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Difficulty: HardIdentifying Unstated Assumptions

A specialty pharmaceutical company plans to transition the synthesis of its primary active ingredient from traditional batch processing to continuous flow manufacturing. Management claims that this operational shift will lower the overall production cost per unit by at least 20 percent. This claim is grounded in the observation that continuous flow processing completely eliminates the multi-day downtime currently required between batches for vessel sterilisation and quality re-validation.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the management's argument depends?

  1. The expenses involved in maintaining continuous flow equipment will not equal or exceed the cost savings gained from eliminating vessel sterilisation and re-validation downtime.Answer
  2. B
    Continuous flow manufacturing will yield active pharmaceutical ingredients that possess higher biological efficacy than those produced via traditional batch processing.
  3. C
    The company will experience an immediate increase in consumer demand for its primary active ingredient following the manufacturing transition.
  4. D
    Traditional batch processing systems cannot be upgraded with automated cleaning technology to shorten downtime between production cycles.
  5. E
    Competitors in the specialty pharmaceutical sector will fail to adopt continuous flow manufacturing technology over the next decade.

Answer

The argument relies on the assumption that the expenses involved in maintaining continuous flow equipment will not equal or exceed the cost savings gained from eliminating sterilisation and re-validation downtime.
The author concludes that transitioning to continuous flow manufacturing will reduce unit production costs by at least 20 percent based on eliminating cleaning and re-validation downtime. For this conclusion to hold, the financial benefit of eliminating downtime must not be neutralized by new costs inherent to continuous flow manufacturing. If maintenance or operational expenses specific to continuous flow equipment equal or exceed the savings gained from eliminating downtime, the overall cost per unit will not fall by 20 percent. Therefore, the assumption that continuous flow maintenance costs will not offset downtime savings is necessary for the conclusion to stand.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the premise and conclusion of the argument.
Premise: Continuous flow manufacturing eliminates multi-day downtime needed for vessel cleaning and re-validation between batches. Conclusion: Transitioning to continuous flow manufacturing will reduce overall unit production costs by at least 20 percent.
Deconstructing the argument isolates the evidence from the primary claim.
2
Identify the logical leap between premise and conclusion.
The argument assumes that eliminating downtime savings directly translates to net cost reductions without introducing offsetting expenses.
Gross savings in one operational area only yield net savings if new costs elsewhere do not absorb those savings.
3
Apply the Negation Test to evaluate candidate assumptions.
Negating the statement regarding maintenance costs reveals that if continuous flow maintenance costs equal or exceed downtime savings, unit costs cannot drop by 20 percent. The argument collapses.
A required assumption must shatter the conclusion when logically negated.

Key Concept

Identifying unstated necessary assumptions in GMAT Critical Reasoning using the Negation Test.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Identifying Unstated Assumptions

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