Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Transformation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words
Transformation - Essay Example This is the ultimate goal of my program, Teaching Math for a Better America (TMBA).. Math requires mental discipline and order, and teaches us to look beyond the obvious so our minds reach the abstract. Math as a mental exercise helps us understand and appreciate what we cannot see: great ideas such as good and justice, equality and freedom, nothingness and the infinite. Math helps us appreciate music, tempo, and rhythm, aspects of art that reflect order and proportion in life, nature, and the universe. With abstraction and order come the ultimate possibility of grasping the existence of the spiritual and the divine. I want to use math, and teaching math according to the TMBA principles I would develop, as the focal point of a transformational change in my school, in the way we teach and motivate students, and how we look at our work. Math made it easy for the human mind to handle the great calculations that have transformed our knowledge of the universe. It can also be the agent that would help transform America and the world and bring to learning, teaching, and working the spiritual meaning it sorely needs. The graduate course in education has made me realize that, more than ever, teaching is hard work, and not just because of lesson plans, tests, coping with behavioral problems, and the need to counsel students (Glatthorn, 1999). Teaching is hard work because it is the process of forming the human mind and the human spirit. This insight dawned on me as I went through the course on ethics and justice and saw a deeper meaning in what we do. Most teachers do not see beyond the formal side of teaching and education. Many of us seem to have lost the love and appreciation for our calling as teachers that demand from us a life of sacrifice and dedication. Our schools have become knowledge factories that numbly turn out thousands of minds each year with efficiency. But are we effective I doubt it. Our educational system is producing geniuses without hearts, humans without a conscience and a sense of justice and ethics who later on become scientists, politicians, and businessmen, no doubt great men and women all, who enrich our nation's material riches but who in turn take away our humanity and lay the seeds of our civilization's destruction. This has to end, and I hope to contribute my share in this effort. What makes this call for change urgent is the type of students we have: inner city kids, products of broken homes with drug-crazed or single parents that pass on to their offspring the miserable lives they were dealt and against which they never fought back. Sure, there were a few in our community who succeeded out of sheer determination, or luck, but these were more the exception than the rule. I think it is time to turn this around. We have to bring back a sense of the sublime in the lives of our students and our teachers. Our nation was created out of a strong sense of these same values, and if we want to continue being great, we need to regain that sense. Resistance to Change What I am proposing is not merely incremental,
Monday, October 7, 2019
Information Paper on World War I Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words
Information on World War I - Research Paper Example Historians have identified three direct main causes that led to the war. They are the conflict between the Central Powers like Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire and the Allied Powers like France, Russia, Britain, Italy and the United States. Widespread militarism and economic imperialism pushed the ambitious leadership of the countries to the warzone. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the flashpoint that sparked the war. That was on June 28, 1914 when a Bosnian Serb student by name Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed him. Ferdinand was heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. That student wanted Serbia to be independent from the domain of Austria Hungary. The latter demanded that those responsible for the assignation must be punished .Stewart Ross writes ââ¬Å"On 23rd July, 1914 Vienna sent Serbia an ultimatum that, if accepted, would have made Serbia virtually an Austro-Hungarian province. The Serbs had 48 hours to accept itââ¬âor face the consequences.à ¢â¬ (p.7)When Serbia did not comply with the demand and Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. Serbia, as the ally of the Allied Powers, declared war on Austria Hungary. Central Powers intervened on behalf of the later and thus a chain reaction resulted and a full-fledged war was in the offing. Widespread militarism initiated the mind war first. The upper class with the stockpile of weapons and wealth in abundance remained suspect about the power of the other. Desire for maintaining the superior level of military power bothered them much. The Royal Navy of Britain was the envy of Germany and Austria Hungary as it was much superior to theirs. They thought that the ideal strategy to contain the naval might of Britain was to declare war. Economic imperialism empowered by trade with the foreign colonies was the strong point with Great Britain and France. Germany and Austria Hungary had few foreign colonies
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Macro1.2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words
