Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a pro

Question

Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a product, you lose some control over the quality of that product. We do subcontract some manufacturing, but only with companies that maintain complete control over the quality of the products they supply.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the company president's statements?

(A) When the president's company subcontracts manufacturing of a product, it does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract manufacturing of that product.
(B) Companies that subcontract the manufacturing of products are often disappointed in the quality of those products.
(C) The company president insists on having as much control as possible over the quality of the company's products.
(D) When consumers know that a product has been manufactured by a subcontractor, they are generally dubious about the product's quality.
(E) When a company manufactures some products in-house and subcontracts the manufacturing of others, the products made in-house will be of uniformly better quality.

Source: LSAT

BrightOutlookJenn · Accepted Answer

SajjitaKundu

Regarding C -> If the company president wanted to maintain as much control as possible, the company would never subcontract anything! (Since subcontracting leads to some loss of control) So this cannot be their aim.

We arrive at A by inference -> The company president says that they only work with "companies that maintain complete control over the quality of the products they supply." We know that subcontracting leads to some loss of control, so it must be true that these companies must not subcontract out parts of their work - because if they did, we could not say that they maintain "complete control."

Does this help?

Best, Jennifer

SajjitaKundu · Answer

Can someone please explain how is the answer A and not C?
Nowhere is anything mentioned about A.
C on the other hand is a better answer

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Masterscorp · Answer

Premise: Whenever a company employs subcontractors, the company loses control over the quality of the product (this doesn't imply that the quality has to become worse). Premise 2: The named company employs subcontractors, but these subcontractors still maintain complete control over the quality over the product. Now let's look at the two reasonable options, A and C: It is said that the use of subcontractors leads to a loss of control over the quality. As the company president assured that the subcontractor still has full control this can only mean that the subcontractor didn't employ further subcontractors because else the president's claim wouldn't hold up. This logic is exactly what is stated in answer A, hence it is the correct answer. This looks like a possibility but we still can't properly infer it. Yes, the president states the situation so it might be possible that the insisted on having that much control over the quality of the company's products. However, it could also be the case that someone from the middle management or the quality control made that decision and the president just accepted the proposal. In conclusion, we can't be sure whether C is correct. Hope that helps

SajjitaKundu · Answer

This is a great explanation! thank you!

CliffKwee · Answer

Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a product, you lose some control over the quality of that product. We do subcontract some manufacturing, but only with companies that maintain complete control over the quality of the products they supply.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the company president's statements?

(A) When the president's company subcontracts manufacturing of a product, it does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract manufacturing of that product.

(C) The company president insists on having as much control as possible over the quality of the company's products.

Answer Choice A: Couldn't the president's company still allow the subcontractor to further subcontract? What if the subcontractor subcontracts the manufacturing to companies that also maintain complete control over the quality of the products? Doesn't the stimulus tell us that if you subcontract the manufacturing of a product (sufficient condition), then you must lose some control over the quality of that product (necessary condition)? If so, then doesn't that mean the company's president lost some control over the quality of that product regardless of the fact that it subcontracts with companies that maintain complete control? Based on the sufficient and necessary conditions, the president's company already lost some control in spite of the fact that it subcontracts with companies that maintain complete control. So why is "the president's company does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract" must be true?

Answer Choice C: I understand that it may not be the company president who insists on having as much control as possible. As mentioned in another reply above, it could be someone other than the company president who insists. However, the company's president subcontracts some manufacturing and does not subcontract the other manufacturing (could be that it manufactures the other manufacturing in-house). It subcontracts some manufacturing but it subcontracts with companies that maintain complete control and it loses some control based on the necessary condition. It does not subcontract the other manufacturing in order to maintain complete control and when it does subcontract, it only subcontracts with companies that maintain complete control. So someone insists on having as much control as possible.

What are your thoughts?

TumharaFaizal · Answer

IMO (C) should be correct answer.

The president said "We do subcontract some manufacturing, but only with companies that maintain complete control over the quality of the  products they supply. " 
 products they supply  is not same as  products they manufacture . It might be possible that the subcontractors also have strict norms for quality and they further subcontract manufacturing to equivalent quality providing subcontractors.

rvgmat12 · Answer

From: Powerscore

The company president offers a fact set featuring two conditional relationships. The first relationship is stated as “whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a product, you lose some control over the quality of that product.” We can diagram this statement as:

SMP = subcontract the manufacturing of a product
CQ = lose some control over the quality of that product

