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 25th birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits. Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

The argument states that the experience itself enables the Olympic Food Process industry to minimise costs and maximise prots which actually fails to capitalise on certain aspects that need to be evaluated to validate the aptness of the argument. Most important, the argument does not focus on the cause for such a trend and the reason for actual fall of price. First, the argument assumes that the ination level over the years is same and no other factor inuenced this trend of price fall. In a weak attempt to support its statement, it takes everything for granted that the experience is the only factor determining the price fall in storage industry. But if the reason is ination or cheap availability of the goods of food processing industry over the years, then there is no point arguing that the stated argument will be successful. Again if taxes, incentives, competition or government subsidies are also involved in steady price fall, the argument that accounts for high experience relates to price fall is severely challenged. Finally even if the experience could lower the processing fees to certain extent, there is no guarantee there will be more prots because due to competition from others could lead to price cuts which can even reduce the prot levels considerably. Because the argument did not touches several key aspects, it is not apt or persuasive. If it includes the points discussed above instead of solely explaining the outcome does, the argument would have been more sound and thoughtful.