Automation in Daily Life Essay

Automation is the use of machines, control systems and information technologies to optimize productivity in the production of goods and delivery of services. The correct incentive for applying automation is to increase productivity, and/or quality beyond that possible with current human labor levels so as to realize economies of scale, and/or realize predictable quality levels. In the scope of industrialisation, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provides human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly decreases the need for human sensory and mental requirements while increasing load capacity, speed, and repeatability. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience. Automation has had a notable impact in a wide range of industries beyond manufacturing (where it began). Once-ubiquitous telephone operators have been replaced largely by automated telephone switchboards and answering machines. Medical processes such as primary screening in electrocardiography or radiography and laboratory analysis of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues are carried out at much greater speed and accuracy by automated systems. Automated teller machines have reduced the need for bank visits to obtain cash and carry out transactions. In general, automation has been responsible for the shift in the world economy from industrial jobs to service jobs in the 20th and 21st centuries.[1] The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when General Motors established the automation department. At that time automation technologies were electrical, mechanical, hydraulic and pneumatic. Between 1957 and 1964 factory output nearly doubled while the number of blue collar workers started to decline.[2] Advantages and disadvantages * Install automation where a high degree of accuracy is required. * Replacing human operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous work.[3] * Replacing humans in tasks done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc.) * Performing tasks that are beyond human capabilities of size, weight, speed, endurance, etc. * Economy improvement: Automation may improve in economy of enterprises, society or most of humanity. For example, when an enterprise invests in automation, technology recovers its investment; or when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in the 20th Century. * Reduces operation time and work handling time significantly. * Frees up workers to take on other roles. * Provides higher level jobs in the development, deployment, maintenance and running of the automated processes. The main disadvantages of automation are: * Security Threats/Vulnerability: An automated system may have a limited level of intelligence, and is therefore more susceptible to committing errors outside of its immediate scope of knowledge (e.g., it is typically unable to apply the rules of simple logic to general propositions). * Unpredictable/excessive development costs: The research and development cost of automating a process may exceed the cost saved by the automation itself. * High initial cost: The automation of a new product or plant typically requires a very large initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation may be spread among many products and over time. In manufacturing, the purpose of automation has shifted to issues broader than productivity, cost, and time. Reliability and precision The old focus on using automation simply to increase productivity and reduce costs was seen to be short-sighted, because it is also necessary to provide a skilled workforce who can make repairs and manage the machinery. Moreover, the initial costs of automation were high and often could not be recovered by the time entirely new manufacturing processes replaced the old. (Japan’s â€Å"robot junkyards† were once world famous in the manufacturing industry.) Automation is now often applied primarily to increase quality in the manufacturing process, where automation can increase quality substantially. For example, internal combustion engine pistons used to be installed manually. This is rapidly being transitioned to automated machine installation, because the error rate for manual installment was around 1-1.5%, but has been reduced to 0.00001% with automation.[citation needed] Lights out manufacturing Main article: Lights out (manufacturing) Lights out manufacturing is when a production system is 100% or near to 100% automated (not hiring any workers). In order to eliminate the need for labor costs all together. Health and environment The costs of automation to the environment are different depending on the technology, product or engine automated. There are automated engines that consume more energy resources from the Earth in comparison with previous engines and those that do the opposite too. Hazardous operations, such as oil refining, the manufacturing of industrial chemicals, and all forms of metal working, were always early contenders for automation. Convertibility and turnaround time Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for flexibility and convertibility in manufacturing processes. Manufacturers are increasingly demanding the ability to easily switch from manufacturing Product A to manufacturing Product B without having to completely rebuild the production lines. Flexibility and distributed processes have led to the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles with Natural Features Navigation. Digital electronics helped too. Former analogue-based instrumentation was replaced by digital equivalents which can be more accurate and flexible, and offer greater scope for more sophisticated configuration, parametrization and operation. This was accompanied by the fieldbus revolution which provided a networked (i.e. a single cable) means of communicating between control systems and field level instrumentation, eliminating hard-wiring. Discrete manufacturing plants adopted these technologies fast. The more conservative process industries with their longer plant life cycles have been slower to adopt and analogue-based measurement and control still dominates. The growing use of Industrial Ethernet on the factory floor is pushing these trends still further, enabling manufacturing plants to be integrated more tightly within the enterprise, via the internet if necessary. Global competition has also increased demand for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. Automation tools Engineers can now have numerical control over automated devices. The result has been a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Computer-aided technologies (or CAx) now serve the basis for mathematical and organizational tools used to create complex systems. Notable examples of CAx include Computer-aided design (CAD software) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM software). The improved design, analysis, and manufacture of products enabled by CAx has been beneficial for industry.[4] Information technology, together with industrial machinery and processes, can assist in the design, implementation, and monitoring of control systems. One example of an industrial control system is a programmable logic controller (PLC). PLCs are specialized hardened computers which are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events.[5] An automated online assistant on a website, with an avatar for enhanced human–computer interaction. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers. Service personnel who monitor and control through HMIs can be called by different names. In industrial process and manufacturing environments, they are called operators or something similar. In boiler houses and central utilities departments they are called stationary engineers.[6] Different types of automation tools exist: * ANN – Artificial neural network * BPM – Bonita Open Solution * DCS – Distributed Control System * HMI – Human Machine Interface * SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition * PLC – Programmable Logic Controller * PAC – Programmable automation controller * Instrumentation * Motion control * Robotics Limitations to automation * Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks. * As a process becomes increasingly automated, there is less and less labor to be saved or quality improvement to be gained. This is an example of both diminishing returns and the logistic function. * Similar to the above, as more and more processes become automated, there are fewer remaining non-automated processes. This is an example of exhaustion of opportunities. Current limitations Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language comprehension, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible. Overcoming these obstacles is a theorized path to post-scarcity economics. Applications Food and drink Automated restaurant The food retail industry has started to apply automation to the ordering process, McDonald’s has introduced touch screen ordering and payment systems in many of its restaurants, reducing the need for as many cashier employees.[7] University of Texas has introduced fully automated cafe retail locations.[8] Some Cafe’s and restaurants have utilized mobile and tablet â€Å"apps† to make the ordering process more efficient by customers ordering and paying on their device.[9][10] Some restaurants have automated food delivery to customers tables using a Conveyor belt system. The use of robots is sometimes employed to replace waiting staff.[11] Stores Many Supermarkets and even smaller stores are rapidly introducing Self checkout systems reducing the need for employing checkout workers. Online shopping could be considered a form of automated retail as the payment and checkout are through an automated Online transaction processing system. Other forms of automation can also be an integral part of online shopping, for example the deployment of automated warehouse robotics such as that applied by Amazon using Kiva Systems. Automated mining Main article: Automated mining involves the removal of human labor from the mining process.[12] The mining industry is currently in the transition towards Automation. Currently it can still require a large amount of human capital, particularly in the third world where labor costs are low so there is less incentive for increasing efficiency through automation. Automated video surveillance The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the research and development of automated visual surveillance and monitoring (VSAM) program, between 1997 and 1999, and airborne video surveillance (AVS) programs, from 1998 to 2002. Currently, there is a major effort underway in the vision community to develop a fully automated tracking surveillance system. Automated video surveillance monitors people and vehicles in real time within a busy environment. Existing automated surveillance systems are based on the environment they are primarily designed to observe, i.e., indoor, outdoor or airborne, the amount of sensors that the automated system can handle and the mobility of sensor, i.e., stationary camera vs. mobile camera. The purpose of a surveillance system is to record properties and trajectories of objects in a given area, generate warnings or notify designated authority in case of occurrence of particular events.[13] Automated highway systems As demands for safety and mobility have grown and technological possibilities have multiplied, interest in automation has grown. Seeking to accelerate the development and introduction of fully automated vehicles and highways, the United States Congress authorized more than $650 million over six years for intelligent transport systems (ITS) and demonstration projects in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). Congress legislated in ISTEA that â€Å"the Secretary of Transportation shall develop an automated highway and vehicle prototype from which future fully automated intelligent vehicle-highway systems can be developed. Such development shall include research in human factors to ensure the success of the man-machine relationship. The goal of this program is to have the first fully automated highway roadway or an automated test track in operation by 1997. This system shall accommodate installation of equipment in new and existing motor vehicles.† [ISTEA 1991, part B, Section 6054(b)]. Full automation commonly defined as requiring no control or very limited control by the driver; such automation would be accomplished through a combination of sensor, computer, and communications systems in vehicles and along the roadway. Fully automated driving would, in theory, allow closer vehicle spacing and higher speeds, which could enhance traffic capacity in places where additional road building is physically impossible, politically unacceptable, or prohibitively expensive. Automated controls also might enhance road safety by reducing the opportunity for driver error, which causes a large share of motor vehicle crashes. Other potential benefits include improved air quality (as a result of more-efficient traffic flows), increased fuel economy, and spin-off technologies generated during research and development related to automated highway systems.[14] Automated waste management Automated waste collection trucks prevent the need for as many workers as well as easing the level of Labor required to provide the service.[15] Automated manufacturing Automated manufacturing refers to the application of automation to produce things in the factory way. Most of the advantages of the automation technology has its influence in the manufacture processes. The main advantages of automated manufacturing are higher consistency and quality, reduced lead times, simplified production, reduced handling, improved work flow, and increased worker morale when a good implementation of the automation is made. Home automation Home automation (also called domotics) designates an emerging practice of increased automation of household appliances and features in residential dwellings, particularly through electronic means that allow for things impracticable, overly expensive or simply not possible in recent past decades. Industrial automation Industrial automation deals with the optimization of energy-efficient drive systems by precise measurement and control technologies. Nowadays energy efficiency in industrial processes are becoming more and more relevant. Semiconductor companies like Infineon Technologies are offering 8-bit micro-controller applications for example found in motor controls, general purpose pumps, fans, and ebikes to reduce energy consumption and thus increase efficiency. One of Infineon`s 8-bit product line found in industrial automation is the XC800 family. Agriculture: Now that we’re moving towards automated orange-sorting [1] and autonomous tractors, the next step in automated agriculture is robotic strawberry pickers. Agent-assisted Automation refers to automation used by call center agents to handle customer inquiries. There are two basic types: desktop automation and automated voice solutions. Desktop automation refers to software programming that makes it easier for the call center agent to work across multiple desktop tools. The automation would take the information entered into one tool and populate it across the others so it did not have to be entered more than once, for example. Automated voice solutions allow the agents to remain on the line while disclosures and other important information is provided to customers in the form of pre-recorded audio files. Specialized applications of these automated voice solutions enable the agents to process credit cards without ever seeing or hearing the credit card numbers or CVV codes[16] The key benefit of agent-assisted automation is compliance and error-proofing. Agents are sometimes not fully trained or they forget or ignore key steps in the process. The use of automation ensures that what is supposed to happen on the call actually does, every time. Relationship to unemployment Based on a formula by Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at Toulouse 1 University, the demand for unskilled human capital declines at a slower rate than the demand for skilled human capital increases.[17] In the long run and for society as a whole it has led to cheaper products, lower average work hours, and new industries forming (I.e, robotics industries, computer industries, design industries). These new industries provide many high salary skill based jobs to the economy.

