Process Choice

The way a business decides to make its products is a choice many executives believe to be based on the single dimension of technology. As a consequence, they leave this decision to engineering/process specialists on the assumption that they — the custodians of technological understanding — are best able to draw the fine distinctions that need to be made. The designation of these specialists as the appropriate people to make such decisions creates a situation in which the important manufacturing and business perspectives are at best given inadequate weight and, in many instances, omitted all together.