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 author draws the conclusion that the accidents can be reduced by curtailing the work shifts, based on several unsound assumptions. These assumptions are logically erroneous . Also the author doesn't provide any evidences to bolster his claim. Thus the credibility of the argument is at doubt.

The first assumption the author makes is that the Quiot manufacturing is analogous to the Panoply Industries plant. The author however fails to cite any evidences to support such supposition. He fails to consider the disparate ways in which the factories can differ. Maybe the Quiot is much larger plant , employing a raft of workers. Then the 30 percent more on-the-jobs accident is justified. Or perhaps the Quiot manufacturing is a more hazardous site. This also could easily explain the discrepancy in the percent of the accidents.Thus the author fails to consider other alternative explanation and thus the assumptions is unwarranted.

Moreover even if there are 30 percent more incidents it doesn't necessarily mean that there are more accidents. Suppose if the only 6 accidents happened at panoply plant then a 30 percent more accidents would be 7.8. The difference is negligible. This belies the author's conclusion. Thus in order to validate his assumption the author should have cited evidences that corroborated his claims.

Next the author concludes that in order to reduce the accidents , the work shifts should be truncated by one hour. This is based on the assumption that by shortening the work shifts the employees will get adequate amount of sleep. However this presupposition is flawed. The author fails to contemplate the other possibilities that can cause sleep deprivation. The employees could be working overtime in order to earn some extra wages. In this case by curtailing the work shifts will not affect the sleep deprivation of the workers. Temporary Insomnia caused by disturbances can also be another reason.Thus conclusion is based on unsubstantiated assumption and is thus untenable.

To recapitulate, the author makes several assumptions. These assumptions however are based on faulty logic and lack concrete evidence. Thus the conclusion that to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot the shifts should be shortened is dubious.