Critical Thinking & Analysis of Safety Incident at Truss Company

This case study presents a critical analysis of an incident at Truss Construction Company, where a worker was injured during a truss load test. The analysis identifies several key problems, including inadequate safety measures, unclear load-bearing limits, potential manufacturing flaws, and communication breakdowns. The report proposes solutions such as establishing proper threshold limits, enhancing safety protocols, improving internal communication, and implementing rigorous quality checks during manufacturing. The analysis emphasizes the importance of prioritizing employee safety and maintaining transparency to prevent similar incidents and protect the company's reputation, with recommendations provided to improve future decision-making and operational practices.

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING AND ANALYSIS
Critical thinking and analysis
Trouble in the Truss Construction Company
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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Explanation to the problem..................................................................................................2
Analysis of the information.................................................................................................4
Identification and defining the problem..........................................................................4
Process of problem solving..............................................................................................5
Conclusion and recommendations.......................................................................................6
Recommendations............................................................................................................6
References............................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Troubles can be anywhere in the world but to find out the proper reason for it and
solution to reduce the problem there is a need of critical thinking and analysis of the problem
which have occurred. In this part of the work there is a critical thinking and analysis of the
trouble which have been faced by the Truss Construction Shop. For this purpose, the boss of the
company has appointed an expert to find the reason and the solution for it so that it would
happen in the future again. This is due to the reason that the person who got injured during the
accident is in comma and faced serious injuries at his head (Bassham et al., 2011). For this
trouble there is an engagement of critical thinking to the matter to formulate the ideas succinctly
and precisely and apply for making the ethical decision to the trouble which has been caused to
the company. This would allow them to find the solution that this would not happen in the
coming future of the company.
Explanation to the problem
It was the problem which was raised about two weeks ago in which there was the Quality
assurance load test of the truss was going on when it was being tested that the truss was
fragmented along the side of horizontal axis. During this fragmentation, the large piece of truss
got broken apart and that piece of truss fallen on the hoist operator who was supporting the test
of truss (Boundless.com, 2019). This accident caused him to face injuries on his head and
according to the last reports which have been found, he was in an induced coma and still
hospitalized.
Due to this accident, the construction department of Truss construction is facing the wave
of shock because they have invested huge amount of money for the process of new engineering

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and the manufacturing of producing the cost-effective truss. This new engineering and
manufacturing process of the cost-effective truss has been taken as the cutting edge to the current
technology of construction (Cui et al., 2018). This is due to the reason that the cost-effective
truss will be effective for the low budget houses in the overseas market.
However due to this problem the owner of the company has conducted internal enquiry of
the accident with the help of safety officer, QA manager and the engineer than it has been found
that the test of the truss was being conducted slightly above the highest threshold limit of the
load bearing but this was not expected that if the load would be higher than this would cause the
failure of truss. Although this was necessary to test the truss on overload because it was
advertised by the company that this cost-effective truss would meet all the requirements of
commercial high load (Everett et al., 2018). In the engineering section of the company the
employees are asking that whether there would be problem during the manufacturing and
engineering process of the truss because that might be the reason for failure of the truss when
tested over the threshold limit of the load bearing.
Apart from this problem, the production department of the company have continued the
production and engineering processes of the truss and continued the process of testing the truss at
lower threshold limit of the load bearing, this is because according to the memos of the company
there are orders from the customers about the cost effective truss and if the orders have not been
completed than it would cause the customers to draw their orders back. This would further cause
huge loss to the revenue of the company and also the market image (Franco, Costa & da Silva
Almeida, 2018).
Addition to the worst condition of this accident and the company image, a production line
worker whose name was Faruch Habib contributed in leaking the details of the accident to the

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media. This was due to the reason that he was terminated from his services due to the poor
performance in the work (Grant & Smith, 2018). In the process of saving the image of the
company, the department of public relation have issued a general statement to the problem that
all the necessary actions have been taken by the company so that the accidents like this would
not occur in the future.
Analysis of the information
For the problem analysis of this trouble, first there is a need to identify what is the
technical problem with the truss.
Identification and defining the problem
After reading the explanation of the trouble occurred in the Truss Construction Shop,
there are problems which have been identified which lead us in defining the problem as below: -
1) The limit of the higher threshold limit of the load bearing was not checked properly
before testing.
2) During the test of truss, the safety measures for people who are supporting the test was
taken.
3) According the promotion of the company about the cost-effective test, there would be
clear instruction about the limit of load bearing and the truss would be test according to
limits.
4) To get the profit from the cost-effective truss the safety of the employees where taken as
granted because of failure in the level of safety during the test.