Macro1.2 - Essay Example That is, if it is taking place on the production side or the consumption side. Where there spillover benefits occur as a result of production, there is either overproduction or underproduction. In case of underproduction, there is need to boost production and this can be achieved through provision of subsidies in order to encourage firms to produce more. In case of overproduction, the firmsââ¬â¢ potential is high and resources available for production meet an output that exceeds the actual demand. To correct this, the firms would have to be taxed more in order to make the production process expensive, bringing down the level of produced output in the firms. Access to public television is not prohibited to any individual. All those who consume the benefits that come with the good have not necessarily paid for it. On the same note, if there are costs needed for upgrading or improved the premises form where the television is watched from, not every person will take part in that initiative. In this case, where there are costs or benefits attached to that good, there are consumers who do not take part in any activity that pertains to the provision of that good, whether they enjoy it or not. Government expenditure for goods and services is defined by the level of government spending on public goods and services. The government provides to the society goods and services that cannot be provided through the market mechanism sue to problems of externalities. Goods and services bought by the government for to benefit the society as well as government investments in the various sectors of the economy constitute government expenditure. Government expenditure is financed by taxes, returns on government investments, revenues from state owned enterprises, donations and borrowing from individuals, groups of people, financial institutions, Central Bank and from other countries (Gupta, Mandal & Gupta, 2008). Examples of government
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Financial Institutions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1
Financial Institutions - Essay Example A financial institution has a pool of experts in the fields of investment planning, estate planning, tax planning, and other financial matters at the household level. I do not believe that a busy person who hates numbers and anything about finances will want to have the burden of learning all these. Therefore, a financial institution provides an individual the expertise and perhaps the peace of mind that he will not be burdened with debt once he religiously follows a financial plan. Financial institutions also act as intermediaries for individuals, governments, and businesses, but they treat each customer differently according to the category which one belongs. For individuals, as hinted earlier, they provide financial information where the individual is more likely uninformed. For governments and businesses, they treat them almost the same as institutions but depending on their credit rating. I believe individuals without a finance background have other subjects, interests, or callings. Or perhaps, they are afraid of anything related to money. Nevertheless, financial information is necessary. Therefore, financial institutions bridge that gap of ignorance by providing financial education and information to the public. For the most part, financial institutions deal with businesses as brokers for debts and other sources of money. Of course, this is different for individuals. An ordinary citizen needs financial information in order to live below his means. Businesses need capital and financial information necessary for huge investments.
Friday, October 4, 2019
Impact of Technology on Consciousness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words
Impact of Technology on Consciousness - Essay Example The cognitive theory, therefore, defines brain and the mind as two independent entities that work in tandem to produce actions and reactions of man, to an event. The need to know the working of mind becomes all the more important because of the fact that all our intentional and non intentional decisions and emotive expressions have a definite voluntary and involuntary actions associated with them. Hence our state of mental causation results in some form of physical actions. In other words, our beliefs and desires are linked with some definite actions that are designed to rearrange the physical aspects of our surrounding through the movements of our body parts which is caused by the directives of the mind. Hence, the concept of mental causation becomes relevant because of the sheer physicalitism of the world, surrounding us. ââ¬Å"Physicalists, according to Jones, means people who believe that ââ¬Å"this world of ours is only physicalâ⬠(Jones, 2006). Since technology has become embedded into our system of ââ¬Ëphysicalityââ¬â¢, the impact of technology on our consciousness can be explained through the impact of communication, inf ormation or other technology on our consciousness. Descartes treated body and mind of a man separately. He believed that body is inanimate object that acts only at the behest of the mind. It is also known as Cartesian dualism. He says that one cannot find out the nature of physical things without the participation of ââ¬Ëintelligenceââ¬â¢ which instead of ââ¬Ëseeingââ¬â¢ judges them do be so. The mind therefore understands and recognizes other objects like technology because of its inherent ability to represent complex structures rather than relying on sensation and imagination (Descartes, 1901). The theory of dualism, though controversial at that time, was much appreciated and even corroborated by the later philosophers. Kim, through his theory of causal closure and overdetermination, has tried to correlate mind and body. The
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Employer â⬠Employee Relationship Essay Example for Free