A Good Life essay

The Good Life Denise West April 14, 2013 Siena Heights University Gail Ryder Introduction A good life is what everyone desires. But what is actually a good life? Many people have their own interpretation of what a good life is. Society today has a different outlook on what is an acceptable lifestyle. Many people are influenced with the perception of how an individual should live their life. Some often find themselves trying to fulfill their happiness through America’s perception on how they should live. Instead they become disappointed with the disapproval of others and often forget what happiness really means to them.A good life consists of maximizing happiness. Many believe wealth, power, and respect brings happiness. I happen to disagree. I believe wealth and power bring sorrow and problems. The philosopher Socrates did not approve happiness was result of affluence and material consumption. He believed a rich and active mind is happier than a consumer of finer foods and exp ansive clothing (De Botton, 2000). Whether it is positive or negative, as long is the individual accepts and is happy of his or her own life, then they are living a good life.My life revolves around a combination of these six themes: education, work, ethics, relationships, spirituality, and success. In my essay, I will give my expertise of a good life. I will share thoughts of my life and give examples of each theme of why live the way I do. Education I believe education is a lifelong process that consists of both formal and informal experiences that lead to the individual learning something. The setting could be a home, a school, a workplace, a volunteer position, or an internship learning experience.Education is an ongoing mix of experiences; I think an educated person is a one who has made the most of each experience and learned from it. One should possess the general knowledge needed for making informed rational decisions and inferences on familiar and novel situations in person al and intellectual life. An educated person should also master of the general thinking abilities required for making informed intelligent decisions, estimates, assessments, and inferences. Philosopher Montaigne was an educated man with great wisdom. He spent most of his spear time in a circular library reading books (De Botton, 2000).I was raised by a family who is very educated. My mother and father have master degrees. My sister is a graduate student at Kansas State University. My father pushed my sister and I our entire lives of the importance of education. I receive a tremendous amount of support from my parents, family and friends. They continuously motivate me to be successful in completing and continuing my education. My plans for education are to continue to graduate school. Later in life, I am interested in teaching secondary education. I have a lot of inspiration and support from others and I am determined to succeed.I instill the importance of intelligence to my children . I agree with Montaigne’s two categories of knowledge: learning and wisdom. â€Å"In the learning category his placed logic, etymology, grammar, Latin and Greek. And in the wisdom category he places a far broader, more valuable kind of knowledge, everything that could help a person to live well† Montaigne’s intentions were to assist people† live happily and morally â€Å"(De Botton, p 153, 2000). These are two categories that keep me hungry for more. I often find myself harder on my son, because the graduation rate has dropped tremendously and it continues to decline.Depending on what aspiration a person has, having an education qualifies for great employment. Work The will power, motivation, and education are a good start in performing the ideal job in the workplace. The ambition and excitement of commuting to work daily is great feeling. A good work environment improves satisfaction and productivity. When a person is unhappy in the workplace, it is a d rag waking up each day to return to that place of business. Philosopher Epicurus believed the tension starts to show at home and we often point the finger at work (De Botton, 2000).It is important to be able to balance work and home to manage a positive work environment. Having a stress free job as well having fun and believe in your work is part of the good life. A good working environment is important for employee morale. It builds strong relationships between associates and among the biggest motivating factors in the workplace. I enjoy the work I do on a daily basis. It is a challenging job that requires an outgoing personality, sales drive, and patience. The down fall of my workplace is the associates and environment. We lack communication and the ability to coach each other to improve the workplace.The location in an urban area limits the opportunity of sales growth, variety customer base, as well as deepening relationships. At times, I felt the same pain as Epicurus. We both s tarted to wonder if were on the correct career path. One thing I lack in the workplace is empathy. I meet a lot of people each day. Many customers have personal problems they choose to share with me. Many times I can’t relate, because I have not experienced it. I represent my employer, and I am branded by them. I have to maintain a certain image and give great impressions. My supervisor has coached me on empathizing with my customers.We role play each week, and he has given me different conversation tools to better assist my customers. I want to give my customers a great experience each time they visit. To minimize tension, and misinterpretation, I will start utilizing 360 coaching. This is a tool recommended by my employer. Associates coach each including management. We give positive feedback to each other on how we could improve. This should help my team with any disagreements one may have with another associate. After opening up with one another and sharing each other diff erences, the company is great place work.Communication is the key to every success. With our recent suggestions and improvement, I believe everything will work out great. Ethics Ethics is a concept of morality principles. It defines the standard behavior which tells us the most common way of society: good, bad, right and wrong. The book Affluenza written by authors Graff, Wann, and Naylor have great information on living a good life daily minimizing consumption. â€Å"Affluenza is a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, deft, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more† (Degraff, Wann, Naylor, p. , 2001). Afflenza respects those perfectly human desires, and seeks to create ways to make comfort, elegance, and enjoyment more genuine and durables than purchasable, perishable commodities (Degraff, Wann, Naylor, 2001). Unfortunately, I struggle with Affuenza. My finance and I live a certain lifestyle. Our lifestyles boil down to become e xpansive. We often find ourselves caught up in what we feel we have to have or need, such as hair, nails, brand name clothing, jewelry, and restaurants. We also have plenty of unnecessary bills only because they are available resources to us.We are not utilizing the product or service for what it is worth. We have more stuff, less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating (Degraff, Wann, Naylor, 2001). As we move forward in our lives, I try to educate my finance of Affluenza and suggested a variety of ways will can save time and money. I plan to start tracking our daily spending habits more closely. If we cut back on luxury habits we could save thousands a year. We are coming to together and taking it one day at time. It is difficult to change some things you are accustomed to.Overcoming this disease is important to us, because we are embarking on a higher level in our relationship. We are currently testing our new ideas to happiness in our lives. Hopefully the results give us some leeway to plan what matters most to us, and how we will cherish our years to come. Relationships One of my biggest challenges of my life is my relationship. There is nothing more important than the quality of my relationship. My relationship influences the major decisions I make and is a large part of my happiness. Relationships can be very stressful at times. They require at lot of listening, effort, and compromising.Both parties have to be willing to sacrifice in order to move forward. A fundamental to a strong relationship is commitment. Commitment to making a relationship strong and healthy is the basis on which it will mature. Relationships take plenty work and effort. Compared to life itself, relationships are aggressive and intense because we are forever changing. A durable relationship need continuous nurturing and that takes commitment from both parties. Our commitment to the relationship is unconditional caring about maintaining and improving our relationship , even during times of anger or disappointment.There may be times when I am not even sure I like him, but I am committed. My strong commitment reminds me of Epicurus views of friendship. At first he thought pleasure brought him happiness. He eventually had a change of heart and found that the loyalty of friendship is what matters most (De Botton, 2000). I will spend the effort to sustain relationship during tough times. The motivation of keeping our family together saved us. We put our differences aside and our children first. Their security is most important. Our determination led us to our engagement. We are set to wed next summer. Spirituality One doesn’t need either the bible to instruct one in prudence; nor the fear of divine retribution to provide the incentive† (De Bottom, 2000). Epicurus shows us how morality can be founded upon prudent self-interest. I was raised a Christian. Philosopher Nietzsche called Christianity â€Å"the religion of comfortableness† (De Bottom, p. 238, 2000). Until my grandmother died in 1993, my family and I attended church regularly. As an adult, continue to believe in the Christian Religion; however I do not practice it. I currently do not the bible for a number of reasons. I do not want to be put in a category as a hypocrite.I am uncomfortable in committing to a religion if I am not ready to live righteously. I don’t want to find myself going back and forth and continuously repenting to the Lord for sins I have committed. The second reason I do not practice Christianity is because I do have a church home. I have not find a church where I felt comfortable worshiping. In the past, I found myself visiting a variety of churches and none felt right to me. I started to wonder, I am looking in the right religion? Maybe there’s another religion that makes more sense to me and has a place where I could worship and feel comfortable.The significance of any religion lies simply in the answer to the ques tion: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me? â€Å"It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without a religion than without a hear â€Å"(Leo Tolstoy, 1879). As I read this statement from Tolstoy Confession, I thought about my current situation.Tolstoy was a philosopher who came to believe that he had â€Å"accomplished nothing and his life was meaningless† (Patterson, p. 5, 1983). The third reason I do not practice Christianity is because my finance study’s another religion. I have taken in to consideration to research his religion and to a common ground and decide which religion is best for me. Either way, we both have to agree on the same religion. It is important we raise our children with the same values to l ive a good and happy life. Success The meaning of Success comes in many forms, and a variety of meanings.It defines what you are searching for in life. It is within the perception of the individual. A large portion of one’s life is spent working to become successful. People are told during the upbringing to work hard so they earn make lots of money. People have a variety of interpretations of what success means to them. Socrates says, â€Å"One who understands the limits of the good life knows that what eliminates the pains brought on by need and what makes the whole of life perfect is easily obtained, so that there is no need for enterprises that entail the struggle for success† (De Botton, 2000).Success is often measured by social status and wealth. I determined success by the amount of happiness one feels. I live my life by planning. This is task that I put in place to organization my life. Time management is important to me. I currently have a blue print for my lif e. It is sectioned in four categories which are three weeks, three months, one year, and three years. This is a tool used to set goals and manage my life. Each year I review my blue print to ensure each goal is accomplished. My goals are similar to the six themes I have discussed.I consider myself to be a successful person. I have managed to complete every major task I have set forth. I have an outstanding family with two beautiful children. I am scheduled to graduate in December 2010, and I have an awesome job. I am in process of simplifying consumption, and we are working toward spirituality. These are important goals that I and my family discuss on a regular basis. I continue to stay open for suggestions and constructive criticism. I am willing to explore whatever is necessary to work toward a wonderful and happy life. This year is a successful year.Conclusion We think happiness is good, therefore we seek it. The search for happiness can be endless if you do not know what you are searching for. Individuals find themselves never accomplishing their goals. We can choose to enjoy the adventure and explore as much as possible. Try to make a conscious resolution to be content. By having a peace of mind and satisfaction means you are happy with what you have and what you are. I received my results of a good life with a history of effectiveness and success. I have a general sense of what I feel are the best ways to get things done.I set of process and principles that has worked well for me over many years. I am a detailed person who manages time, plans for the future, and a fan of great strategy. I choose to ignore the setbacks and I look at the big picture in order to guide myself and my organization to maximum results. A good life is a combination of many things. Everyone has their own interpretation of what a good life is. It starts with self development within individual. Many philosophers such as Epicurus and Socrates believe pleasure brings forth happiness ( De Botton, 2000). I happen to agree.Nothing matter to me more than my happiness. It is up to the individual to decide what pleasures them most. My life has had its many shares of a rollercoaster. I have made and learned from my mistakes. There is not anything that I regret nor wished didn’t happen during the years of my life. Without my mistakes, I would not have the opportunity to learn and grow. As a whole, I cherish my life I believe it is great. I am thankful for awaking each morning and for blessing me each day I have no reason to complain. I have experienced more than I ever dreamed of.Most importantly, I am blessed in being a mother. My family is extremely important to me. They complete each and every accomplishment. In combination of each principle, task, and theme they all relate and evolve around one specific goal which is my family. What a great life! References De Botton, A. (2000). The Consolations of Philosophy. New York: Pantheon Books. Graaf, J. , Naylor, T. , & Wann, D. (2001). Affluenza. San Francisco: Brerrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Tolstoy, L. (1993). Confession. Translated by David Patterson. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

American Literature Essay

?American literature is any written work of art that is created in the United States. American literature is like all literature, it has literary experiences and contextual history of America. It depicts how America has changed is still changing today. American literature has changed over time just like most canons of literary works. The uniqueness of American literature is that America from its beginning had a special philosophy of life and freedom. The special philosophy of life and freedom that made American literature so unique was reflected in its writings. Americans believed and had faith that God was and is the given of all our rights and freedom. We as Americans had faith in ourselves that we could succeed in anything that we try doing. The literature that we Americans wrote made life worth living because it was displayed for the world to read and understand that life was what we made it. Also by Americans having the ability to spring back from diversity made life worth living and George Washington was a perfect example of this. Literary canon is basically a suggested list of readings that belongs to a country or a certain period in time. Literary canon contains literary works that is mainly by authors who are accepted as an authority in their field and their writings constituting a serious body of literature in any given language. The works that are collected that is included in a literary canon is approved largely by cultural and academic institutions and is observed as literature of that language. Literary work’s popularity is not based only on the quality, but on the relevance of what matters to the context historically, socially, and artistically. Literary canon relate very well to what is going on in society because of what is most important at that time work is being written. The context of the society, whether it is historical, social, or artistic, that is basically the topic. Ethnic writers express the special challenges of realism, naturalism, and regionalism within the American literary experiences. Realism labels a movement in English, European, and American literature that gathered force from the 1930s to the end of the century. Realism attempted to record life as it was lived rather than life as it ought to be lived or had been lived in times past. William Dean Howells stated that realism â€Å"is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material. † Present-day literary theorists are probably more aware of what may be called â€Å"the crisis of representation†-the difference between representation and the thing represented-than were these realists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Naturalism is understood by some as an extension or intensification of realism. It introduces characters from the fringes and depths of society whose fates are determined by degenerate heredity, a sordid environment, and/or a good deal of bad luck. Regionalism writing, another expression of the realist impulse, resulted from the desire both to preserve a record of distinctive ways of life before industrialization dispersed or homogenized them and to come to terms with the harsh realities that seemed to be replacing these early and allegedly happier times. By the end of the twentieth century, every region of the country had a â€Å"local colorist† to immortalize its natural, social, and linguistic features. Ethnic writers define literature as literature that is written by people of a different culture, language, religion, or race. It differs from the canon of traditional American literature because literary canon is a list of work from American instead of from a different race or religion. The historical, socio-political, and cultural topics that might be covered by ethnic writers would be slavery and how the slaves were treated during that time. Slavery is a topic that can be covered under all three. Government issues are a topic that could be covered under socio-political. The debate against government issues such as health care and taxes could be something that ethnic writers could write about. It does not differ from the canon of traditional American literature because the writings have to be by authors who are accepted as an authority in their field and their writings of literature in any given language.

