Contract Engineer - Assignment Example

I have had a fair share of such experiences in my life. During the execution of the project, while I was working as a contract engineer, the project faced a problem when we were running out of an important spare part which is manufactured in Japan. Our group had to make a decision as to whether we should use the same part from Japan or use cheaper parts from China. The issue was whether to prefer quantity or quality. Using Chinese parts could have affected the equipment life cycle, whereas the use of Japanese parts meant that we would get fewer spare parts against our budget. Our leader initially indicated that he was not in support of the use of Chinese parts.

The advocates of Chinese parts also had their own motives and ambitions in the mix. The use of Chinese parts would have meant a higher profit margin which would have resulted in promotions and higher salaries. However, the profits would have proven to be temporary as consumer satisfaction would have gone down with the passage of time hence resulting in lower sales. Our leader would also have benefited in the form of promotion if he would have returned good profits to the shareholders. Many group members knew that very well and they attempted to capitalize on the situation by using flattery. There were also some members with good conscience that looked for the benefit of the company in the long run. They insisted that we should not use Chinese parts as they were subpar and the number of customer complaints against the product would go up.  However, the other group kept on bringing up the question that Japanese parts would cost us much more so we could have purchased more Chinese spare parts and stored them for later use. They showed a bright picture of praise and accolades to our leader. They emphasized that the change was necessary, and timely action was of paramount importance. The discussion almost heated up between the opposing points of view. Our leader decided to take a break and make a decision at a later time. The decision was made in favor of Japanese parts as they were of high quality. He also suggested the purchase of a few amount of Chinese parts in order to find out how they work. It turned out later that using Chinese parts was a very bad idea.