“The failing 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 o

The author argues that the company is suffering from falling revenues which coincide with delays in manufacturing that result from poor planning in purchasing metals. Since the current manager of purchasing department has limited knowledge about metal, it’s believed that the company should replace the manager with a scientist from the research division. However, the reasoning of the argument is flawed in many aspects, including problematic assumption of cause and effect based on time sequence and inadequate consideration on the characteristics a purchasing manager should have.

First, the author assumes that the proximity of when two events happen implies that there should be a cause-and-effect relation between them. Nevertheless, it’s careless to conclude that the falling revenues stem mainly from delays in manufacturing simply because they happen coincidently. Therefore, further investigation about the decreasing profits is required before we can attribute the phenomenon to delays in manufacturing.

Second, the author has failed to value other characteristics, besides being knowledgeable in the raw materials, a purchasing manager should possess. A scientist from the research division may not be aware of the demand from the customers since most of his/her time is devoted to the research. Moreover, business, psychology and sociology backgrounds the current manager has already excelled at still come in handy when the manager tries to predict the future demand of clients. The lack of knowledge about metals could be compensated from the training programs delivered by the research division. Thus, replacing the current purchasing manager may not be an effective decision.

In conclusion, because the argument has ignored several key issues, it is not sound or convincing. If it could avoid the items mentioned above, the argument should have been more logical and credible.