Please rate the argument

[Muhammad Fayyaz]

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 author concludes that in order to lessen on duty accidents we have to reduce the each of three work shifts by one hour. On the surface, the author’s argument seems plausible, but carefully and meticulously scrutinizing the situation will reveal how false and fallacious the argument is, and based on false analogy, wrong statistical data, and others baseless assumptions, which overall makes the argument unconvincing.

To begin with, the author compares to organization without giving details of each. The author stated by reducing the number of duty hours will efficacious in the other firm so in this will also be. The author does not mention the overall number of shifts of the other organization. It may be possible that the PIP have more number of shifts as comparable to QM. So in that case reducing the duty shifts will be ineffectual. Also, the author’s didn’t not mention the type of business of both organizations. It may be possible that the PIP work is more intense and strenuous, which require more time for rest of labors.

If both the organizations business were same, then the author must have to mentions the number of employees in both firms. Perhaps, PIP is a mega organization and have a lot of manpower to complete the work, and because of that they have more number of shifts than QM. It is possible the QM have only 3 shifts and reducing the no. of hours of this will severely deteriorate and aggravate the business of QM.

Moreover, it is possible that the number of accidents results from poor safety measurements in QM. Maybe the QM staff has a very lack of proper safety. Perhaps, the safety officers are very less, and not well qualified in their milieu. Also, the number of present safety officers are not adequate to satiate and fulfill the requirement of QM, which may have more labors. The author’s must have to mention the safety measurements to conclude about the implications.

In sum, the argument is false as it stands. In order to strengthen the arguments, the author must have to provide the structure of both organizations; the nature of business, the number of shifts in PIP, and most important is the safety measurements in the QM. If the above assumptions are not proved with authentic evidence, it is hard to predict the result.The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.

[pemdas]

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 author concludes that in order to lessen on duty accidents we have to reduce the each of three work shifts by one hour. On the surface, the author’s argument seems plausible, but carefully and meticulously scrutinizing the situation will reveal how false and fallacious the argument is, and based on false analogy, wrong statistical data, and others baseless assumptions, which overall makes the argument unconvincing.

To begin with, the author compares to organization without giving details of each. The author stated by reducing the number of duty hours will efficacious in the other firm so in this will also be <= a bit confusing but still comprehendable . The author does not mention the overall number of shifts <= it does mention one hour less than duration of each shift, what use will make number of shifts at other firm? they are approximately the same 3:3 with one hour less in each shift and continuous of the other organization. It may be possible that the PIP have more number of shifts as comparable to QM. So in that case reducing the duty shifts will be ineffectual. Also, the author’s didn’t not mention the type of business of both organizations. It may be possible that the PIP work is more intense and strenuous, which require more time for rest of labors.

If both the organizations business were same, then the author must have to mentions the number of employees in both firms. Perhaps, PIP is a mega organization and have a lot of manpower to complete the work, and because of that they have more number of shifts than QM. It is possible the QM have only 3 shifts and reducing the no. of hours of this will severely deteriorate and aggravate the business of QM. <= not clear, you started with number of employees, and concluded with number of shifts. Does it make any difference if one man works 10 hours or 9 hours? I guess yes, regardless of the number of men. Even if one firm has ten times more we compare not their numbers but their on-duty service time (shift time)

Moreover, it is possible that the number of accidents results from poor safety measurements in QM. Maybe the QM staff has a very lack of proper safety. Perhaps, the safety officers are very less, and not well qualified in their milieu. Also, the number of present safety officers are not adequate to satiate and fulfill the requirement of QM, which may have more labors. The author’s must have to mention the safety measurements to conclude about the implications. <= the words selected in bold (possible, maybe, perhaps) do not help you convince the reader either. You are floundering with various possibilities which the author would question too - these are all not facts missed but imagined possibilities

In sum, the argument is false as it stands. In order to strengthen the arguments, the author must have to provide the structure of both organizations; the nature of business, the number of shifts in PIP, and most important is the safety measurements in the QM. If the above assumptions are not proved with authentic evidence, it is hard to predict the result.The following
appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.

Now it's your turn to grade your own work and with all comments embedded. Do you believe it's adequate? If there's some doubt hidden in the corner of your mind, then grade plunders down 4

[pemdas]

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."

The argument stating that reduction of each work shift at Quiot Manufacturing by one hour will help reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at the given enterprise is not entirely logically convincing, because it ignores certain crucial assumptions.

The argument arrives at its main conclusion – reducing the number of on-the-job accidents – by means of sub-conclusion which is employees should get adequate amount of sleep. Theoretically yes, if people are sleep-deprived they may suffer from underperformance. However, a new question that will arise is whether reduction of each work shift by one hour should provide the adequate amount of sleep. It’s evident that, sleeping of employees will be beyond Quiot’s control. Many people may actually use their additional one hour to enjoy night life in bars or will spend time with their families, plus will do million possible things which are beyond control of Quiot Manufacturing. With this in mind, I reject a one-hour proposal of the author as the means of providing the adequate sleep time for Quiot’s employees.

Next, the argument assumes that experts who claim fatigue and sleep deprivation amongst the contributing factors of many on-the-job accidents should be credited immediately. This is a common fallacy known as the appeal to authority, when some one in the face of expert or industry bench-maker makes a certain claim and all others follow or ascribe their decision-making to the expert opinion. It must be yet proved that contributing factors of many on-the-job accidents at Quiot are fatigue and sleep-deprivation.

Another assumption is made about similarity of two enterprises - Quiot and Panoply Industries. We do not know from the argument given in what way two enterprises mentioned are similar or dissimilar. Yet this is a common fallacy called false comparison, when people compare or contrast two seemingly related objects in the ways not clearly related to their attributable qualities. For example, Quiot is definitely different from Panoply Industries, because they are named differently, but how they are similar – geography, industry, man-power production rate, etc – we just do not know.

The author’s argument never addresses the difference of on-the-job accident rates marked as 30%. Why? Is this not relevant to our argument or less significant than sleep deprivation factor? I believe the author just “overlooked” the difference of 30% intentionally because this data may require studying more contributing factors than those related to fatigue.

Finally, the argument omits facts about separately suggested issue – increased productivity. It is expected that the author mentions productivity here as one linked to idle-work hours caused by on-the-job accidents. However, provided Quiot had zero rate of on-the-job accidents would the increased productivity still be an issue of interest to the author or not? What is the real cause of productivity capacity at Quiot?

The argument made by the author is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion does little to prove the conclusion. Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened by addressing all the assumptions and facts stated above. One way to give more weight to the author’s argument is to separate human and non-human factors as contributing causes of on-the-job accidents at Quiot. Further, the generalizations can be made under each category of factors (human and non-human) to build sound and succinct premises for a conclusion by the author.