Employer ââ¬â Employee Relationship Essay Little Lamb Company needs an additional programmer for a special project. The company enters into a contract with Mary to complete this project. Just as the project is nearing completion, initially an independent contractor as she had a high degree of control over how the work is accomplished, and enters into a contract with the company a new need arises for her services. She is asked to continue with the company to complete the new project. While completing the new project, the supervisor begins working more closely with Mary and requires her to use company materials and equipment while adhering to company work schedules. Mary seems to be moving toward an at-will employee position, because she appears to have less control over how the work is accomplished as she will probably have to answer to the supervisor, and using the companies materials and equipment and adhering to the company work schedules. After two years suggests at-will employee because of the length of time being 2 years, economic conditions force the company to make budget cuts. Mary is asked to leave as an employee, as she is obviously no longer working as an independent contractor, when asked to leave the company. Thirty days later, a major contract is acquired by the company, which reinstates the need for Marys services as a programmer. However, the supervisor chooses to hire his equally-qualified cousin and not offer Mary the opportunity to return. The use of word hire implied that Mary had been an employee and not an independent contractor. Is Mary an independent contractor or an employee? Describe the factors that led to your determination. There are several criteria to determine if Mary is a contractor or an employee. For example, one critical aspect to distinguish an independent contractor from an employee is the degree of control over how the work is accomplished. Initially Mary seemed to have more control than she did at the end, so it seems that she moved from being a independent contractor at the beginning to an employee over time. However, there are many factors to consider in making a determination as to whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. Some of these criteria include:â⬠¢Whether a distinct occupation or business isà being performed; e.g. programmer, so initially Mary was contracted as an independent contractor for a specific project. â⬠¢The amount of supervision over the means by which the work is performed; e.g. the supervisor begins working more closely with Mary and requires her to use company materials and equipment while adhering to company work schedules implies a move away from independent contractor towards an at will employee. â⬠¢The degree of skill required to perform the work; e.g., programmer equally-qualified cousinâ⬠¢Who provides the tools used to perform the work, and, e.g., requires her to use company materials and equipment while adhering to company work schedules and therefore moving towards being an at-will employeeâ⬠¢The place where the work is done; e.g. Mary is working in the office, the supervisor begins working more closely with Mary and requires her to use company materials and equipment while adhering to company work schedules suggesting an at-will employee position. Has the employer/employee relationship changed over the course of time? If so, how?As mentioned above, it did seem to change over time. It seems that initially, Mary could be considered an independent contractor because Little Lamb Company needs an additional programmer for a special project and Mary entered into a contract with the company. However, Mary was later asked to stay on and began working close to the supervisor, who expected Mary to used the company materials and equipment, to follow the company work schedule, and was terminated at will when economic conditions demanded. Thus, Mary seemed to move from an independent contractor to an at-will employee. 3) Was Marys release legal under the doctrine of employment-at-will? Why or why not?This is murky water and it depends. If Mary had moved into an at will employee, then the doctrine of employment-at-will allows her employee to let her go without reason (however, they initially had a contract, which we look at in the next part of this question below). In the scenario, it says Mary enters into a contract for the first project, however, makes noà mention of a contract when she is asked to stay on (however, sometimes contracts are implied). For example, in most states of the United States all employees are considered at will employees. That means that the employer can terminate or change the employment relationship at will, unless there is a contract with the employer. In general, an employer can fire an at will employee, or change the employees position or compensation with no notice and no reason. Likewise, the employee can terminate his employment at will without notice or reason. However, there are three possible legitimated reasons employee can challenge a wrongful termination:If not, which of the following exceptions to employment-at-will have been violated? Why?a) Breach of public policy (Perhaps) Values, principles and basic rules that the courts and legislatures consider to be in the best interest of individuals and the general public. Employer violations of specific labor and employment laws might be called violations of public policy, instead of or in addition to violations of the specific laws. That is because it is in the best interest of all workers that all employers obey such laws. Public policy may be written or implied, and varies among states and municipalities. Consequently, whether or not an employer has violated public policy is often a matter of interpretation by a court or arbitrator (i.e., hired cousin instead of having Mary return). b) Breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Probably not, because it is dealing with contracts and the question is dealing with at-will exceptions. c) Breach of implied contract (this is a possibility). Why? For example, in a contract between the employer and the employee, even in the absence of a formal written employment agreement. For example, language in an employee handbook may promise all layoffs are based on seniority or we give employees at least 2 weeks notice of all layoffs. Therefore, if Mary thins she is wrongfully terminated, as an employee; she can challenge a wrongful termination for these legitimate reasons