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A METHOD FOR REFLEXIVE RESEARCH Essay

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A METHOD FOR REFLEXIVE RESEARCH - Essay Example lentlessly attempted to overcome the divide between academic knowledge (so called cultivated knowledge) and popular knowledge (so called uncultivated knowledge). In the poststructuralist paradigm, different streams have emerged such as rhetoric analysis, discursive analysis, ethnomethodology, content analysis and so on in order to comprehend the phenomena under consideration from unconventional planes and levels. Autoethnography too is a poststructuralist approach, which is used mainly for dealing with issues related to self and identity. It is a genre in the making in both academic as well as real life practices. Autoethnography is at present an established approach in a number social science fields such as anthropology, sociology and cultural studies (Anderson, 2006; Etherington, 2004; Roth, 2005). In essence, narrative analysis is what constitutes autoethnography as an independent social science approach. Moreover, autoethnography is broadly multidisciplinary as it synthesises many theoretical tolls from a number of paradigms. According to autoethnographic approach, one could cultivate knowledge or open up a new level of discourse or inve nt a new plane of theoretical activity through the medium of a personalised style of writing. Here, the personalised style of writing would essentially be linked to or based on established scientific theory. Being part of the postmodern tradition of knowledge-making, autoethnography rejects the prevalent scienticism in almost all the branches of human knowledge (Wall, 2006). On the other hand, theorists of various hues still see autoethnography as deprived of scientific rigour, methodological validity and epistemological legitimacy. Countering this, the proponents of autoethnography assert that critical practices which are established in social science for validating knowledge could also be replicated to autoethnography in order to check its legitimacy and accuracy. In reality, the difference of opinion on the matter of

Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 1

Human Resource Management - Essay Example This essay discusses that the development of effective HR policies has been a critical issue for organizations in different industries. In fact, a well-planned HR policy can significantly help towards the standardization and the development of organizational performance, either in the short or the long term. However, the value of HR, as an organizational sector, is often underestimated. This problem has been made clear in the case of Home Care Housing. The organization has managed to achieve a rapid growth; however, due to the lack of an integrate HR plan, the firm’s managers have failed to respond to the needs of workers in regard especially to the level of payment and the hours of work. Moreover, the low communication within the organization has set obstacles in the identification of appropriate solutions for improving employee satisfaction and employee performance. Since its establishment, about 12 years ago, Home Care Housing has managed to achieve a significant level of g rowth. The success of the organization is reflected in the radical expansion of its activities; when entering the market, the organization managed just two housing developments. Today, Home Care Housing manages 20 units and employs about 600 people. The development of the organization has been mostly related to its support from volunteers and the community. However, the current status of its HR framework can be characterized as rather disappointing. A series of problems appear daily across the organization, a fact indicating the emergent need for the development of an effective HR plan. ... This fact is reflected in the lack of an integrated HR plan. As a result, the terms and conditions of employment are not consistent. More specifically, the compensation of each employee is not standard. Rather variations can be identified in salaries, both in terms of the amount paid as also of the date of the payment. In most units of the organization significant delays are reported in the payment of salary; only workers in the maintenance sector of the organization are paid on time. Also, the hours of work of employees are not based on certain rules; instead, workers are likely to work from 37 to 42 hours per week. A same problem exists in regard to the number of days available as holidays. The period of holidays for workers in the firm’s units varies from 20 to 27 days, with no clear criteria or rules on which the days granted to each worker for holidays are estimated. A significant problem seems also to exist in regard to the level of rewarding; the problem is clearer in t he case of managers who are fairly rewarded, meaning that there is no balance between the performance of managers and their rewards. The lack of an effective plan for arranging the payment, the holidays and the hours of work of employees has led to severe problems across the organization; the problem seems to be severe especially for the employees working in the firm’s Head Office. These employees face difficulties in covering the expenses of their travel for working; they also face difficulties in responding to the schedule of work which is not standardized. Those employees who have transferred from the organization’s units to its Head Office have reported that the working arrangements in the Head

Political Science - What common features of small states Foreign Essay

Political Science - What common features of small states Foreign Policy distinguish it the most from Great powers Foreign Policy - Essay Example Foreign policy has deeper connotations with stated and un-stated objectives that a country to tries to fulfil through political, economic, military, and diplomatic means. Dean Rusk quoted by Seabury, interprets foreign policy as a â€Å"galaxy of complicated factors.† Hoffman quoted by Seabury too sees the current picture of international relations as â€Å"the crisis of complexity†. He feels that in the past century the sheer dimension of international equilibrium has multiplied. States have added significantly to these dimensions with different manifestations of foreign policy under varying set of conditions. Foreign policy is a dependant variable conditioned by internal power configurations of the state (Wagner). As such foreign policies of small Asian, African, and Latin American states have foreign policies have changed with changes in the domestic power structures. Smaller states are more vulnerable to domestic and international changes as they show greater tenden cy to change foreign policy. Scholars have studied the changes in foreign policies of nations and dichotomised the international behaviour of great and small nations. Reiter, for example, infers how a small and a great power learn from their experiences of war to chalk to out their foreign policies. East for example cites Roseau’s observation that the size of a nation plays a great role in creation of its foreign policy. Small states never have permanent and extended interests in international arena as big powers. Other than studying foreign policy on the basis of ‘greatness’ and ‘smallness’ foreign policies have been studied in contrast to authoritarian regimes, traditional or modern societies or in stages of economic development (Pfaltzgraff,1974).

How Decisions in Customer Service will Impact the Level of Sales and Essay

How Decisions in Customer Service will Impact the Level of Sales and the Ultimate Profitability of the Organization - Essay Example A lot of companies have invested significant resources in into developing the quality of customer service in their companies in order to increase customer satisfaction and increase the level of customers who become loyal to the company. Gilbert and Veloutsou (2006) acknowledge that indeed customers are the key to long term business success, profitability and growth. In response to a business environment that is increasingly competitive, a growing number of companies are increasingly using their customer service personnel to build long term relationships with clients, with different organizations adopting IT based strategies in order to better manage their customer relationships. The benefits of a satisfied customer are recognized widely in marketing as well as management literature (Sui-Hua Yu, 2007; Palic, Maricic, & Kovac, 2011). Indeed various research have linked a positive relationship between high quality customer service, o customer loyalty in terms of repeated purchases, cros s buying behavior and reduce price sensitiveness of the consumers (Ibrahim & Najjar, 2008; Oliver, 1997; Bloemer & Odekerken-Schroder, 2002; Yu, Shean-Yuh, & Yu-Yi, 2011). ... Problem Statement Most organizations have to deal with the issues of high quality customer service and the impact that such services have on corporate profitability in their course of business. This research considers the relation between these two specifically analyzing the impact that customer service decisions have on company sales and hence profitability. Company sales and profitability are in this case impacted by high customer loyalty due to their satisfaction with the quality of services that they receive. Over the past two decades there has been an increase in customer focused strategies towards increasing company growth. Notably in the new economics of customer service orientation, customers are the central concern of the management of any of any organization. In this sense, the management focuses on factors that drive profitability within the service paradigm ranging from training and development of customer service, compensation that is linked to performance, investment in customer service management systems, and investment in frontline employees (Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, Jr, & Schlesinger, 2008). There has been a wide array of research that has been carried out on the connection between customer service, customer loyalty and the impact that these have on profitability within an organization. While a lot of study have focused on fast consumer moving goods or the financial products or service (Bloemer & Odekerken-Schroder, 2002; Yu, Shean-Yuh, Yu-Yi, 2011; Sui-Hua Yu, 2007; Palic, Maricic, & Kovac, 2011), none has looked into the mass merchandising sector. This paper focuses on this sector by analyzing consumer shopping behavior and customer service in Beira Mar Mall, which houses a wide array of stores

The bridge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The bridge - Essay Example Millennium Bridge was designed to carry large load and a degree of structure’s movement was expected and taken into account. However, after about 80Â  000 people crossed it on the opening day, some vibration was detected. The bridge began to sway sideways noticeably, and the movement became so strong that people could not walk steady any more; many had to cling to the sides of the bridge to maintain balance. The phenomenon of bridge sideways movement is not unique to the Millennium Bridge only. There were other structures, completely different from the given bridge that, to a various degree, suffered the same effect. However, those cases have not been widely publicized, thus the phenomenon, known as Synchronous Lateral Excitation, was not anticipated and has not been given enough attention by bridge engineers. When people walk they have a natural sway motion. This very motion causes small regular vibrations, which, as the result of chance correlation, generated slight lateral movement of the bridge. When that happened, pedestrians instinctively adjusted and synchronized their motion with bridge’s movement to counteract the effect and to walk more comfortably.

E-books in relation to technology, science, and their impact on Research Paper

E-books in relation to technology, science, and their impact on society. Where will they be in 2060 - Research Paper Example According to a research study by Lyman and Hal in 2002, more than 93 percent of completely new information is being produced in digital format (as cited in Lee, Guttenberg, McCrary, 2002, p.227). In recent times, digital publishing has reached critical mass. Media coverage and future books fair reporting has made the consumer well-aware of eBooks and ereaders. Apple’s iPad cum ereader has changes the way ereaedrs are perceived. Ebooks market is in transition, it is evolving and restructuring itself for better (PwC,n.d.,pp.2-4).While suggesting the future of eBooks in 2060 based on research evidence, the paper briefly studies the EBooks’ impact on our society, technology, and science. 1. EBooks and Technology With the accelerated production of digital content, user interest is increasing in devices that are specifically designed to read electronic content (eBooks) such as, e-readers, PPCs, Smartphone, and tablets. From many aspects, eBooks are far more efficient than tra ditional paper books (pbooks), such as: storage, transfer, accessibility, and delivery. Due to compressing ability, storage devices for eBooks are much smaller in size as compared to pbooks. Unlike pbooks, eBooks allow readers to introduce multimedia and hypertext links into books. For instance, eBooks facilitates the readers experience by video clips, audio or sound narrations. Reader can easily jump to a location on Web through a simple click (Lee, Guttenberg, McCrary, 2002, p.227). With the arrival of Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iPad, e-reader technology has taken off. EBook readers are increasingly becoming part of our everyday life, readers are going to experience much more of e-readers and their competitors, such as, tablet computers in future libraries(Rotman Epps & McQuivey as cited in Aaltonen, Mannonen, Nieminen, & Nieminen,2011,p.16). 2. E-books and Society Accessibility is another major feature that can easily overcome pbooks in future. Online libraries provide valu able information in their public domains eBooks, for instance, netLibrary, Internet Public Library, and Project Gutenberg. EBooks provide people with a chance to access wealth of information just by having an internet connection. Despite all the convenience, eBooks may not completely take over pbooks. However, there is considerable number of predictions for the success of eBooks. Considering the limitation of eBooks, such as, slow acceptance of the innovation, user unwillingness to read from screen(Lee, Nicholas, & Victor, 2002, p.228) lacking display quality, cost, durability, and ease(Sottong as cited in Lee, Â  Guttenberg, McCrary, 2002, p.228) it can be inferred that eBooks are going to co-exist with pbooks in recent future. EBooks have great potential for providing enhanced learning opportunities for better engagement and control over content and activities. Quick access and portability is the feature that facilitate remote learning and save travel time and energy (Hernon et a l., as cited in Lam, Lam,& McNaught,2010,p.8).EBooks have potential to enhance the learning experience by improved relationship between student and educator while dealing with learning materials(Shiratuddin, Landoni, Gibb,& Hassan,2003).According to Robert, Slattery and Kardos, text-to-speech or Braille output programs are likely to increase information

SHORT PRIMARY SOURCE ESSAY Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

SHORT PRIMARY SOURCE ESSAY - Assignment Example Despite being a leader in the military, artistic works portray him appreciating himself for the glory he gives to France (Dwyer, 2004). In addition, Napoleon’s passion for his work and country comes out in the letters and utterances he makes to his brothers and soldiers. Napoleon has affection towards his friends and family. Despite the distances between them, he keeps writing to his elder brother Joseph. On June 29th 1795, he writes to his elder brother concerning his travel to a far place. Napoleon wishes to have the memory of his brother whom he refers to as a dear friend, thus he requests for his portrait. Though they are of age and free to achieve different goals in life, Napoleon does not wish that his brother depart. This makes him sad as he fears that it would be long before he sees his brother. Almost a month letter; Napoleon writes to Joseph again, informing him about a job he receives as a general of the army in the west. However, he is unhappy because Joseph is prudent and laconic. Though he is free to make his decisions, Napoleon shows interest in having his brother give him direction concerning the job offer (Headley, 1858). Napoleon seeks to expand France after losing a battle for America. He thus sells Louisiana to the American government and moves to conquer more land in Europe. Napoleon’s determination to make France the world’s most powerful nation is clear, as he shows no fear of the third coalition. This coalition comprised of Britain, Russia, Austria and Sweden whom he defeats with help from Rhine, Italy and Holland. Napoleon expresses his happiness for his soldiers; he congratulates them for winning the battle against Austria and again doing the same to Britain. He is proud of his country and wishes to forge good relations between France and other countries. Thus, he says that France will be proud to have her partners help fight war another time (The French Revolution and Napoleon,

Hacking is Stealing Essay Example for Free

Hacking is Stealing Essay Hacking started in the ‘70s when a group of friends decided to tap into phone lines and make calls for free. Those people were called Phone Phreaks, a group of young men who twisted technology and used their technological know-how to create simpler solutions to complicated problems. What started as an intrinsically good past time slowly became a form of pranksterism. The Phone Phreaks soon held phone conferences from everywhere in the world. However, Telephone companies were less than delighted, and phone tapping became a crime. As more and more Phone Phreaks got persecuted for these crimes, the movement stopped, and the Phone Phreaks were almost of the extrinct race. However, the sensibilities of trying to one-up learned engineers and big corporations did not die down. A couple years passed and the same Phone Phreaks discovered a new form of technology to â€Å"play† with: the computer. And the exact same people who started and led Phone Phreak conferences were the people who started hacking computers, a new revolutionary product that everyone wanted to have. Back then, computers really did not have any practical purpose at home, but for a hacker, the simple joy of watching the screen light up, and looking at moving blobs of colors were enough. However, with the advent of the internet, everything changed. When the internet was first used, all the information was open for everyone to use and manipulate. However, with the internet slowly becoming a place of business and transactions, where a lot of personal and, supposedly, confidential information about people and companies are stored, hackers posed as a huge threat What started as a hobby of manipulating electronics to prank people and find easier solutions for common problems turned into something more serious. While Phone Phreaking in the 70s was encouraged as somewhat of an exercise of the mind, computer hacking was a far different story. Computer hackers did not stop at pranking people; they started to use information they gained from hacking government and corporate computers. Hacking became a crime. According to PCWorld. About. com, some people even rigged phone systems to win two Porsches and other prizes at a radio contest. This poses an ethical problem that has always been a problem in society since the beginning of time: stealing. No matter what mode they use, may it be as blatant as rigging telephone lines to win prizes, or as furtive as stealing an identity to escape prosecution by the law, it is still all considered stealing. Taking someone else’s property, and using the results of someone else’s hard work (without permission, and through deceit) to your advantage is very unethical, and is one of the most basic things society teaches us not to do, no matter how hard times may be. Somehow, hackers forget that what they do is stealing, because they are too focused on breaking down systems and trying to outsmart companies and electronics. Hackers are intelligent people, yet instead creating their own products and reap the fruits of their own labor, they do the opposite, and use their skills and abilities to take advantage of other people’s weaknesses.

