Alta Manufacturing

The argument claims that Panoply industries faces lesser on-the-job accidents, than Alta Manufacturing because of one hour shorter duration in job timings. Further, the Vice president claims that the reason for increased accidents is faitgue cause by sleep deprivation among the workers. Therefore, the solution suggested is to reduce the work timings by one hour for each of the three work shifts as this will lead to adequate amount of sleep among the personnel's. The argument when stated this way, fails to consider and mention several factors, on the basis of which the argument can be evaluated. The conclusion provided by the Vice President rests on several unstated and unexamined assumptions, resulting in serious flaws and weakened argument.

To begin, the Vice president of Alta Manufacturing assumes that the job classification of Alta manufacturing and Panoply Industries is same. This itself leads to grave error, because it may be that the job of personnels of Panoply Industries differ severely from that of Alta Manufacturing. Maybe they are more oriented towards technology sector than manufacturing sector. Therefore, the assumption is a stretch and needs to be reexamined. Second, it also necessary to understand the age cohort of the employees working in the both organizations. It may be that the employees of Panoply Industries are younger and more vigilant compared to Alta Manufacturing. If this is true, then it poses serious challenges to the arguments and the suggestion in that case does not hold much water.

Further, the memo failed to consider personal factors of the employees such as motivation, family problems and personality. It is possible that employees of Alta Manufacturing facing accidents are disturbed due to some family, health or personal issue. Also, it is possible that the distance between house and factory is far too long for employees of Alta Manufacturing resulting in fatigue in comparison to Panoply Industries. If this is true, then the resulting fatigue can also be due to long travel distance than just sleep deprivation alone. It is also imperative to understand, if there are management differences between the two organizations. It is possible that management of Panoply industry is more employee oriented than Alta manufacturing resulting in lesser accidents.

Another important assumption that is ignored here is the fact that maybe Panoply Industries are hiding or fudging the number of accidents reported to preserve their name and honour. If this is true, then the advice posited by the Vice President will not be of much help and the accidents will continue to take place in the future.

The memo also assumes that on-the-job accidents are a result of fatigue alone, factors such as bad machinery is not considered at all. Maybe the machinery used by Alta Manufacturing has been present with the company for far too long and is now acting up, therefore leading to accidents. The assumption that if one hour is reduced from the time work, there will be less accidents fails to consider the point that, maybe employees do not go home right after the shift ends, it maybe that employees gather together to pass time together. Therefore, this is another assumption that may lead to failure of suggestion.

Therefore, the prompt above has several confounding factors which the Vice President has failed to consider in formulating his recommendation for the more on-the-job accidents in the organization. Serious reevaluation is needed along with different methods such as survey, or interview to form a more comprehensive answer for the problem.