Homework from "Managing Engineering and Technology by Dan L. Babcock, Lucy C. Morse (2009)"

4-1)
1) Required by superior authority
2) Requested by subordinates
3) Self-initiated

The third category is the most important because it gives the executive theopportunity to demonstrate his or her initiative and self motivation.  They have the ability to make a difference through decisions that were notrequired.   The disadvantage to self-initiated decisions is that theexecutive has full responsibility if the decision does not produce a desiredoutcome.

 

4-2)
a)   Optimizing is studying the outcomes of all possible alternatives andselecting the single best.   Sufficing involves looking at a few importantfactors that are relevant and adopting an alternative that will besatisfactory.   The alternative selected by sufficing may not be the absolutebest, but it will allow the manager and those that he or she leads to continuewith the job, rather than prolonged searching for the best alternative.

b) Routine decisions tend to be well-structured, with clear data and criteria.  The alternatives for a routine decision are generally standard.  Routine decisions can be delegated to subordinates or even computerized.  Non-routine decisions tend to be unstructured, with unclear data and criteriaand no clear set of alternatives.   Non-routine decisions often requiresubjective judgment or intuition and are generally the most difficult decisionsfor engineers.

 

4-6)

 

Decision	Chance	Outcome	Probability	Expected value
Don’t drill	Dry Hole	0	0.6	0
	Small Well	0	0.3	0	0
	Big Well	0	0.1	0
Drill alone	Dry Hole	-500,000	0.6	-300,000
	Small Well	300,000	0.3	90,000	720,000
	Big Well	9,300,000	0.1	930,000
Farm out	Dry Hole	0	0.6	0
	Small Well	125,000	0.3	37,500	162,500
	Big Well	1,250,000	0.1	125,000

 

From the tree, Iwould choose Drill alone, because it gives expected value is much bigger.

 

 

4-7)

 

Decision	Chance	Outcome	Probability	Expected value
Buy new	Prosperity	950,000	0.6	570,000	450,000
	Recession	-200,000	0.4	-120,000
Modify	Prosperity	700,000	0.6	280,000	400,000
	Recession	300,000	0.4	120,000

 

From the tree, Iwould choose to buy new equipment, because it is the only option that gives anyprofit.

 

4-11)

E1=0.3*800 +0.2*400 + 0.5*-400=120

E2=0.3*500 +0.2*150 + 0.5*-100=130

E3=0.3*-400 +0.2*-100 + 0.5*0=-140

The decision wouldbe to order the minimum tooling.

 

4-12)

Waitinglines are the most common phenomenon in our daily life. It affects people, whoneed service at a number of places. These places, where one has to wait inqueue are: doctor’s clinic, bank counters, railway reservation counter,telephone booth, etc. In manufacturing industry, queue or waiting line iscommon in situations when machines have to wait for repair; semi-finished itemwaiting in batches to be loaded on a machine; machine waiting for operator ortool, etc. The easiest solution is to apply a FIFO queue, which servesfirst to the first in the line.