Real-Life Decision Making
You are a robotics engineer who is working on a new robot for the automotive industry. The company you are building it for insists that they need it within six months, on budget and working perfectly. Since you and your team have built similar robots, you tell the company that meeting these requirements won't be a problem.
You honestly believe you can meet all the company's expectations, and you're anxious to get started.
Before you begin building the robot, you read through the plans to see what materials are required. You decide to list the items on a piece of paper so you can double-check to make sure everything you need is in stock or that you have the correct pieces to build it with.
Once your list is complete, you make a few phone calls within the company to ensure all parts, pieces and anything else your team might need is in order. Everything seems to be falling into place, until you check on the quantity of a particular new circuit board.
It seems that there are very few circuit boards on hand, and the ones that are there haven't been working properly. You're told that a malfunctioning part was used to build them and they're all being held until the problem can be sorted out. Unfortunately, these circuit boards are the ones the robot was designed around. This could be a major problem because without these, the robot can't be built.
You tell yourself not to panic. You don't want to make any rash decisions. You call up a senior team member to get her opinion.
"We're out of the A33 circuit boards," you tell her. "How are we going to build the new robot?"
"There's a new circuit board on the market that a different company makes," says your co-worker. "It's more expensive, but the quality is at least as good as the A33 board. Why don't we order up enough of those to carry us through the to the end of the project?"
You decide that's a good idea. At least you'll be able to complete the robot. But when you phone to place the order, you quickly find out that the new circuit boards are a lot more expensive than the old ones.
You call up a different co-worker. "Why don't we just wait and see when the old A33 circuit boards will be ready?" he suggests. "They're a popular part, so I don't think they'll be sitting on hold for too long. Even if the project is late, at least you'll come in on budget."
You're not sure you like the sound of that idea either. Unfortunately, you don't have too much time to decide. You have to phone the customer back by the end of the day to let them know you're ready to proceed.
Either way, you're going to have a problem. What do you do?