The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.
"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The vice president of Quiot Manufacturing has released a memo stating that his factory had 30% more on-the-job accidents in comparison to the nearby Panoply industries plant. Experts have identified the problems and have suggested to reduce the work timings in order to avoid accidents and increase productivity. However, before this solution is adopted, several impending questions must be answered.
Firstly, the VP states that there is roughly a 30% increase in the number of accidents compared to their industrial rival. However he has failed to provide any evidence backing up this data.
A proper investigation might be able to shed more light on the factory’s functioning. Moreover, a direct comparison is drawn to Panoply Industries plant regardless of any implication on the workings of it. Both the factories may not be the same. For instance, Quiot could be a steel manufacturing plant and panoply might be a paper plant. This might explain why the latter has lesser onsite accidents.
Furthermore, the experts have assumed that accidents have something to do with the amount of time workers spend on site.
They have made the assumption that the workers at quiot work harder in comparison to panoply workers. However, they fail to include several other factors such as workload.
For example, workers at panoply may not be having a hard time getting around their job while quiot workers do require the time and effort for it.
At last, it is assumed that fatigue and sleep deprivation are the direct causes of the accidents. Although, no such evidence is provided. There might be other factors endangering the life of the workers such as, poor infrastructure, failure in equipment etc.
Hence, the argument as it stands is flawed and needs correction. If the VP could provide a more insightful analysis, a compelling argument would be put forward. The experts also need to have a more intimate understanding of the company’s workings. All this put together may enable us to find the right solutions for the underlined problem affecting the work environment associated with Quiot manufacturing.
