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The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods.
“Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits.”
In the statement, the author indicates that Olympic Foods will minimize costs and maximize profits. To support his appoint, he draws an analogy between color film processing and the processing of food. Additionally, he cites that organizations learn how to do things better, just because Olympic Food’s 25-year-long experience will enable them to do so. Carefully thinking about the reasoning line, we can find the statement unconvincing and oversimplified .
First, the author fails to provide enough evidence to support that the long experience of Olympic Food will make it do things efficient. As we have ever seen that long experience may take us nothing, for example, a old plant who has used a traditional technique to produce the food for a long time is defeated by a plant who use the new technique which is convenient and efficient, although one company has a long experience in one field ,if it could not follow the development of the field, it will be unsuccessful. The forecast that Olympic Food will become more efficient is entirely unfounded.
Second, it is confusing that the fact drawn from the color -film processing industry is used to demonstrate the situation in food processing industry, for the two industries are quite different in several aspects. For example, the problems of contamination 、timely transportation and temperature in food processing are absent in color-film processing. And the materials of the two industry are absolutely different, which make them incomparable. So the future of the food processing could not get out from the color-film processing.
Clearly, the argument is not compelling and forceful. To strengthen it, the author should show enough evidence that the long experience has really taken advantages to Olympic Food, which make the company more efficient. Further, to demonstrate his opinion, the author had better use examples drawn from industries similar to food processing industry.
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发表于 2005-7-22 09:10:00
楼主