Imperialism in the late 19th century Essay Example for Free

Imperialism in the late 19th century Essay In the late 19th century Americans fully embraced the concept of American exceptionalism, believing the â€Å"United States had a destiny unique among nations to foster democracy and civilization.† With this ideology, Social Darwinism, Anglo-Saxon, naval expansion, and the need for market promoted the rise to imperialism in the United States. When the Americans moved west and defeated the Native Americans they felt matchless because of all the technological and social developments they had over the Native Americans. Americans were able to trade and exchange guns, agriculture, and animals with Europe and Asia. The Americans thought God was making room for them but Social Darwinism is what vindicated the Whites ruling over weaker races. The wealthy used a scientific theory as a comparison to validate their greedy behavior and avoid paying taxes. There were 14 hour days for employees, no annuities, healthcare, or education. They believed the poor should work their way out of poverty. Darwinists assumed some races were inherently determined and that nature should be allowed to eliminate the unfortunate. Their way of thinking is what initiated the Holocaust. They believed that the assassinations of the Jews in World War ll meant they were cleaning out mediocre heredities. Darwinism, not to be addressed so much to Charles Darwin, but Herbert Spencer, came up with the expression â€Å"survival of the fittest.† Darwinism was a feuded rivalry between social groups creating a dog-eat-dog world. The Anglo-Saxon race felt different and that they were the superior and higher ones that were pre destined to rule the world. Josiah Strong, a Congregationalist minister, believed â€Å"The Essence of Christianity is Love.† In order to even consider yourself an Anglo-Saxon, you had to love civil liberty. You had to be a strong spiritual Christian and have a brain for colonizing. You also had to possess a great liveliness toward your own kind. Strong insisted that the Anglo-Saxons spread Christianity and share their material godsends throughout the world. The group was predestined by God. Strong believed that in order to spread out, there needed to be form of connection between the United States and the Philippines. The United States would bring the gospel of Jesus to the unfortunate races. To gain supremacy in the Pacific, they needed to build a  canal across Central America. The Anglo-Saxons needed to obtain power over the Pacific to complete the works of God and the United States needed the islands because Russia’s effect on Korea was growing rapidly. In 1901, expansion became a certainty. Mahan believed the United States economy would be incapable of receiving the vast amounts of industrial and commercial goods being manufactured locally. He then guaranteed the United States an assured access to international markets. Securing access would cause for a stronger navy, a navy that could carry out American commodities across the great highway and high seas. They needed a battleship navy to extinguish opposing navies and a system of naval bases proficient enough to provide fuel and supplies for the expanded navy. Mahan suggested the idea that the countries with the largest navy would attain the world. He was very adamant about the importance of the navy and trying to overcome the world. This was believed to be even truer once Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines were acquired. William Seward then strived to endorse an agreement with the Colombian Government to allow the United States to build a waterway through the Panama territory. After the Spanish-American War, the United States attained power over territories that could function as coaling stations and naval bases. The foreign market for American redundant products caused economic expansion to those nations. America was manufacturing way more than they could use. The markets of oil, steel, and agriculture were in major favor of the American expansion. Most demands for expansion were met by large commercial farmers. Vast amounts of raw materials were needed to properly preserve a strong industrial economy. Machinery became a large industry and all kinds of machines were established. Businesses were able to maneuver over wide areas creating chain stores everywhere. The invention of the steamship cut the travel time for shipping goods. The faster shipments arrived, the faster they could take advantage of supplies and sell manufactured goods. Oil was discovered in western Pennsylvania and used as lubricants and kerosene for lamps. Steel mills flourished in places where coal and iron elements could be brought together to produce steel. The American labor movement began to create unions. The unions began negotiating with possessors for higher earnings and  better working environments. The wi de-ranging knowledge of industrial development and scientific development helped enable perception for the creation of new businesses and technologies. Advanced technology strengthened the power and control of industrialized countries. The convenience of prosperity, progression by the unrestricted market of controllable canals, and coastal waterways, the large quantity of natural resources aided cheap withdrawal of goods. This strengthened the power and influence of industrial countries and allowed them higher advantage in war and economic growth. Contribution in the war overwhelmingly reformed the economy, governments, and society of the nation. This created a lucrative report creating work places for large immigrations. The United States had taken its place as the leading world supremacy. Works Cited Henretta, A. James, https://spider.georgetown.college.edu/htalent/border/bs1/berge.htm

Event Driven Programming

Event Driven Programming P1 Describe the key features of event driven programming Event handlers The GUI is formed of a great deal of built in things such as text boxes, tool icons menus etc. When the user clicks on a mouse or presses a key on the keyboard they trigger these GUI features. This sort of interaction is called events. Windows operating systems provide the event driven program with these event triggers. The code is written so that it reacts to every event that arise through user interaction. Events are the activities which are carried out by the user when the program is being used. When the user clicks on any object then the Click event is executed. If the user repositions the mouse then the mouse move event occurs. By the similar method a program can produce Key down event, Key up event, mouse double click event. The event is perceived by a form or control. Code is initiated by a program in reaction to an event. All forms and controls in VB have a set of events already in place. If one of these events takes place, VB brings up the code in the related event process. Despite the fact that predefined collection of events are detected without human intervention by objects in VBA, it still up to the programmer to decide if and how they react to a specific event. Event procedures are written for events in order to make a control respond to an event. Different objects can trigger different event processes when an event happens, although a lot of objects recognise the same event. For instance,if a user clicks a userform, the Userform_Click event process takes place; if a user clicks a command button named CommandButton1, the CommandButton1_Click event procedure is triggered. Usually there are two different types of events. There are the events which are triggered by user interaction (clicking on a mouse, pressing a key on the keyboard) and there are System initiated events which are events produced to respond to a user action (scrolling text, highlight a button). Both of these events have to be dealt with in a UI. It is also possible that a user event triggers a system initiated event. What happens in a classic event driven application is the user opens the program and triggers an event by clicking on a button or pressing a key on the keyboard or the code in the program can trigger an event for example loading a form from the Load event procedure. The event is received by the program. If there is an event procedure in place for that particular event then the task is performed. The program then waits for another event to happen.   An event handler deals with these events. All events are parts of data from the main configuration usually the GUI toolkit. Event handlers are very important elements of event driven programming. The events are generated by the structure found on understanding lower-level interactions, which could be lower-level events themselves. For instance, by moving the mouse the program takes this to be a menu selection and timers running out. The events primarily are initiated from actions on the operating system level, for example, interrupts produced by hardware devices, software interrupt instructions, or state changes in polling. In these circumstances interrupt handlers and signal handlers relate to event handlers. An event loop is where the program takes delivery of an event, deals with the event and then waits for another event and then executes a trigger function to deal with it. Trigger functions are written to correspond to the necessary actions. The algorithm which has been prog rammed has to make sure that triggers which have been made available are performed as soon as they are required which as a result presents a software concept that imitates an interrupt driven structure. The event loop normally doesnt stop until the user closes the program. When it receives the event it initiates the suitable event handler. This will ultimately be built-in to your application as a window. You can insert controls to this which might include a text box, check box command buttons etc Every event is examined by a dispatcher so that it can decide what sort of event it is, and the event is then sent by the dispatcher to the associated handler so that the particular event can be processed. The dispatcher has to deal with a flow of input events. Once an event is transmitted it has to be looped back so that it can deal with the next event, this is done via the event loop. Several programs particularly those which control hardware could be endless and consequently would have to designate a special event to end the event stream (an end of file marker or pressing the escape key). For this to happen there has to be a quit facility in the dispatcher logic, so that an event looped can be stopped when the special event is found. In some circumstances, the dispatcher could decide that there is no suitable handler for the event. When this happens, the event could be ignored or an exception could be initiated. Events that dont have handlers would be ignored by A GUI program because GUI programs are only concerned about particular types of events. For example although it might act on a mouse click it may not act on mouse movement. In the majority of other programs if an event is not recognised then it is regarded as an error which causes an exception to be initiated. There is an event queue which is used for storing events when the dispatchers or handlers cant deal with the events as quickly as they come in. The events queue is brought in to the events stream where the stream can be temporarily held. When an event comes in it is put to the back of the queue and the dispatcher deals with the events at the front of the queue as quick as possible. Most GUI programs have an event queue. It might take longer to process larger events like mouse clicks, so at the same time this event is being dealt with other events such as mouse movement might build up in the queue however as soon as the dispatcher is ready it can quickly get rid of the meaningless mouse movement events so that the event queue is cleared out quickly. P2 What is most noticeable in event driven programming is the flexibility that it provides, and the way in which it makes an effort to be as modeless as much as it can.. Graphical user interface applications are usually programmed in an event driven way. Event Driven Programming is relatively easy to do especially in Visual Basic because they have incorporated some revolutionary tools to help us along. Drag and drop design tools, property sheets, plus click and code aids helps make EDP less of a burden. Because of the flexibility offered with Event driven programming, it is an extremely popular method, especially for creating GUI programs. With Visual Basic EDP is simple because we are given various design tools to work with in order to produce user interface components (windows and dialog boxes) On top of this we are also provided with a complete suite of Windows interface components (including command buttons, text fields, list boxes, pictures, drop-down menus and file system contr ols) which can be created at the touch of a button without the need to write any code.   The forms engine for producing the interface applies technology obtained from Cooper Software.  We can then add functionality to these interface components, which react to events. By programming in EDP we are also able to adapt procedures quickly and respond to faults. Event Driven programs are used in in Automatic Teller Machines (ATM), Point of Sale (POS) systems, certain types of smart cards, Internet kiosks and handheld devices M1 Windows Operating systems are event driven programs in two ways. In one way it is similar to EDP because it uses interrupt handlers which are used as direct event handlers for hardware events, but replaces the job of the dispatcher with CPU hardware. In Windows Operating systems, data and software interrupts are transferred to user processes which usually are written as event handlers themselves, so in short the Operating system perform as dispatchers. Microsoft Windows take action when initiated by messages which are sent to the main application thread. So that the program can receive these messages the program continuously calls the GetMessage function which is found in the event loop. This means that Microsoft Windows is event based. Once a little elective processing has been carried out, the DispatchMessage() is summoned to dispatch the message to the appropriate handler which is called the WindowProc. In Microsoft Windows a message loop is created by user-interactive procedures to react to events, the message is connected to the event and is forced on the OS. The event doesnt just have to be user interaction but can also be things like network traffic, system processing and timer activity. Windows operating systems also have an event queue (or message queue as it is in Windows) which is where the messages are kept. Messages are dispatched to a particular job among a cluster of collaborative jobs. Messages are received by a window handle object via a WinProc, all of which correspond to an independent task in that system. In order for the next message to be dispatched a task has to finish its job as quickly as possible. D1 Event driven Programs are able to set off warnings, based on business policies. With the network and applications repeatedly collecting and sharing observed events, organizations get direct access to â€Å"in-context† data on the root of the problem and the consequences if it was to happen. This facilitates combined decision-making which gives an organisation the power to avoid unfavourable situations and, finally, to enhance competiveness in numerous aspects. For example, if a sensor discovers that part of the equipment in an isolated plant has broke down. This data is linked to a customer contract which has a service-level agreement with it. A warning corresponding to the equipment which has broke down and its effect on the customer contract is dispatched to the appropriate personnel throughout the business —business analysts, plant operations, and production control personnel. At the same time, a meeting can be set up with these people so that they can consider th e effect of the fault, when it will be fixed, and how business procedures should be altered so that they are better prepare if it was to happen again in the future. Events dont just have to be triggered by user interaction but can also be triggered by other applications (application events) or by system events such as alarms or warnings. Copied Modern business processes often require the blending of automation into the work environment through the invocation of behind-the-scenes functions and procedures. Behind-the-scenes tasks can include the automatic production of output such as an invoice that prints automatically when an order is processed, a Web site that is automatically updated with current data, or an automatic e-mail with fresh report output when a transaction is completed. A solution often adopted is to write the application in the style of an event driven system. That is, something happening and to which a task should respond, is modelled as an event. The event is put together by a central thread of control, with the event and thread of execution being handed over to the appropriate task. It is now the tasks job to deal with that event and subsequently return the thread of execution back to the executive or dispatcher. In an event driven system, a task, when allowed to run, must return control when it no longer requires it or when it can not precede further. That is, the task cannot perform an operation which would cause execution to block within that task. If the task was half way through an operation and was waiting on more data, it would need to remember where it was and return. When the data it was waiting on arrived it would then continue from where it had previously stopped. The thread of execution must be given back to the dispatcher in order to allow other tasks to run and deal with their own events. The tasks therefore must cooperate with each other to ensure that all are able to get through their respective jobs. At a lower level, an event driven system can also be viewed as being a form of simulation system. In simulation systems, there is a list of jobs to be performed. The central executive or dispatcher retrieves the first job from the list and executes the code associated with the job. The code must eventually return so that succeeding jobs in the list can be executed. If it was not possible to finish an operation, the code for that job would add a new job to the end of the list of jobs such that the operation could be completed at a later time. The main difference with an event driven system is that the central executive or dispatcher must be aware of a number of primary event sources. When the dispatcher goes to retrieve the next job to execute, it must also check the event sources and if an event is waiting, create a job for the delivery of the event to the appropriate task. In a simulation system, when there are no more jobs to execute the program would terminate. For an event driven system, while ever any of the primary event sources are active and tasks are interested in events from those sources, the process will continue to execute. This means that if there were no jobs to execute in the list of jobs, the process would block and wait for an event to arrive. As the process itself is blocked, those events will of necessity be the result of some stimulus from the operating system. For example, a timer or alarm expiring, a signal being directed at the process, or data being ready for the process to read. But first, what are the business opportunities enabled by EDA and where do they exist? Consider the airline industry as a good example. Airline operators monitor weather sources, customer reservations, and air traffic control in real-time to manage their daily flight schedules. Their event-driven systems provide pricing adjustments and re-scheduling based on the real-time, complex analysis of those event streams in order to maximise their profitability and operational efficiency. This is a classic EDA benefit: optimised business operations with real-time information and increased operating margins Almost every company has a daily operational aspect that can benefit from an EDA solution. A poultry processor in the midwestern United States provides an example from the manufacturing sector. This processor utilises distributed cooling equipment throughout its plant to keep the temperature below 50 degrees as per U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations. Equipment malfunctions are very costly to the business all products within the processing area must be scrapped if the temperature rises above 50 degrees. The coolant substance is also a potentially harmful chemical, thus any leaks requires a plant evacuation. For all these reasons, the cooling equipment must be closely monitored and maintained, 247. This monitoring and maintenance is typically done on a regularly scheduled basis around the clock. That requires significant resources however, so the company implemented an EDA solution that included physical sensors to capture equipment diagnostic information across the plant. The diagnostic information is now automatically captured and analysed every few minutes, making it easy to identify pieces that are potential candidates for failure. Not only can they fix the equipment before it breaks, but they have also alleviated the need for round the clock maintenance staff in favour of a more management-by-exception approach. Greater efficiency and lower costs are not the only benefits. Companies are also using EDA solutions to generate a competitive advantage in their industries by providing unique and differentiated real-time services. EDA solutions provide excellent opportunities for companies to become a leader in their industry, through better management of their daily operations and the unique services they can provide to their customers. These solutions take advantage of existing IT investments, creating more value through the analysis and processing of events that already exist within most applications and IT systems. As EDA solutions have evolved into more standards-based and open systems, the speed and cost of implementation have also greatly decreased, making now an attractive time to invest.

