Answer 2 questions 200 words
Summary for the article.

– Hisashi Ouchi is a 35 year old man who makes nuclear fuel pellets at his job. After the company laid off about a third of the employees, Hishasi and the other workers had to take on more responsibilities, which they did not receive training for. The manufacturing process for producing the uranium dioxide was different from what Hisashi was used to. The company, the Japan Science and technology Agency, and the government regulators had approved the process design and thought there was no chance of anything bad happening. However, the company replicated the process that involved creating the mixture in a bucket rather than using the intricate machinery, which was not approved by a safety committee. Then, Hisashi and his crew decided to further speed up the process by making the batches larger and mixing them all together. As they mixed it together, the liquid uranyl nitrate foamed up and a Mistry aqua glow filled the room. There were also high neutron radiation levels. The workers became very sick and suffered several major injuries. The incident resulted in 436 people being exposed to radiation from the incident and Hisashi Ouchi as well as his coworker Masato Shinohara both died.

Example Answers for the question:

1.The events of this story reflect very poor decision making. Satisficing was used by both the company as well as Hisashi and his coworkers. Satisficing is when one chooses the first option that will meet their needs rather than the best option. The company used satisficing to bypass using the machinery and instead use the buckets to mix the chemicals. This was the first option that met their needs because it got the job done, however it was not the best option because it was not the safest and the process had not been approved. Furthermore, Hisashi and his crew used satisficing by deciding to mix the liquids together when they should not have. They thought this option met their needs in the best, quickest way, but it was not the best option because it resulted in a very dangerous and unfortunate outcome. Full strategies of decision making were not used because if they were, the company would have stuck to the option that was the most efficient, yet still the safest option.

To prevent this from happening, the company should have given proper training to their employees before giving them new responsibilities that they were not familiar with. With training, perhaps Hisashi and his coworkers would have known that it was not safe to combine the liquids. Another thing that could have prevented this from happening was if the company had followed the design process that was approved rather than attempting to save themselves time and money.

2. The events in the story reflected deficits/errors in decision making through satisficing. The bucket that they put the mixture in was likely their first option and mixing all of them together was not their best option. Incomplete Representation was also at play due to the workers not having proper training and having to go off of only what they already knew. They did not have the full picture. Inappropriate use of heuristics was also used here because the bosses wanted to save money so they let the workers learn-by-doing which resulted in a fatal accident. Many things could have been done to prevent this. The most important is probably proper training. If the company absolutely had to lay off workers, they should have trained their remaining staff properly. Another solution could have been the workers following protocol. (Namely, not satisficing). If they hadn’t used the first option rather than the best option, the catastrophe likely would have been avioded.