Sales and planning activities
Sales and planning activities Introduction Sales and planning activities are type of sales and operation planning processes. These activities are type of integrated management process of business according to which it is a responsibility of leaders and the managers to continuously see various objectives to focus on. There is a proper alignment of the processes or the activities included under such plans. It is very much important formally align all the process of these activities in a routine because it keeps synchronization among all the people of the organization. Sales and planning activities are about forecasting the capabilities of various department of an organization. Planning is required for every department whether it is technical department, software building or software selling department. These kinds of activities provide an exact view of information flowing in the company. Sales plan is entirely a different thing. Sales activities are related to selling any thing from the company. There are planning phases for sa les activities as well. Sales activities require a proper research about the market that what type of market, people and up to which extent the sale will be profitable. There should be an appropriate analysis about each and every aspect for performing sales activities. There are several challenges that organizations face in case of performing sales activities. These business challenges are as follows: (Sales Planning Forecasting) ÃË There has to have limited view of the sales and various programs related to marketing of the product or the company itself ÃË There are situation in which it becomes difficult for the company to manage sales cycles in order to neglect surprises or various drawbacks that come because of the sales cycle ÃË There is no idea to the company that what is the reason behind breakdown of sale in the industry ÃË It is difficult for the company to prepare an excess inventory because there is no accurate forecast with the company which basically is an effect of manufacturing various products for the people which in actual they do not want ÃË It is very important for any organization to take care of the sales plan because manufacturing, scheduling and planning activities ÃË Effectiveness of various activities required for this purpose Body The Aggregate Operations Plan Aggregate operation planning basically works for converting a business plan which is made for annual quarterly basis into a form of border labor plan or output plan of around six months to eighteen months. Main objective of this aggregate plan is to meet various demands required to that respective period of time. It is very much required to convert a long term plan into an operational plan because it gives a view that how come operations of the company goes around. This is done in order to ensure that all the supplies made are done in the lowest cost possible. Hence it is necessary to make an aggregate operational plan. There are different types of plans used for this aggregate operational planning, like one year plans; they are called long range plans. With long range plans there are short range plan as well which talk about short period of time. There are some middle range plans as well which are of a period of six month to eighteen months depending about the requirement of the pla n. Purpose (how it seeks optimal combination of production elements) This part will discuss various purpose of aggregate operational plan. Purpose of the plan means that how can we make different combinations of different elements of production. This is an important issue because at the starting it is very much necessary that we require an exact knowledge about what is required in the plan and what do we have to do. The main purpose of the aggregate operational plan is to convert various long range plans into middle range plans and middle range plans into shorter range plans. Aggregate operational plans are important in solving various purposes because it talks about all the operations going on in the company or the organization. The main purpose of aggregate operational plan is that it links various strategic activities like strategic plan of the company and also activity and the capacity plan with bigger categories that come into planning activities like workforce in the organization, labor force, size of the organization and also the level of produ ction in the company. As the purpose of aggregate operational plan is important, as decision rule for making plans of various activities are selected then it is an important role of the aggregate demand plan for managing the things and this how inventory of all the activities in the company are maintained. (Aggregated Sales and Operations Planning) There are other purposes of aggregate operational plan as well. Aggregate operational plan will talk about how the management in the company is organized. It gives a proper scheduling of all the activities to be done in the company. There are various projects that are run in the companies for which there are different techniques to follow; there would be different number of work force required for the particular operation. Hence it becomes obligatory for the company to make operation plan in order to get the exact view of what are the requirements of each plan. Production Planning Environment Product planning environment talks about planning to done for the company in any kind of environment. We can talk about two different kinds of environments in this. They are product planning under dynamic environment and product planning under fixed environment. In both the cases, we are doing product planning but the environment under planning to be done is absolutely different. Situation under which plans are to be made for the company are of different