..... ..... ..... Sufficient ..... ..... Necessary

..... ..... ..... SMP ..... :arrow: ..... CQ

The president then acknowledges that the company subcontracts some of its manufacturing, but with a certain restriction. The company subcontracts “only with companies that maintain complete control over the quality of the products they supply.” Using the subscript “we” to refer to the president’s company, and the subscript “sub” to refer to the subcontractor, diagram this second conditional relationship as:

..... ..... ..... SMPwe ..... :arrow: ..... CQsub

The repetition of the terms SMP and CQ confuses the fact that the first and second relationships, while dealing with related subject matter, are distinct relationships. We can chain these relationships together using the contrapositive of the first relationship, resulting in:

..... ..... ..... SMPwe ..... :arrow: ..... CQsub ..... :arrow: ..... SMPsub

From this connection, we can infer that the president’s company subcontracts the manufacturing of its products only to subcontractors that do not themselves subcontract the work to some other company. Not further farming out its work is the only way that the company’s subcontractor can maintain complete control over the quality of the products they supply.

The question stem identifies this as a Must Be True question. Our prephrase is that the correct answer choice will test this additive inference we obtained from the chained conditional relationships.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, because it describes the restriction on the subcontractors used by the company, that they themselves cannot further subcontract the work to other companies. Do not be thrown off by the portion of this answer choice that says the company “does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract” the work. The company president’s statement that the company only contracts with companies that abide by this restriction, within the context of the stimulus, conveys essentially the same meaning as the phrasing used in the answer choice, even thought the language is not identical.

Answer choice (B): This is a classic “could be true” answer choice. While it is clear from the stimulus that the possible production of substandard goods is what prompts the company’s policy, the stimulus does not tell us how often the quality of goods produced by subcontractors disappoints the company that subcontracted out the work.

Answer choice (C): It is not clear form the stimulus that this is true, because we do not know how much control the president could have over the quality of the company’s products. While we do know that the president gives up some control, because the company subcontracts some of its manufacturing, we do not know whether it would be possible for the company to do that work itself.

Answer choice (D): Nothing in the stimulus told us about the consumer’s perception of the quality of subcontracted goods.

Answer choice (E): This generalization, that the quality of in-house products is uniformly better than subcontracted goods, is not supported by the stimulus. It may be the case that a company subcontracts the work because it does not have the in-house capacity to produce a quality product. The stimulus does not provide the information necessary make this inference.

unraveled · Answer

Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a product, you lose some control over the quality of that product. We do subcontract some manufacturing,  but only  with companies  that maintain complete control  over the quality of the products they supply.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the company president's statements?

The highlighted texts are most important keywords in the passage.
Two things to note here:
1. Control is lost upon subcontracting the manufacturing of a product.
2. However, company president does say that it subcontracts ONLY with companies that maintain COMPLETE control.

(A) When the president's company subcontracts manufacturing of a product, it does not allow the subcontractor to further subcontract manufacturing of that product. - CORRECT. At first instance i rejected it. But it is indeed true in stating that further contracting invalidates the second condition as laid by company president.
(B) Companies that subcontract the manufacturing of products are  often  disappointed in the quality of those products. - WRONG. Disappointment is still acceptable but do they 'often' remain so.
(C) The company president insists on having  as much control as possible  over the quality of the company's products. - WRONG. Had that been so, the company would not have subcontracted on first place.
(D) When  consumers  know that a product has been manufactured by a subcontractor, they are  generally dubious  about the product's quality. - WRONG. Not concerned about consumers. Also, do they 'generally' get dubious. 
(E) When a company manufactures some products in-house and subcontracts the manufacturing of others, the products made in-house will be of  uniformly better quality.  - WRONG. True it may be, but 'uniformly' is not sure.

Answer A.

Sa800 · Answer

GMATNinja

this is a tough one can you please help

GMATNinja · Answer

The president essentially says, "If you subcontract the manufacturing of a product, then you will lose  some  control over the quality of that product."

This implies that if you have COMPLETE control over the quality of a product, then you must NOT have subcontracted the manufacturing of that product -- because if you did subcontract it, then you would have lost  some  control over the quality.

In short, subcontracting and COMPLETE quality control are mutually exclusive -- you can't have both.

The second sentence of the passage talks about "companies that maintain COMPLETE control over the quality of the products they supply." Based on the logic just described, we know that  those  companies must NOT subcontract the manufacturing of their products.

Bringing it all together: the president's company does hire some subcontractors. Since those subcontractors maintain complete quality control, we know that they must not hire subcontractors of their own... and that's exactly what choice (A) says.

I hope that helps!

Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a pro

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Company president: Whenever you subcontract the manufacturing of a pro

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