Symposium: Problems in Decision Taking (1)

Abstract

THE leather industry is a small industry, particularly if you consider the amount of labour employed. Any one of several companies represented here could employ the total of those in the leather industry. All I feel capable of doing, therefore, is to present the type of decisions I am faced with, or rather the way I deal with them, and perhaps that will open the door for the operational research workers here to solve all our problems. As I see decisions, the greatest general point that always strikes me is time. There are two types of decisions. In one you have got to make up your mind pretty well instantly, an emergency or something like that, and that type of decision calls for, in an individual, the greatest all-round knowledge of his job. The other is the normal type of decision where there is time available and a man can resort to adequate records and also to advice from experts. I think in industry a lot of people allow themselves to be rushed into making a decision when they should take all the available time permissible. Sometimes it is only after a second or even a third thought that some possible repercussions that may come from this decision become obvious. If you let the Salesman, or whoever it is, rush you into a decision you often live to regret it when you have had a second thought about it. Now I would like to break down the type of decisions I make into four types. Decisions on buying; decisions on processing; decisions on general policy; decisions on selling.