ARGUMENT149

pomotoUID: 2797324

有计时，来不及写总结了。

ARGUMENT149 -
The following is a memorandum from the director of personnel to the president of Get-Away Airlines.
"Since our mechanics are responsible for inspecting and maintaining our aircraft, Get-Away Airlines should pay to send them to the Quality-Care Seminar, a two-week seminar on proper maintenance procedures. I recommend this seminar because it is likely to be a wise investment, given that the automobile racing industry recently reported that the performance of its maintenance crews improved markedly after their crews had attended the seminar. These maintenance crews perform many of the same functions as do our mechanics, including refueling and repairing engines. The money we spend on sending our staff to the seminar will inevitably lead to improved maintenance and thus to greater customer satisfaction along with greater profits for our airline."


In this statement, the personnel director's suggestion on sending their mechanics staff to a two-week seminar for learning proper maintennance procedurs so that their maintenance improvement can help the company advance on customer satisfaction and earn greater profits suffers from several critical fallacies below.


First of all, the director gives the example from the report of auto racing industry in which their crews' maintenance performance improved markedly after attending the seminar. But there's no direct link between the improved performance and seminar attendece. The improvement on maintening could be resulted from other activities, such as the communication and sharing of superior skills with senior collegues when they have the chance to get together when attending seminars. Therefore,the thought to send staffs to seminars will definetly lead advancements on their skills is too rush.

Second, the report is from another industry, auto racing. What the auto maintenance crews learnt from the seminar might not apply to air crafts. Refueling and repairing engines are only the basic procedurs of maintenence for air crafts, a better maintenence might need knowledge and skills on more sophiscated mechanics which may be are not avilable on the seminars.

Third, there seems no direct relations between an imporved maintenance and greater customer satisfaction. According to some surveys, customers choose air lines mostly considering the ticket prices, conformity of air seats, air foods and safety. A better maintenance on mechanics can reduce the dangers that a plane might encournter during the journey and add flying security effectively. However, as we mention above saftey is only a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition to attract customers on their air options. Besides the safety, Get-Away also needs to improve on their pricing, conformity and foods to achieve greater customer satisfaction, which obviously are not seminar contents.

(2010-4-17 17:52:41)