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

The argument that by shortening each of our three work shifts by one hour, it will reduce the number of on-the-job accidents and thereby increase productivity, may seem plausible at first glance. The author made the valid argument, one that would be correct if it's premises were true. However, the president's conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence and it uses terms that lack definition.

The argument goes on making an unwarranted assumption that on-the-job accidents in Quiot Manufacturing is 30% higher than in Panoly industries plants. On-the-job accidents depend on the many factors like safety provision, employees for safety teams, etc. The factors like qualification, skill, efficiency of employees are also different. There is possibility that employees in the Palony industries are more skilled than in Quiot. The author's argument would be strengthened considerably if he provided the details of safety provision and safety team.

The author made another assumption that on-the-job accidents directly affect the productivity of the firm. Productivity of any firm depends on the many factors. Process of production, workshop layout, specification of machines, skilled workers, efficiency of workers are also the factors which affect productivity. Productivity doesn't depend only on job accidents. Also, products of the firms is also not consider. For different products, different processes and materials are used. If in Quiot use harmful material, than accidents are obviously greater than other industries if proper safety not available. So. the author has to provide proper details of the production of the firms.

The author made conclusion that by reducing work shifts by one hour, productivity increases and accidents decrease because employees will get adequate amounts of sleep. Now, in that one hour, there is no necessary that workers will go for sleep, they will also play cards, watch television and do other activities. By this way, production will decrease indirectly. The author also didn't consider the number of the shifts and number of employees working in the firm. If there are more number of shifts in Panoply industries than in Quiot than there is probability of one hour less in work shifts in Panoply industries. If it hired more employees than hours of work shift will also less. Experts also say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. This will depend on what work allocated to the different workers. So, the author has to consider this all this points.

The argument is the result of a huge speculation in which the author has comfortably assumed considerable amount of data. If the author had taken the above discussed points into view, it would have rendered the argument irrefutable. But whatever presented fails to provide a holistic picture to the superfluous claims being made.