Real-Life Decision Making
You are a production supervisor at a plant that makes modular buildings.
It's your job to make sure the product is completed to proper design
criteria and construction specifications. You must also keep the project on
an extremely tight schedule.
As a supervisor, you have to make difficult decisions every day. As in
any business, the customer's interests always come first. One of the
biggest stresses of your job is meeting deadlines. Sometimes suppliers are
late filling orders or equipment breaks down, so it's not always easy
to keep things on schedule.
Your company has been contracted to build a 15-room addition for a motel.
The motel owners will have the site ready for the modules on a specific date,
and your company has agreed to have them delivered and set up on that date.
Part of your job as production supervisor is to ensure that all the materials
and equipment needed to finish a project are delivered on time. To that end,
you have given the purchasing department an order to purchase a particular
brand of bathroom fixtures and faucets to complete the bathrooms in the motel
addition.
The purchasing agent tells you he can get those fixtures, but the delivery
date will be six weeks from now. He adds that he can get an equivalent product
-- but different brand -- with a delivery date of just one week.
If you order the brand the client wants, you will be at least one week
behind schedule. If you order the substitute, you can get the job done on
time.
This contract is worth $253,742.58 and you don't want to have an angry
customer. What are you going to do?