“Ford Motor Company”
Barbara Wilson
Professor Andrea Dennis
Business 302
February 7, 2011 Discuss at least three criteria the company should use to decide which of the four listed options is best and the reasons why each criterion should be used. “Steps to Rational Decision Making” Define the problems: Ford Motor has been losing money for years, particularly in its North American operations. Option one is to close down older plants in an effort to realign production and sales. The best criteria decision to use should be “Steps to Rational Decision Making”. The first step in decision making is to identify and define the problem. Identify Decision Criteria are the standards used to guide judgments and decisions. Weight the Criteria. After identifying decision criteria, the next step is deciding which criteria are more or less important. Some companies use mathematical models for weighting decision criteria, all require the decision maker to provide an initial ranking of the criteria. Some use absolute comparisons, in which each criterion is compared to a standard or ranked on its own merits. Another method uses relative comparisons, in which each criterion is compared directly to every other criterion.
Some criteria weight that guided decision maker’s judgment to close or not close the company included the cost of present inventory sales. Also cost to buying out the workers, shuttering the plants, setting up a new business and selecting a new location for services and for customer demand and determined the feasibility of company idea. Discuss at least three examples of how the company should build-in flexibility to back-up its decision-making process. Options-based planning is to keep options open by maintaining flexibility by making small, simultaneous investments in many alternative plans. Slack resources are cushion of extra resources