Plessy vs. Ferguson Essay -- Racism Racial Segregation Essays History

Plessy vs. Ferguson Plessy v. Ferguson , a very important case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the legality of racial segregation. At the time of the ruling, segregation between blacks and whites already existed in most schools, restaurants, and other public facilities in the American South. In the Plessy decision, the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This amendment provides equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens, regardless of race. The court ruled in Plessy that racial segregation was legal as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were â€Å"equal.† This â€Å"separate but equal† doctrine, as it came to be known, was only partially implemented after the decision. Railroad cars, schools, and other public facilities in the South were made separate, but they were rarely made equal. Immediately after the American Civil War ended in April 1865 the Southern states began to segregate blacks from whites in schools and other public facilities. Reconstruction, a period of rebuilding in the American South that lasted from the end of 1865 to 1877, put a temporary stop to these policies in some places. Blacks had won enough political power in the South during Reconstruction to prevent the passage of legislation designed to deny them access to public facilities. Also, after the Civil War the national government remained committed to upholding at least some degree of racial fairness. However, even during Reconstruction, most Southern schools were segregated and blacks were often forced to use inadequate public facilities. After 1877 whites gained greater political control and eventually total po... ...olored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization dedicated to fighting racial segregation. Most whites in the North ignored the plight of Southern blacks in the wake of Plessy, while most Southern whites used the decision to justify racial discrimination. Nearly 60 years passed before the Supreme Court ruled, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , that the â€Å"separate but equal† doctrine had no place in public education. Two years later, in Gayle v. Browder , the Supreme Court struck down segregation in public transportation—the same kind of segregation upheld in Plessy. By then the South had built a social and legal system deeply rooted in racial segregation. It took numerous lawsuits, much federal legislation, and a concerted effort of civil rights protesters in the 1950s and 1960s to finally dismantle the system of segregation upheld by the Plessy ruling.

Cosbys Ebonics :: essays research papers

Cosby on Ebonics In 1996, the Oakland School District proposed the inclusion of what is known as "Ebonics" into its curriculum. Ebonics, or Black language, has been referred to in various ways over the years: "African American Vernacular English," "Pan-African Communication Behaviors," "African Language Systems," or "West and Niger-Congo African Language Systems." By any name, Ebonics, when studied over the years, has been proven to be a real language with its own phonology, syntax, morphology, sentence patterns, and double interpretations of words. The pattern that Ebonics speakers in the United States speak is highly similar to the patterns seen in both the Caribbean Creole and the West African languages. No one would have thought that comedian Bill Cosby would have an opinion on this subject, but as I read through essay I realized the logic and validity behind his paper. In his essay Bill Cosby states that, "Ebonics be a complex issue," and it is, also he feels that it should not be taught in schools without studying the problems that could grow from teaching "an urbanized version of the English language." Cosby has a PhD in education, which increases his credibility. Cosby, being a black man, should not affect how his essay is read but it may be an issue to some. His use of humor makes the subject easier to comprehend and the entire piece more interesting. There is always a serious way and a lighter way to address any problem that affects many people and Cosby's choice to use humor makes more sense considering who he is in the public eye. Ebonics is a difficult issue to deal with, and Cosby makes a valid point that it should not be taught in school. Cosby's credibility is not weakened because of his PhD in education if nothing else it is heightened. Being that he has this degree, he is more likely to obtain all the facts before forming a strong opinion on the subject. Having to teach Ebonics to anyone and everyone would be a problem and some people may not want to learn a new version of the language that has been taught for how many years. Cosby’s education creates a feel of an educated person making an educated opinion, not just anyone with a personal opinion. A black man has just as much authority to discuss Ebonics as a white or Asian-American person. Just because Cosby is black does not affect the way Ebonics would be encountered in everyday occurrences.

TS Eliot paper -- essays research papers

â€Å"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?† T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile. Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society. Alienation is a common theme that consistently runs throughout TS Eliot’s poetry. Eliot knew how alienation felt first hand through his experience of being born in Missouri and later moving to Boston to go to college. He described himself as feeling like a New Englander in the Southwest, and a South westerner in New England (Bush, TS Eliot’s Life and Career). Knowing this feeling made it easy for him to write many poems concerning this idea such as Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Half-past two, The street lamp said, "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter." So the hand of a child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. (Poetry Archive) This poem doesn’t deal with alienation where a person is all alone and there is absolutely no one around. In fact, there are people present but they ...

