Sales volume has been dropping at Mumford Industries. During this time, however, the shipping department manager has been under severe financial constraints. The manager knows that most of the shipping department's effort is related to pulling inventory from the warehouse for each order and performing the paperwork. The paperwork involves preparing shipping documents for each order. Thus, the pulling and paperwork effort associated with each sales order is essentrally the same, regardless of the size of the order. The shipping department manager has discussed the financial situation with senior management. Senior management has responded by pointing out that sales volume has been dropping, so that the work in the shipping department should be dropping. Thus, senior management told the shipping department manager that costs should be decreasing in the department.

month	sales	number of customer orders	sales volume per order
jan	$472000	1180	400
feb	475800	1220	390
mar	456950	1235	370
apr	425000	1250	340
may	464750	1430	325
june	421200	1350	312
july	414000	1380	300
aug	430700	1475	292

Given this information, how would you respond to senior managment?