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5) There are some of the chances that there might be problem with the manufacturing and
engineering process of the truss as the employees of the engineering department were
asking.
6) There was the barrier between the public relationship department and human resource
department about the leakage of the information because they could not able to handle the
communication between the employees who were the part of the company and the
employees who have been terminated from the company.
7) If the lower threshold limit and the higher threshold limit of the load bearing have been
set by the company than the problem which have been raised would not have happened.
Process of problem solving
This is the process so that this kind of problem may not happen in the future and the
company should take every step to control this situation of accident. The employees working
with the company are the stakeholders of the company because they are contributing in making
the company successful and it is the management and the employees working in the company
contribute in making the market image of the company (Lau, 2011).
Now following are the steps which the company can take to solve these kinds of
problems in the future: -
1) First step there should be proper testing of the truss according to the material which have
been used to manufacture the truss so that the threshold limit of high and low level can be
set up. So that the testing of the truss should be done under those limits.
2) The management of the company should take proper decision and plan the promotion of
the product in the right way because it was the company premises where the load test was

6CRITICAL THINKING AND ANALYSIS
done but if that would happen at the site than it would cause a loss of lives of many
people (Lau & Chan, 2015).
3) While testing for the load bearing the safety department of the company should take
proper actions that if the test would go wrong that it would hamper the life any employee.
There should be a designed safety place where the supporter of the test can use to test the
load bearing power of the truss without getting any damage (Liu et al., 2019).
4) There should be setup of the protocols for the employees and they should be in
confidence with the public relation department that internal news of the company would
remain inside the premises of the company and it should not be leaked to any of the
person outside the premises of the company (Nagy, 2019).
5) During the manufacturing and engineering of the truss there should be proper checking of
the quality of the material used and every manufacturing process so that the flaws can be
removed while manufacturing it at the same time. This would contribute in reducing the
level of risks while testing the truss for load bearing.
Conclusion and recommendations
In concluding all of the above factors I came to the conclusion that there should be proper
steps taken by the safety department of the company so that such kind of accidents would not
happen. The management should take strict actions if such kind of flaws found in any of the
departments from the manufacturing process to the testing process of the truss. Considering all of
the above facts there are recommendations which would support decision making process to get
eradication from such kind of problems.

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Recommendations
1) Proper limits for thresholds at low and high level should be set.
2) Safety precautions should be taken when testing higher from the threshold limits.
3) The communication between the employees and the public relation department should be
clear.
4) Material used for the truss should be tested first.

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References
Bassham, G., Irwin, W., Nardone, H., & Wallace, J. (2011). Critical thinking: A student's
introduction. (4th ed.) New York, NY: The McGraw Hill Companies.
Boundless.com. (2019). About Boundless Immigration Inc. Retrieved from
https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/
decision-making-10/decision-making-in-management-75/defining-decision-making-366-
3930/
Cui, C., Li, Y., Geng, D., Zhang, H., & Jin, C. (2018). The effectiveness of evidence-based
nursing on development of nursing students' critical thinking: A meta-analysis. Nurse
education today.
Everett, A. C., Anderson, O. S., Wright, M. C., & Fontana, M. (2018). Longitudinal assessment
of critical thinking skills across a dental curriculum. Journal of dental education, 82(9),
921-928.
Franco, A. R., Costa, P. S., & da Silva Almeida, L. (2018). Translation, adaptation, and
validation of the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment to Portugal: Effect of disciplinary
area and academic level on critical thinking. Anales de Psicología/Annals of
Psychology, 34(2), 292-298.
Grant, M., & Smith, M. (2018). Quantifying Assessment of Undergraduate Critical
Thinking. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 15(1), 27-38.
Lau, J. (2011). An introduction to critical thinking and creativity: Think more, think
better.Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Lau, J., & Chan, J. (2015). What is critical thinking? Retrieved from
http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/ct.ph
Liu, N. Y., Hsu, W. Y., Hung, C. A., Wu, P. L., & Pai, H. C. (2019). The effect of gender role
orientation on student nurses’ caring behaviour and critical thinking. International
journal of nursing studies, 89, 18-23.
Nagy, J. (2019). Chapter 17. Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions | Section 3.
Defining and Analyzing the Problem | Main Section | Community Tool Box. Retrieved
from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/analyze-community-problems-and-
solutions/define-analyze-problem/main