Logistic: Inventory and Total Logistics Cost

Supply chain is a network of logistic systems. Logistics concerns one company's system. Supply chain includes different companies. E. G. Dell computer – the logistics is Just their company but the supply chain includes all the part suppliers. Their logistics system is a part of dells supply chain. It includes also the retailers and supplier. Other company's logistics included in Dell's supply chain. Logistics is an early version of the supply chain. Logistics originated in the US military. Flow of cargo (people, weapon in war is logistics. ) Organizing a course/seminar – logistics needed for success.Today all the successful companies find their competitiveness from logistics, not from the product itself. E. G. Walter (retailer, wholesaler, supermarket chain) – their competitive edge comes from logistics. They are not selling anything different from others. They have a superior logistics system. Logistics make them succeed. Dell also, service is good, price attrac tive – success comes from logistics. Another definition people define logistics differently but they mean the same thing. Slide Logistics/Concept 4 Instead of saying process, they say optimization, etc. Process of location.Says movement and storage of resources instead of saying goods/services and information. They call logistic activities economic activities. Transport is one of then, port services, production, storage, distribution, etc. – take place bet. The point of origin and point of destination and consumption. Logistics is about the 5 RSI. What are the 5 RSI? Logistics is about getting right goods at right place at right time in right form at right price. Military is really about this. In commercial entities we emphasize on the price a lot. This is also the definition of logistics.Right goods, right in quality in correct quantity. Different level of logistics. In-bound, out-bound logistics. Logistics of production (table, book, car, etc. ), there are two levels of logistics. Logistics within the production process – in the factory. How do you optimize the production within the factory? We call this operational logistics or workers together. How do you put temporary storage along the assembly line? All this is logistics. E. G. WHIM library – lack of space. How to maximize space? Library space layout. It's about logistics. Different factories have different layouts – this is logistics.We are interested in logistics before the production starts. The cargo coming into the factory and when the production is finished, the cargo moving out to the next step – all towards the final consumption. This is what we call in-bound and out-bound logistics. This is what we are interested in. Maritime transport takes part in inbound and out-bound logistics than for production logistics. We are interested in how to move material to production and from production to consumers. When we try to understand logistics, we look at some lo gistics questions for example a typical question is about where to find the raw material needed.Raw material may be in different places. Some places might have different quality and prices. The difference between that place and the production might be different and therefore remonstration time and cost might be different. Where to find energy supply? Labor supply? Should you move your factory offshore to benefit cheap labor? If you do that be careful that higher prices might have to be paid on other services for example transportation. Where to set up production bases? In shipping, where should the port be located? Where to build warehouse and distribution centre. E. . Toyota car has their distribution centre for the Nordic countries at the port of Mammal. Before that they had centre in all the countries. So many distribution centre, different logistics cost than if there is a concentration of activities. Where to have branch organizations? The answers consider a lot of activities i ncluding transportation. We are in maritime transport so we are affected by the customers decision. Other types of logistics questions for ex. How to transport from A to B and choice of transport mode – air sea, road. Egg. Oslo to Mammal – road, sea. Air, rail.Different modes of transport have different logistics implications. Ex field trips – logistics question, how to transport students – sea (too long), air, road, rail. How to transport container? Hub and spoke – benefit from economies of scale. More cargo handling costs. The best solution must be a logistics solution. Best way to transport cargo from A to B. Flow and storage from point of origin to destination to comply with customers' requirement. Moving from A to B different options – different solution. When should transport start – how long should it take. Route? Storage? How, when needed?Mat of cargo to be transported at one time? Economies of scale? Packing needed? Logistics is everywhere. Farmer from southern Sweden – buy fertilizer in Sweden, buy from Germany (expensive land transport), buy from US where its much cheaper, but he has to pay more transportation cost. Where to find the material? Emphasis is on maritime transport – movement of goods. Shipping co. Transport goods – need info to do so. Port and shipping concerned with flow and storage of goods. October 28, 2008 Session 2 Slide Logistics/Concept 9 There always has to be a logistics concept. And a logistics concept is what?It's about total cost concept. This is the most important concept. It looks easy but total cost concept is not always observed, so people make mistakes as a result. It is a customer service requirement. Logistics concept is also about outsourcing, integration, global about concept, it is also about processes. The processes we call drivers. It drives the logistics process. It can't all be about concept. It has to be something tangible. Logistics is abou t processes. We are doing these everyday, ex. Manufacturing and transportation, distribution, inventory control, procurement.These are all activities, but the difference between these and logistics are that we are doing these in an integrated manner under the concept of logistics. So we have the concept and the drivers. The difference between these activities and logistics, we are doing them under the total cost and the customer service concept, so this is relatively new. Third is IT. We call IT enablers – that enables us to do the processes under the concept of logistics. Sometimes we can't do the processes (drivers) without IT. Ex. Dell computers. They obtained their competitive edge from logistics.Logistics means to get a computer from the production to the customers without any retailers. No middlemen. Order online, design own computer. The aim of logistics is to minimize the total cost. Can only do this with IT tools. So the three components have to come together using t he IT tools. We need to understand the role of IT in the whole process. Ex. Just in Time system. This is Inventory control under the concept of egoistic using information technology. The 3 components have to work together. How do we take all these functions (MFC, transportation, distribution, warehousing, etc. In an integrated manner under the concept of logistics using IT tools. Ex. Individual delivery. Concept is to minimize total cost. Total cost is manufacturing, transport, didst. , etc. How do we minimize that? Use IT. Dell used IT to find out that their total cost will be minimized if they cut out the middle man. IT enables the cutting out of the middle man. Good online service. Shipping line is not making anything – it is a part of transport. Shipping companies as a company have logistics problems also. Shipping has a double role to play.Shipping is a part of the logistics chain of a customer, but at the same time they have their own logistics problem. Shipping's logis tics problems include arranging bunkers, choosing port of call, types of service to provide, empty container management, repositioning of containers, terminal logistics, fleet logistics, agency logistics, but shipping as a service provider is part of the logistics of customers. Ex. KEA – furniture maker – shipping important. Shipping has a double role to play. Ex. Wimp's logistics service. Logistics in third world countries is not good enough. Read World Bank Report.The three components of logistics are important. Dell manages their total cost through logistics, so does Wall-Mart. All the processes have to be IT enabled. Control-implementation-control. HP has a fixed model on the shelf. Dell, make your own – different customer service. One is enabled by IT. Logistics has 3 components – concept, process, IT. Slide logistics/Concept 10 Supply chain – different sources to choose from. Take one then the next step and the next. This is the flow of cargo from origin to destination – the flow of information from user to origin. Information flow and cargo flow go in opposite directions.Ex. Dell – the information goes from the customer to Dell and the cargo from Dell to the customer. How will the producer know what kind of products the consumer will need? The consumer will have to tell. Opposite directions. Dell transport one computer to each customer so the customer pays more for transportation, but other costs like the shops and overhead related costs do not exist. If we compare this cost with the cost is very important. Total cost concept can be better understood by looking at slide Logistics/Concept 1 1 . This is a Total cost in Logistics and Supply Chain System.Marketing and logistics are closely related. This picture is very true. What is marketing? It is about the 4 As – product, price, promotion, place. So in this marketing there is one component about place which is about logistics. In the logistics about the place and the customer service (where the customer wants the cargo to be) and there are other cost elements. Ex. Related to place, transport cost has to be incurred – also warehousing cost, flow and storage. Other costs like inventory costs will be incurred. What is the difference between inventory cost and warehousing cost – inventory cost for keeping goods in stock).Inventory cost is the value of the goods. Books for new WHIM students – cost of book (inventory) plus storage (warehousing). Processing and information cost – each time we order, we have to follow procedure, fill in forms, etc. Processing cost can be high. Egg. When we are transporting our boxes home, have to have bill of lading. This has a cost (processing and information cost). Lot quantity cost – economies of scale. Purchasing/transporting/buying a big amount and will benefit from economies of scale, this is called lot quantities. Put all these 5 elements together and this is total cost.The objective of logistics is not to optimize a cost element, it's not to minimize a cost element, but rather to optimize the total cost and minimize the total cost. Minimize the total cost – this is what logistics is all about. This is easier said than done. KIT, the idea is to reduce the inventory cost to zero if possible. At the same time warehousing cost is being reduced – this is a good system. What other cost will be affected – transport cost. All these cost elements are interrelated and interdependent. So interaction and interdependence are also important.Change of inventory will affect transport cost, lot quantity cost, etc. KIT system for example – daily consumption of rice. Let's say we eat egg of rice each time. Based on KIT, each time we need rice, we should buy only egg. Do we do this? No, then against KIT principle. We buy 200 kilos – 2 cost occur – inventory cost and the money spent on the rice cannot be used (capit al tied up – cash flow problem). If this money was put in the bank it would generate some interest. Where is the rice put? The place occupied by the rice can't be used for something else.In production if you buy too much to get economies of scale from purchasing, we'll incur a high inventory cost. If we are not buying kilos, we buy a quantity in between – say 2 kilo. Optimal total cost. If we buy egg each time inventory cost is zero – have to buy each time we need to cost. That is time and transport cost. Lot quantity cost will change as there is no savings to be got through economies of scale. And each time we buy there are other costs like information and processing (maybe not in the case of rice, but generally). Put all these costs together, and find a good place in between. We do this by Cost Trade-off.Cost Trade Off Slide Ex. Manufacturing activity involves making projectors in Mammal, Sweden and need to supply them to the rest of Europe. No distribution ce ntre, or warehouses, or depots, o because we cover the entire Europe, each time we have an order from someplace in Europe, we pack the projector and send it off. What do we save – inventory, we do not keep inventory. What do we have to spend more – transportation cost will be very expensive. We therefore have to find out if we have a warehouse somewhere in them from Mammal to the customer; we send it from that storage which is closer so we save transportation cost.How many such warehouses we need to cover Europe? It depends on the elements: transport, inventory, lot quantity, warehouse costs. In optimizing all these costs together is a logistics decision. Ex. In the case of the depots, we might have 8, 10, 12 to cover the entire Europe. What cost elements we have in the case of the distribution of projectors in Europe. First the systems cost, the processing and information cost. When there is a centre there needs to be a computer system, a financial system, etc. If the re is no centre, the system cost is very low.The more centre, the higher the system cost and this is a storage cost. If there is only one storage at the headquarters in Mammal, the cost would be relatively low. As the numbers of depots are being increased the storage cost will be very high. Inventory cost – more depots, more stock – higher inventory cost. Trucking cost – tree has trunk and branches. Trunk means main transportation, branches mean local delivery. Transport cargo from production to main distribution centre = trunk transport and then from distribution centre to each individual apartments = local delivery.Trucking cost – the more centre, the more trucking cost. If there are no depots, each time to ship from mammal to each individual location will be very high. The more depots, the less the local delivery cost will be. The total distribution cost is the addition of all cost, this is what we call total logistics cost. When we have the total logi stics cost curve it corresponds to the number 8 meaning there should be eight distribution centre. So this is the solution – 8 centre. As costs change, oil, etc, the optimal numbers of centre will change. Its not static, its dynamic (the Total Didst. Curve).Logistics – one has to plan, implement, control. If the individual costs are changed then total cost will be different – high/low. E. G. If the interest becomes low – inventory cost will be affected as the capital will become cheap. If oil cost increase, interest rate decrease – could end up with more centre which means saving more rainspout cost, esp.. Local delivery cost. Transport cost in total will be less. Inventory cost is dependent on interest rates. May have 9/10 depots. # of depots depend on cost elements. Cost trade off is important. With depots total cost is lower, so this will save cost.Having depot is a cost but the cost is lower than not to have them. E. G. KEA used to rent warehou ses, now they build – benefit of depreciation. Next Slide Logistics cost in the USA Logistics cost include transportation cost, inventory, warehousing, distributing, etc. How much logistics cost people pay as a percentage of a country GAP – 10% in the US. Inventory cost increase faster than the transportation cost bet. 1980 and 2005- why? Better inventory control, interest rate lower so inventory cost lower. Interest was low in the rest of the world until about 2005. Deflation = lower inventory cost.In other countries this percentage is much higher. China – 18% of GAP spent on logistics (used to be 20%). China is more representative of developing countries. So in developing countries logistics systems are not as efficient as those in industrialized countries. 9. 5% is similar in Europe and Japan (COED countries). In developing countries it's much higher. Includes all logistics cost element – transport, inventory, etc. – big room for improvement. Ne xt slide Customer service is another concept. Customer service is the output of logistic based, performance-based, philosophy based.Activity based e. G. After sales service, marketing, public relations. Performance based – what is the standard? Ex. Dell computer is performance based, delivered in 48 hours – performance-based customer service. Can be measured. Ex. , ports – waiting time for ships – rush. Philosophy based on what customers require is the customer service – according to customers taste – before, during, and after transaction. What is transaction? Buy goods, pay. Customer service can take place before this, during, after. Changes in CSS level affect total logistics cost. Next slide CSS High, Low.Cost Low/High – the higher the customer service level, the higher the cost. No ship should wait in port for more than 3 hours. This will cost a lot of money – will have to build more berths. Define customer service level. T ry to minimize total cost based on this pre-condition. Why CSS level increase and inventory level affected. The higher the CSS, the higher the inventory level. Goal: increased SSL, so high inventory level. It's a decision the company makes – customer service level is very important. (Refers to graph on the right) Try to find a way to push the line by introducing a better way of production e. . Using IT, new production method. Reduce cost but still satisfy goal – IT, use better system. Next slide: industry norm, etc. Customer's response to stock out. Is a risk being run of losing the customer? All different ways to define the customer service level. KIT System Developed by Toyota. Called the Kanata system. When a container of parts is chosen to be used from inbound stockinet in-out in-out This is the production. Eng the assembly line how do you get different stages to work together in harmony. The system has two cards. KIT works with 2 cards – the move cards and the production cards. Hen you see the move card, time to move the container or the other card, time to produce. Work centre 1 the card moves along the production line from one work centre to the next. Toyota manage to have minimum inventory along the assembly line. They have one container of part. Cards are turning around and the parts are being moved from one centre to another. For logistics a better understanding of Just in time is very important. 