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.
The author of this argument argues that the company should replace the current purchasing manager with a scientist from research divisions in order to avoid further delays in manufacturing.The author's conclusion rests on gratuitous assumptions and suffers some logical flaws.
First, the author assumes that general bussiness,psychology, and sociology with little knowledge about the properties of metals are not enough to be a manager of purchasing department and that detailed knowledge about the properties of metals is a sufficient parameter to be a manager of purchasing department.But the author never supported his assumption with any data or projections.Lacking this assumption,the expectations of the author to bring in a scientist from research division to reduce further delays in manufacturing is entirely unfounded.
Second, the author assumes that poor planning in purchasing metal is because of the fact that manager has little knowledge about the properties of metal.The author failed to consider other aspects for poor planning.It could be the case that purchasing manager did not had enough time to do proper planning or the purchasing manager is not allocated sufficient budget to buy raw material.Unless the author rules out other possible factors for poor planning,this argument commits the fallacy of assumption that the less knowlege about the metal properties is the only factor for poor planning.
Third, just because the falling revenue can be statistically correlated with the delays in manufacturing,this does not neccesarily means that manufacturing delays is the reason for drop in revenue.The argument commits the casuation error by correlating two events occuring at the same time.It could be the case that falling revenue is causing delays in manufacturing.Moreover, the author could be overlooking other factor responsible for both falling revenue and delays.
As it stands, the author's argument is not a priori and not very persuasive.Though, it could be bolstered if the author had provided some more evidence to prove that little knowledge about metals was the only factor for such delays and had ruled out the other probable factors.Additionally,evidence to support the fact that knowledge about the raw material is a sufficient parameter to be manager of purchasing department could have further substantiated the author's argument.
"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.
The author of this argument argues that the company should replace the current purchasing manager with a scientist from research divisions in order to avoid further delays in manufacturing.The author's conclusion rests on gratuitous assumptions and suffers some logical flaws.
First, the author assumes that general bussiness,psychology, and sociology with little knowledge about the properties of metals are not enough to be a manager of purchasing department and that detailed knowledge about the properties of metals is a sufficient parameter to be a manager of purchasing department.But the author never supported his assumption with any data or projections.Lacking this assumption,the expectations of the author to bring in a scientist from research division to reduce further delays in manufacturing is entirely unfounded.
Second, the author assumes that poor planning in purchasing metal is because of the fact that manager has little knowledge about the properties of metal.The author failed to consider other aspects for poor planning.It could be the case that purchasing manager did not had enough time to do proper planning or the purchasing manager is not allocated sufficient budget to buy raw material.Unless the author rules out other possible factors for poor planning,this argument commits the fallacy of assumption that the less knowlege about the metal properties is the only factor for poor planning.
Third, just because the falling revenue can be statistically correlated with the delays in manufacturing,this does not neccesarily means that manufacturing delays is the reason for drop in revenue.The argument commits the casuation error by correlating two events occuring at the same time.It could be the case that falling revenue is causing delays in manufacturing.Moreover, the author could be overlooking other factor responsible for both falling revenue and delays.
As it stands, the author's argument is not a priori and not very persuasive.Though, it could be bolstered if the author had provided some more evidence to prove that little knowledge about metals was the only factor for such delays and had ruled out the other probable factors.Additionally,evidence to support the fact that knowledge about the raw material is a sufficient parameter to be manager of purchasing department could have further substantiated the author's argument.
