he will fail miserably in the job. Similarly moving the purchasing manager to the sales department could prove to be a bad decision.
Therefore, I think that more data is required to make the decision. Data, as mentioned in above paragraphs will make the author's claims strong and will help to make a correct decision.