9 Cot 2008 There are two circulations of cards. How do the 2 circulations make the KIT system work? Why does it work? Key elements: to reduce inventory therefore reduces the capital tied up in inventory.Planning, staff commitment including suppliers, suppliers' ability to meet the demand. Some inventory is kept because there is a container. One piece at a time is being used from the container so the rest must be inventory. What is the average inventory? What is the customer requirement? It's the size of the container. The container is fu ll – how big is the container. How is the size of the container defined? The size of the container is planned based on production. Supply 20 units at the beginning and then it's consumed and a new container comes. The container is consumed during a cycle. The cycle is the time needed.The average inventory is a half of the container what ever the amount it contains. Typical KIT, there should be no inventory so why is inventory kept? When we need egg rice why don't we get exactly that? Other costs would increase too much. KIT – to keep as little inventory as possible. The size of the container depends on what? Transportation two don't match then the size of the container needs to be changed. If the transport sakes more time then increase the size of the container and vice versa. Transport time important. Volvo had KIT between Gent and Mammal. How much inventory should be in the Volvo factory in inventory?A lot. Why? Engine parts are made in Sweden to be used in Belgium. This transport takes one week by ship. As it takes one week, there should at least be spare parts for one week. Toyota has KIT. In the city of Toyota in Japan within 30 kilometers of the factory all Toyota parts are made there. This is the perfect KIT system. KIT emphasizes the reliability of the transport system. The two containers must have the same matching size. If parts can't be produced in time, the cart must be moved earlier. At the moment one container is taken to the in stock point, another container load of part should be produced.Suppose the production takes more time than when one cart comes back? Egg. If production takes 20 hours, parts can be made in 10 hrs. The time information is sent – information flow is the key. Plan to know how long production will take. In Japan, transport is guaranteed (Toyota). What is supplier commitment? Shortcomings of the KIT system? Now we assume we only need 20 parts in 10 hours, how about if the demand change and we need 30 parts in 10 hours. If the speed of production is variable the whole system is challenged. If the demand is certain/flexed then it can be planned – production rate and transportation.But what if production rate changes? This is a challenge for some of the production down the line that may need more time and material which might have to come from far. Not easy to adjust production. Shortcomings: Does only one supplier have to be used with KIT? No, Honda uses more than one supplier. In KIT, anything that goes wrong will collapse the entire system. In KIT the entire chain has to be KIT, it can't be at only one stage of the production. If not it forces other suppliers downs the line to keep inventory. KIT of big companies push inventory down the line if the don't plan effectively.Because smaller suppliers want to satisfy big companies, they are forced to keep inventory. KIT has to be along the entire supply chain. KIT may be only at the very large suppliers who push the inventory down the line to smaller suppliers. Toyota case: 1/52 weeks car production stopped because of a fire at one supplier – ripple effect. The decision of Toyota to do nothing was based on the total minimum cost of they did various studies. CCITT Case: The reliability of transportation and the uncertainty factors make logistics system key. The importance of information. Logistics concept drivers enablers, under total cost and customer level.KIT will never work without IT. Everything works together with IT supporting the processes under total cost and customer level. The process, concept or IT cannot work separately. Information is critical for success as well as the reliability of demand. Forecast and planning important to know when demand change. Transportation is also important for this system. If the transport distance is long, the container has to be big. The size of the container is influenced by time (transport). Transport is via sea – only use air in case of emergency. If transport takes a long time or is unreliable then more inventory needs to be kept.Gent is the biggest Volvo manufacturer. Terrines transport the parts from Sweden to Belgium. The shorter the interval of the shipping service, the lower the level of inventory required. This can make the transport expensive. So it's the total cost that is important that will Supply chain 2 definitions (see slide): it's a network, not port to port. In logistics there is no procurement. The 2 key words in logistics are flow and storage. Supply chain includes manufacture. Transformation = manufacturing. 1st law of dynamics – don't create anything, only change the form. Supply chain includes much more than logistics.Logistics narrowly defined. Supply chain is broader. Procurement also concerned with about origin of the goods. Optimization Integration Collaboration Synchronization Optimization – optimize one stage, the entire thing is not optimized so integration has to take place then consol idation then synchronization (concerted manner, happening in the same time). Relationship along supply chain. Start from optimization to synchronization. The idea of supply chain is relatively recent compared to logistics. 1960/ass people start to talk about total cost. E. G. In stage one warehousing and transport are separate functions.Management focus was operations performance. No integration. Logistics integrated both to see how they can be optimized. This is called total cost management. So the focus changed to optimizing total cost and customer service. Customer service put together with cost. Organization design is a centralized function. 80,s integrated logistics function. This moved today to supply chain MGM. Put logistics together to get supply chain. Supply chain broader than logistics. Stage 1 -separately treated, not optimized. Optimization done within the company. Optimize internal functions – transportation and inventory.Intra company and intra functional. This function is a logistics function. The logistics function today is moving still in the company but inter functional. Everything in the company put together – integration. Toyota inter company – higher level of integration. Toyota owns the supplier – easier to do KIT. Companies are integrated supply chain – Inter company and inter functional. Dell and their suppliers are integrated. Also Wall-Mart. The producers don't take orders from Wall-Mart – the ‘cards' in KIT comes from individual supermarkets. Producers can check storage level of Wall-Mart outlets.Everything is totally integrated. No personal intervention to place order etc. The system is integrated – good supply chain – inter company. Next Slide From fragmented logistics to integrated supply chain. In the fist stage do one function at a time – inventory or warehouse or transport. In the later stage, intra functional – the whole function optimized. From fragm ented logistics to integrated SCM. Suppliers, manufacturer, distributor, retailer, customer are all integrated with he other functions in the company and go to the next stage you integrate between the functions in the companies and between the companies.This is interception and will become in the true sense a supply chain. Supply chain broader today than the logistics. SC have to work with other companies. To satisfy your customers require more than one company: need supplier, manufacturer, distributor, and retailer. E. G. Markers – their system integrated with some of their key customers – key client management. Copra's definition of supply chain. Within an organization there is a supply chain. Egg. WHOM, teaching, supply services, library, canteen, etc. Al depots. Work together to satisfy customer. SC decisions – have to have supply chain design and strategy.Strategic level, medium term, short term – operational, daily and based on the company's competi tive strategy. Michael porter: define competitive strategy in terms of product differentiation or cost cutting leadership. How to achieve strategy: SC strategy. Balance bet. Efficiency and responsiveness. How to respond to demand? Efficiency includes cost-effectiveness, I. E. Cheap. Fast response – this is provided at a cost. Efficiency might compromise cost. Decision making is from lower level to higher. Many competitive strategies come from SC strategy. Wall-Mart is from logistics.Dell is from Supply chain Beer game: Once demand is variable SC difficult to maintain. KIT difficult to maintain. Long time to reach an equilibrium. In the end have to keep large inventory. Once demand is unstable KIT is not suitable. SC Design. Planning is important. SC design is about planning. When suppliers design their supply chain maritime and port services is a part of that. So mapping is important. Stockholders point is storage. Horizontal line represents move. When it stops – verti cal lines = storage or waiting. Egg. BBC container tracking. This is SC mapping.Horizontal line is lead-time (time from production centre 1 to production centre 2). Lead time depends on inventory to determine when order is to be placed. SC starts from the fiber and end with the clothes on the shelf. Through this we see pipeline length and volume. E. G, coca cola. Postponement of safety stock What is postponement? H and Ezra – they use postponement principle. Clothes must be in fashion. Don't know faction of 09. Try to postpone as much as possible the manufacturing time. Forecast, ii, postpone. Dell also uses this strategy. Don't develop their machines until last moment.Can use the latest technology and the price gets cheaper. Anticipate time needed and kind of product needed. Decision is postponed to the last moment. Postponement principle can reduce stock. Has bearing on transport too. Better information flow will impact SC. Next slide Sometimes for material flow speed might not be appreciated. Transport is used as storage to adjust transport time to match with performance. Sometimes it's because of the price. E. G. Iron ore in China, there is too much now. Information speed is always good but for material sometimes it needs to be fast and other times not so fast.Compression of lead-time in manufacturing activity. Supply chain map – length (vertical) volume (horizontal) – try to compress it to see possibilities to reduce some of the variable. Ocean transport can't be adjusted as speed can't be reduced. SC design. Lead-time is transport. Port of Amsterdam case study summary Market research – likelihood to attract new carriers / guarantee – balance and supply (elasticity). When port built no congestion in Europe – more port than ships. Impossible to get firm commitment – plenty choices. More supply than demand. Demand price inelastic. Shipping companies never give guarantees.Optimization, integration, collaborati on, synchronization. Have to synchronize. Increase speed of one operations but the speed of other things remained unchanged. No synchronization. If the discharged boxes cannot be moved this is a logistics problem. The concept of logistics: most important – total cost. Port of Amsterdam forgot total cost. Typical failure case that should never have been done. Restricted berths – bigger ships cannot fit in today – size is restrictive. How wide and long should ship be. (Panama Canal has size restriction and is thus a constraint – ships in the Asian Logistic: Inventory and Total Logistics Cost Supply chain is a network of logistic systems. Logistics concerns one company's system. Supply chain includes different companies. E. G. Dell computer – the logistics is Just their company but the supply chain includes all the part suppliers. Their logistics system is a part of dells supply chain. It includes also the retailers and supplier. Other company's logistics included in Dell's supply chain. Logistics is an early version of the supply chain. Logistics originated in the US military. Flow of cargo (people, weapon in war is logistics. ) Organizing a course/seminar – logistics needed for success.Today all the successful companies find their competitiveness from logistics, not from the product itself. E. G. Walter (retailer, wholesaler, supermarket chain) – their competitive edge comes from logistics. They are not selling anything different from others. They have a superior logistics system. Logistics make them succeed. Dell also, service is good, price attrac tive – success comes from logistics. Another definition people define logistics differently but they mean the same thing. Slide Logistics/Concept 4 Instead of saying process, they say optimization, etc. Process of location.Says movement and storage of resources instead of saying goods/services and information. They call logistic activities economic activities. Transport is one of then, port services, production, storage, distribution, etc. – take place bet. The point of origin and point of destination and consumption. Logistics is about the 5 RSI. What are the 5 RSI? Logistics is about getting right goods at right place at right time in right form at right price. Military is really about this. In commercial entities we emphasize on the price a lot. This is also the definition of logistics.Right goods, right in quality in correct quantity. Different level of logistics. In-bound, out-bound logistics. Logistics of production (table, book, car, etc. ), there are two levels of logistics. Logistics within the production process – in the factory. How do you optimize the production within the factory? We call this operational logistics or workers together. How do you put temporary storage along the assembly line? All this is logistics. E. G. WHIM library – lack of space. How to maximize space? Library space layout. It's about logistics. Different factories have different layouts – this is logistics.We are interested in logistics before the production starts. The cargo coming into the factory and when the production is finished, the cargo moving out to the next step – all towards the final consumption. This is what we call in-bound and out-bound logistics. This is what we are interested in. Maritime transport takes part in inbound and out-bound logistics than for production logistics. We are interested in how to move material to production and from production to consumers. When we try to understand logistics, we look at some lo gistics questions for example a typical question is about where to find the raw material needed.Raw material may be in different places. Some places might have different quality and prices. The difference between that place and the production might be different and therefore remonstration time and cost might be different. Where to find energy supply? Labor supply? Should you move your factory offshore to benefit cheap labor? If you do that be careful that higher prices might have to be paid on other services for example transportation. Where to set up production bases? In shipping, where should the port be located? Where to build warehouse and distribution centre. E. . Toyota car has their distribution centre for the Nordic countries at the port of Mammal. Before that they had centre in all the countries. So many distribution centre, different logistics cost than if there is a concentration of activities. Where to have branch organizations? The answers consider a lot of activities i ncluding transportation. We are in maritime transport so we are affected by the customers decision. Other types of logistics questions for ex. How to transport from A to B and choice of transport mode – air sea, road. Egg. Oslo to Mammal – road, sea. Air, rail.Different modes of transport have different logistics implications. Ex field trips – logistics question, how to transport students – sea (too long), air, road, rail. How to transport container? Hub and spoke – benefit from economies of scale. More cargo handling costs. The best solution must be a logistics solution. Best way to transport cargo from A to B. Flow and storage from point of origin to destination to comply with customers' requirement. Moving from A to B different options – different solution. When should transport start – how long should it take. Route? Storage? How, when needed?Mat of cargo to be transported at one time? Economies of scale? Packing needed? Logistics is everywhere. Farmer from southern Sweden – buy fertilizer in Sweden, buy from Germany (expensive land transport), buy from US where its much cheaper, but he has to pay more transportation cost. Where to find the material? Emphasis is on maritime transport – movement of goods. Shipping co. Transport goods – need info to do so. Port and shipping concerned with flow and storage of goods. October 28, 2008 Session 2 Slide Logistics/Concept 9 There always has to be a logistics concept. And a logistics concept is what?It's about total cost concept. This is the most important concept. It looks easy but total cost concept is not always observed, so people make mistakes as a result. It is a customer service requirement. Logistics concept is also about outsourcing, integration, global about concept, it is also about processes. The processes we call drivers. It drives the logistics process. It can't all be about concept. It has to be something tangible. Logistics is abou t processes. We are doing these everyday, ex. Manufacturing and transportation, distribution, inventory control, procurement.These are all activities, but the difference between these and logistics are that we are doing these in an integrated manner under the concept of logistics. So we have the concept and the drivers. The difference between these activities and logistics, we are doing them under the total cost and the customer service concept, so this is relatively new. Third is IT. We call IT enablers – that enables us to do the processes under the concept of logistics. Sometimes we can't do the processes (drivers) without IT. Ex. Dell computers. They obtained their competitive edge from logistics.Logistics means to get a computer from the production to the customers without any retailers. No middlemen. Order online, design own computer. The aim of logistics is to minimize the total cost. Can only do this with IT tools. So the three components have to come together using t he IT tools. We need to understand the role of IT in the whole process. Ex. Just in Time system. This is Inventory control under the concept of egoistic using information technology. The 3 components have to work together. How do we take all these functions (MFC, transportation, distribution, warehousing, etc. In an integrated manner under the concept of logistics using IT tools. Ex. Individual delivery. Concept is to minimize total cost. Total cost is manufacturing, transport, didst. , etc. How do we minimize that? Use IT. Dell used IT to find out that their total cost will be minimized if they cut out the middle man. IT enables the cutting out of the middle man. Good online service. Shipping line is not making anything – it is a part of transport. Shipping companies as a company have logistics problems also. Shipping has a double role to play.Shipping is a part of the logistics chain of a customer, but at the same time they have their own logistics problem. Shipping's logis tics problems include arranging bunkers, choosing port of call, types of service to provide, empty container management, repositioning of containers, terminal logistics, fleet logistics, agency logistics, but shipping as a service provider is part of the logistics of customers. Ex. KEA – furniture maker – shipping important. Shipping has a double role to play. Ex. Wimp's logistics service. Logistics in third world countries is not good enough. Read World Bank Report.The three components of logistics are important. Dell manages their total cost through logistics, so does Wall-Mart. All the processes have to be IT enabled. Control-implementation-control. HP has a fixed model on the shelf. Dell, make your own – different customer service. One is enabled by IT. Logistics has 3 components – concept, process, IT. Slide logistics/Concept 10 Supply chain – different sources to choose from. Take one then the next step and the next. This is the flow of cargo from origin to destination – the flow of information from user to origin. Information flow and cargo flow go in opposite directions.Ex. Dell – the information goes from the customer to Dell and the cargo from Dell to the customer. How will the producer know what kind of products the consumer will need? The consumer will have to tell. Opposite directions. Dell transport one computer to each customer so the customer pays more for transportation, but other costs like the shops and overhead related costs do not exist. If we compare this cost with the cost is very important. Total cost concept can be better understood by looking at slide Logistics/Concept 1 1 . This is a Total cost in Logistics and Supply Chain System.Marketing and logistics are closely related. This picture is very true. What is marketing? It is about the 4 As – product, price, promotion, place. So in this marketing there is one component about place which is about logistics. In the logistics about the place and the customer service (where the customer wants the cargo to be) and there are other cost elements. Ex. Related to place, transport cost has to be incurred – also warehousing cost, flow and storage. Other costs like inventory costs will be incurred. What is the difference between inventory cost and warehousing cost – inventory cost for keeping goods in stock).Inventory cost is the value of the goods. Books for new WHIM students – cost