argument229【六人行小组8.7】by odie

odiehereUID: 2502172

TOPIC: ARGUMENT229 - The following appeared as part of a memo from the manager of a hazardous-waste disposal company.
"Our new plan will help us better protect our staff against exposure to toxic chemicals: we are fitting each new safety suit with an alarm that will sound in the main control booth when the suit is punctured. The control booth will notify the managers on duty, who will then take the necessary steps to ensure employees' safety. In addition to the obvious safety-related benefits, the fast reaction time will ensure minimal work stoppage and thus result in increased worker productivity and company profitability."
WORDS: 335          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2010-8-9 下午 11:07:02

The argument that new alarms will safe-guard staffs and increase productivity and profitability in the company sounds reasonable at first glance, but lacks further and comprehensive evidence to support it. It may need to make to through analysis of the advantages and possible disadvantages with the alarming system before exseculating the plan.

First of all, no clear evidence has been provided to support the conclusion that the working of the alarm system may decrease work stoppage and response time to accidents. It seems that it may take some time for the control booth to notify the manager, who may also need some response time to conduct appropriate measures to ensure staff's safety. Therefore, employees working at these positions all have to stop their work in response to a possible safety problem. This clearly contradicts the conclusion that minimal work stoppage can be ensured by the alarm system. A direct comparison between the new alarm system and previous safety measure may support the argument.

Whether the productivity will be increased by the adoption of the alarm system is also not clear. Safety problems will not happen on regular basis, in other words, productivity will not be affected significantly by safety accidents because they are rare. As a result, it is not reasonable to expect an increase in productivity with the use of the alarm system.

Similarly, without concrete evidence that productivity can be increased with the use of the alarm system, it is ungrounded to conclude that company profitability may be enhanced. On the contrary, it is possible that the profitability may even be reduced because of the extra cost of the alarm system.

In sum, although the company is encouraged to adopt new safety measures to ensure employees' safety and improve the production of the company, substantial evidence has to be given to ensure that the new measures are indeed superior over previous ones, in that they are effective enough to enhance worker productivity and economic enough to control the company's spending on safety measures.