The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the direc

[architect.praveen]

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 argument urging falling revenues that the company is experiencing due to delays in the manufacturing and because of the poor planning in purchasing metals is unconvincing because it relies on too many assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. There are many other areas that merit further explanations before this author should receive ant degree of credibility.

First, there are many others factor such as quality of the product, market strategy, market size, competitors strength, market penetration and the number of orders in hand, which will also effect the companies revenues. the statement is not clear weather the author considered all the above factors, if not the authors conclusion cannot be considered seriously.

Second, the author’s assumption pertaining to the delays in the manufacture due to the poor selection of the metals sounds dubious, as there are certain international norms, which have to be followed by all the manufacturing companies. Author cannot blame purchasing department as their job is to purchase material but not selection of the metals. R&D department will do the selection process and this department will direct the purchase department to by the metals. Furthermore, the delays in manufacturing will also occur due to poor performance of the machinery, poor labor management etc…

Lastly, on what basis the management appointed the present purchasing manager even though he has only little knowledge about the properties of the metals? Instead of moving the present purchase manager if they interlink research division and purchase department the metal selection can be resolved easily, if not the management should recruit another scientist for the research division and which leads extra burden to the company because issue here is to rise the revenue.

There are so many holes in this argument, so it is difficult to take the author seriously. Unless some further evidence surfaces in each of the three areas described above. The premises that are presented are insufficient proof that the conclusion is viable.