of book (inventory) plus storage (warehousing). Processing and information cost – each time we order, we have to follow procedure, fill in forms, etc. Processing cost can be high. Egg. When we are transporting our boxes home, have to have bill of lading. This has a cost (processing and information cost). Lot quantity cost – economies of scale. Purchasing/transporting/buying a big amount and will benefit from economies of scale, this is called lot quantities. Put all these 5 elements together and this is total cost.The objective of logistics is not to optimize a cost element, it's not to minimize a cost element, but rather to optimize the total cost and minimize the total cost. Minimize the total cost – this is what logistics is all about. This is easier said than done. KIT, the idea is to reduce the inventory cost to zero if possible. At the same time warehousing cost is being reduced – this is a good system. What other cost will be affected – transport cost. All these cost elements are interrelated and interdependent. So interaction and interdependence are also important.Change of inventory will affect transport cost, lot quantity cost, etc. KIT system for example – daily consumption of rice. Let's say we eat egg of rice each time. Based on KIT, each time we need rice, we should buy only egg. Do we do this? No, then against KIT principle. We buy 200 kilos – 2 cost occur – inventory cost and the money spent on the rice cannot be used (capit al tied up – cash flow problem). If this money was put in the bank it would generate some interest. Where is the rice put? The place occupied by the rice can't be used for something else.In production if you buy too much to get economies of scale from purchasing, we'll incur a high inventory cost. If we are not buying kilos, we buy a quantity in between – say 2 kilo. Optimal total cost. If we buy egg each time inventory cost is zero – have to buy each time we need to cost. That is time and transport cost. Lot quantity cost will change as there is no savings to be got through economies of scale. And each time we buy there are other costs like information and processing (maybe not in the case of rice, but generally). Put all these costs together, and find a good place in between. We do this by Cost Trade-off.Cost Trade Off Slide Ex. Manufacturing activity involves making projectors in Mammal, Sweden and need to supply them to the rest of Europe. No distribution ce ntre, or warehouses, or depots, o because we cover the entire Europe, each time we have an order from someplace in Europe, we pack the projector and send it off. What do we save – inventory, we do not keep inventory. What do we have to spend more – transportation cost will be very expensive. We therefore have to find out if we have a warehouse somewhere in them from Mammal to the customer; we send it from that storage which is closer so we save transportation cost.How many such warehouses we need to cover Europe? It depends on the elements: transport, inventory, lot quantity, warehouse costs. In optimizing all these costs together is a logistics decision. Ex. In the case of the depots, we might have 8, 10, 12 to cover the entire Europe. What cost elements we have in the case of the distribution of projectors in Europe. First the systems cost, the processing and information cost. When there is a centre there needs to be a computer system, a financial system, etc. If the re is no centre, the system cost is very low.The more centre, the higher the system cost and this is a storage cost. If there is only one storage at the headquarters in Mammal, the cost would be relatively low. As the numbers of depots are being increased the storage cost will be very high. Inventory cost – more depots, more stock – higher inventory cost. Trucking cost – tree has trunk and branches. Trunk means main transportation, branches mean local delivery. Transport cargo from production to main distribution centre = trunk transport and then from distribution centre to each individual apartments = local delivery.Trucking cost – the more centre, the more trucking cost. If there are no depots, each time to ship from mammal to each individual location will be very high. The more depots, the less the local delivery cost will be. The total distribution cost is the addition of all cost, this is what we call total logistics cost. When we have the total logi stics cost curve it corresponds to the number 8 meaning there should be eight distribution centre. So this is the solution – 8 centre. As costs change, oil, etc, the optimal numbers of centre will change. Its not static, its dynamic (the Total Didst. Curve).Logistics – one has to plan, implement, control. If the individual costs are changed then total cost will be different – high/low. E. G. If the interest becomes low – inventory cost will be affected as the capital will become cheap. If oil cost increase, interest rate decrease – could end up with more centre which means saving more rainspout cost, esp.. Local delivery cost. Transport cost in total will be less. Inventory cost is dependent on interest rates. May have 9/10 depots. # of depots depend on cost elements. Cost trade off is important. With depots total cost is lower, so this will save cost.Having depot is a cost but the cost is lower than not to have them. E. G. KEA used to rent warehou ses, now they build – benefit of depreciation. Next Slide Logistics cost in the USA Logistics cost include transportation cost, inventory, warehousing, distributing, etc. How much logistics cost people pay as a percentage of a country GAP – 10% in the US. Inventory cost increase faster than the transportation cost bet. 1980 and 2005- why? Better inventory control, interest rate lower so inventory cost lower. Interest was low in the rest of the world until about 2005. Deflation = lower inventory cost.In other countries this percentage is much higher. China – 18% of GAP spent on logistics (used to be 20%). China is more representative of developing countries. So in developing countries logistics systems are not as efficient as those in industrialized countries. 9. 5% is similar in Europe and Japan (COED countries). In developing countries it's much higher. Includes all logistics cost element – transport, inventory, etc. – big room for improvement. Ne xt slide Customer service is another concept. Customer service is the output of logistic based, performance-based, philosophy based.Activity based e. G. After sales service, marketing, public relations. Performance based – what is the standard? Ex. Dell computer is performance based, delivered in 48 hours – performance-based customer service. Can be measured. Ex. , ports – waiting time for ships – rush. Philosophy based on what customers require is the customer service – according to customers taste – before, during, and after transaction. What is transaction? Buy goods, pay. Customer service can take place before this, during, after. Changes in CSS level affect total logistics cost. Next slide CSS High, Low.Cost Low/High – the higher the customer service level, the higher the cost. No ship should wait in port for more than 3 hours. This will cost a lot of money – will have to build more berths. Define customer service level. T ry to minimize total cost based on this pre-condition. Why CSS level increase and inventory level affected. The higher the CSS, the higher the inventory level. Goal: increased SSL, so high inventory level. It's a decision the company makes – customer service level is very important. (Refers to graph on the right) Try to find a way to push the line by introducing a better way of production e. . Using IT, new production method. Reduce cost but still satisfy goal – IT, use better system. Next slide: industry norm, etc. Customer's response to stock out. Is a risk being run of losing the customer? All different ways to define the customer service level. KIT System Developed by Toyota. Called the Kanata system. When a container of parts is chosen to be used from inbound stockinet in-out in-out This is the production. Eng the assembly line how do you get different stages to work together in harmony. The system has two cards. KIT works with 2 cards – the move cards and the production cards. Hen you see the move card, time to move the container or the other card, time to produce. Work centre 1 the card moves along the production line from one work centre to the next. Toyota manage to have minimum inventory along the assembly line. They have one container of part. Cards are turning around and the parts are being moved from one centre to another. For logistics a better understanding of Just in time is very important. 9 Cot 2008 There are two circulations of cards. How do the 2 circulations make the KIT system work? Why does it work? Key elements: to reduce inventory therefore reduces the capital tied up in inventory.Planning, staff commitment including suppliers, suppliers' ability to meet the demand. Some inventory is kept because there is a container. One piece at a time is being used from the container so the rest must be inventory. What is the average inventory? What is the customer requirement? It's the size of the container. The container is fu ll – how big is the container. How is the size of the container defined? The size of the container is planned based on production. Supply 20 units at the beginning and then it's consumed and a new container comes. The container is consumed during a cycle. The cycle is the time needed.The average inventory is a half of the container what ever the amount it contains. Typical KIT, there should be no inventory so why is inventory kept? When we need egg rice why don't we get exactly that? Other costs would increase too much. KIT – to keep as little inventory as possible. The size of the container depends on what? Transportation two don't match then the size of the container needs to be changed. If the transport sakes more time then increase the size of the container and vice versa. Transport time important. Volvo had KIT between Gent and Mammal. How much inventory should be in the Volvo factory in inventory?A lot. Why? Engine parts are made in Sweden to be used in Belgium. This transport takes one week by ship. As it takes one week, there should at least be spare parts for one week. Toyota has KIT. In the city of Toyota in Japan within 30 kilometers of the factory all Toyota parts are made there. This is the perfect KIT system. KIT emphasizes the reliability of the transport system. The two containers must have the same matching size. If parts can't be produced in time, the cart must be moved earlier. At the moment one container is taken to the in stock point, another container load of part should be produced.Suppose the production takes more time than when one cart comes back? Egg. If production takes 20 hours, parts can be made in 10 hrs. The time information is sent – information flow is the key. Plan to know how long production will take. In Japan, transport is guaranteed (Toyota). What is supplier commitment? Shortcomings of the KIT system? Now we assume we only need 20 parts in 10 hours, how about if the demand change and we need 30 parts in 10 hours. If the speed of production is variable the whole system is challenged. If the demand is certain/flexed then it can be planned – production rate and transportation.But what if production rate changes? This is a challenge for some of the production down the line that may need more time and material which might have to come from far. Not easy to adjust production. Shortcomings: Does only one supplier have to be used with KIT? No, Honda uses more than one supplier. In KIT, anything that goes wrong will collapse the entire system. In KIT the entire chain has to be KIT, it can't be at only one stage of the production. If not it forces other suppliers downs the line to keep inventory. KIT of big companies push inventory down the line if the don't plan effectively.Because smaller suppliers want to satisfy big companies, they are forced to keep inventory. KIT has to be along the entire supply chain. KIT may be only at the very large suppliers who push the inventory down the line to smaller suppliers. Toyota case: 1/52 weeks car production stopped because of a fire at one supplier – ripple effect. The decision of Toyota to do nothing was based on the total minimum cost of they did various studies. CCITT Case: The reliability of transportation and the uncertainty factors make logistics system key. The importance of information. Logistics concept drivers enablers, under total cost and customer level.KIT will never work without IT. Everything works together with IT supporting the processes under total cost and customer level. The process, concept or IT cannot work separately. Information is critical for success as well as the reliability of demand. Forecast and planning important to know when demand change. Transportation is also important for this system. If the transport distance is long, the container has to be big. The size of the container is influenced by time (transport). Transport is via sea – only use air in case of emergency. If transport takes a long time or is unreliable then more inventory needs to be kept.Gent is the biggest Volvo manufacturer. Terrines transport the parts from Sweden to Belgium. The shorter the interval of the shipping service, the lower the level of inventory required. This can make the transport expensive. So it's the total cost that is important that will Supply chain 2 definitions (see slide): it's a network, not port to port. In logistics there is no procurement. The 2 key words in logistics are flow and storage. Supply chain includes manufacture. Transformation = manufacturing. 1st law of dynamics – don't create anything, only change the form. Supply chain includes much more than logistics.Logistics narrowly defined. Supply chain is broader. Procurement also concerned with about origin of the goods. Optimization Integration Collaboration Synchronization Optimization – optimize one stage, the entire thing is not optimized so integration has to take place then consol idation then synchronization (concerted manner, happening in the same time). Relationship along supply chain. Start from optimization to synchronization. The idea of supply chain is relatively recent compared to logistics. 1960/ass people start to talk about total cost. E. G. In stage one warehousing and transport are separate functions.Management focus was operations performance. No integration. Logistics integrated both to see how they can be optimized. This is called total cost management. So the focus changed to optimizing total cost and customer service. Customer service put together with cost. Organization design is a centralized function. 80,s integrated logistics function. This moved today to supply chain MGM. Put logistics together to get supply chain. Supply chain broader than logistics. Stage 1 -separately treated, not optimized. Optimization done within the company. Optimize internal functions – transportation and inventory.Intra company and intra functional. This function is a logistics function. The logistics function today is moving still in the company but inter functional. Everything in the company put together – integration. Toyota inter company – higher level of integration. Toyota owns the supplier – easier to do KIT. Companies are integrated supply chain – Inter company and inter functional. Dell and their suppliers are integrated. Also Wall-Mart. The producers don't take orders from Wall-Mart – the ‘cards' in KIT comes from individual supermarkets. Producers can check storage level of Wall-Mart outlets.Everything is totally integrated. No personal intervention to place order etc. The system is integrated – good supply chain – inter company. Next Slide From fragmented logistics to integrated supply chain. In the fist stage do one function at a time – inventory or warehouse or transport. In the later stage, intra functional – the whole function optimized. From fragm ented logistics to integrated SCM. Suppliers, manufacturer, distributor, retailer, customer are all integrated with he other functions in the company and go to the next stage you integrate between the functions in the companies and between the companies.This is interception and will become in the true sense a supply chain. Supply chain broader today than the logistics. SC have to work with other companies. To satisfy your customers require more than one company: need supplier, manufacturer, distributor, and retailer. E. G. Markers – their system integrated with some of their key customers – key client management. Copra's definition of supply chain. Within an organization there is a supply chain. Egg. WHOM, teaching, supply services, library, canteen, etc. Al depots. Work together to satisfy customer. SC decisions – have to have supply chain design and strategy.Strategic level, medium term, short term – operational, daily and based on the company's competi tive strategy. Michael porter: define competitive strategy in terms of product differentiation or cost cutting leadership. How to achieve strategy: SC strategy. Balance bet. Efficiency and responsiveness. How to respond to demand? Efficiency includes cost-effectiveness, I. E. Cheap. Fast response – this is provided at a cost. Efficiency might compromise cost. Decision making is from lower level to higher. Many competitive strategies come from SC strategy. Wall-Mart is from logistics.Dell is from Supply chain Beer game: Once demand is variable SC difficult to maintain. KIT difficult to maintain. Long time to reach an equilibrium. In the end have to keep large inventory. Once demand is unstable KIT is not suitable. SC Design. Planning is important. SC design is about planning. When suppliers design their supply chain maritime and port services is a part of that. So mapping is important. Stockholders point is storage. Horizontal line represents move. When it stops – verti cal lines = storage or waiting. Egg. BBC container tracking. This is SC mapping.Horizontal line is lead-time (time from production centre 1 to production centre 2). Lead time depends on inventory to determine when order is to be placed. SC starts from the fiber and end with the clothes on the shelf. Through this we see pipeline length and volume. E. G, coca cola. Postponement of safety stock What is postponement? H and Ezra – they use postponement principle. Clothes must be in fashion. Don't know faction of 09. Try to postpone as much as possible the manufacturing time. Forecast, ii, postpone. Dell also uses this strategy. Don't develop their machines until last moment.Can use the latest technology and the price gets cheaper. Anticipate time needed and kind of product needed. Decision is postponed to the last moment. Postponement principle can reduce stock. Has bearing on transport too. Better information flow will impact SC. Next slide Sometimes for material flow speed might not be appreciated. Transport is used as storage to adjust transport time to match with performance. Sometimes it's because of the price. E. G. Iron ore in China, there is too much now. Information speed is always good but for material sometimes it needs to be fast and other times not so fast.Compression of lead-time in manufacturing activity. Supply chain map – length (vertical) volume (horizontal) – try to compress it to see possibilities to reduce some of the variable. Ocean transport can't be adjusted as speed can't be reduced. SC design. Lead-time is transport. Port of Amsterdam case study summary Market research – likelihood to attract new carriers / guarantee – balance and supply (elasticity). When port built no congestion in Europe – more port than ships. Impossible to get firm commitment – plenty choices. More supply than demand. Demand price inelastic. Shipping companies never give guarantees.Optimization, integration, collaborati on, synchronization. Have to synchronize. Increase speed of one operations but the speed of other things remained unchanged. No synchronization. If the discharged boxes cannot be moved this is a logistics problem. The concept of logistics: most important – total cost. Port of Amsterdam forgot total cost. Typical failure case that should never have been done. Restricted berths – bigger ships cannot fit in today – size is restrictive. How wide and long should ship be. (Panama Canal has size restriction and is thus a constraint – ships in the Asian