The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a large, highly diversified company.
"Ten years ago our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two different regions. The buildings were erected by two different construction companies-Alpha and Zeta. Even though the two buildings had identical floor plans, the building constructed by Zeta cost 30 percent more to build, and its expenses for maintenance last year were twice those of the building constructed by Alpha. Furthermore, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been higher than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Such data, plus the fact that Alpha has a stable workforce with little employee turnover, indicate that we should use Alpha rather than Zeta for our contemplated new building project."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
Although the above argument seems to be logical at first glance, being more accurate on it elucide it is not cogent enough and, the author ignore several assumptions that can have determining effect on the conclusion of argument. Some of them are clarified in the following.
The most obvious matter that author did not mention it is the difference between the features of 2 region, like geographical or climate variations. It is possible that the because of the difference in the location the costed of transferring materials to each region was not equal , for example the area that zeta company constructed the building was not available with regular vehicles and they had to use particular equipments that costed more.
The above assumption could be considered about energy consumption, too. May be zeta building is located in an area with hard climate conditions like very cold winter an very hot summer.As a consequence the amount of energy, consumed in zeta building was higher and so company had to spend more on this part.
About higher maintenance costs, it should be clear that whether the functionality of 2 buildings were the same ? maybe the kinds of the works, were operated in Zeta building was more degrading . For instance, Alpha building was designated for official works and Zeta were allocated to practical and manufacturing works. In addition, Different climate conditions, could be mentioned here, because heavy colds or rain can decay a building materials in a shorter time than it is usual.
The other assumption, is that maybe workforce changing in Zeta company was not the sign of being inefficient but it was the result of some modifications in company structure or they have changed their location and some employees had to be turned over .
Also the author did not clarify the amount of salary that each company charged, it is probable that Zeta company has higher fee.
As it is abvious there are many obscure aspects in author argument that if he/she clarified them , they could corroborate the logic of the argument.
hi,
this is what I feel
costed - cost of of transferring materials
very cold winter an very hot summer - very cold winter and a very hot summer
whether the functionality of 2 buildings were the same ? - there is no need for question mark.
thank you.
Do check out mine.