types. First we will talk about production planning to be done in dynamic environment. There are various productions planning that we can see in the day to day life. An example of production planning in dynamic environment is done. We can take an example of any electronic product. When we talk about product planning activities, there are two steps that take most important place like fabrication and equipment assembly. These are the two important process of production planning. It is very important to have different environmental scanning of production planning environment because demands of the customers are really uncertain. None of the companies can expect what they can want. Only they know about that. High level of services has to be provided to the customers in order to get success in the market and for this purpose it is important to have production planning activities. Production planning environment is a significant thing of operation plan. A production planning environment gives suggestion to the planning of any activity about what needs to be done in order to get success. Planning is very important because without planning any thing would not be that easy because the numbers of activities to be running in a company at a time are infinite and it would be really difficult to carry on all the activities simultaneously without making operational plans or aggregate operational plans. (Stephen C. Graves, 1985) For production planning, there are various techniques that are used in any company. It is important to use techniques for planning activities because these techniques make work very easy for the company and it can spend more time in thing about these plans are orally making the plans so that plans are made with an efficiency. Production planning environment help in making this plan more efficient because these are reason behind changing plans for the same activities for different situations. There might be possible that for example company has to product a product in a city with a particular population. Let us suppose that population of the company does not increase in six months. After six months, there may be possible that the company is manufacturing lesser number of quantities of the product for same population. Reason could be Season Change. Hence we can not predict the environment so easily hence production planning is required according to the environment of the company. Relevant Costs Relevant costs of the aggregate planning vary according to the range of the plan or we can say bigger the plan higher would be the cost. Aggregate Planning Techniques There are various types of aggregate planning techniques that a company can adopt. They are as follows: Intuitive Aggregate Planning technique: In case of Intuitive aggregate planning technique we always use intuitive management, experience of various official of the company and thumb rules in order to get successful planning in the company. In case of intuitive planning technique, there are graphical methods and spreadsheets analysis is used for the planning activity. There are various advantages as well as disadvantages of this technique. The biggest advantage that we can see of intuitive aggregate planning is that it is very much easy to explain and there would not any difficulty to the higher management in order to explain planning phases of any activity. With easy in explanation, it is easier in use as well. Any one can use this technique and make the required plans. If we talk of the disadvantages of intuitive aggregate planning technique as well, main disadvantage we see is that there are various solutions which mean more than one solutions possible for the strategy or strategic planning not just one. Hence it become very much difficult to search for the optimal solution required for making the best plan. LEVEL PRODUCTION STRATEGY: Another strategy that we can talk of that is other technique is level production strategy. In this level product strategy, it is necessary to find various requirements about time that plan would take it always will keep a track on the schedule of the plan. With this it will give average time that will be required to make any plan. According to level product technique of aggregate operational planning Avg. requirements = total requirements opening inv. + closing inv. Number of periods Steps which is used in the level production aggregate planning technique are as follows: Entry of production data is done Determination of the production level at an instant. For this, firing or hiring needs to be done Inventory level is updated then If inventory level is out of the expected then recalculate the average level production which will be needed and again go to step no. 1. This acts as a recursive process For each of the categories on which we are working, calculate total for each requirement, inventory, hiring and firing and finally we get entire total In the last step we calculate the final cost Intuitive Mixed Technique: Under this technique, hit and try method is used for getting the solution for the planning activity. In this technique Excel is used in order to model the problem and in order to investigate which solution is most effective. An appropriate structure is used in order to find optimal solution. Excel Solver technique is used. Chase Technique: Chase technique is said to be one of the best techniques of aggregate planning. In this technique capacity of the company is adjusted according to the demand of the customers. Planning horizon is set so that work force and production schedule is adjusted according to the plans that are made. There are various advantages as well as disadvantages of this technique. Advantage of chase technique of aggregate planning is that in this kind of planning anticipation inventory is not necessary for the company while planning and investment in the inventory has a lower range. With this advantage there is another advantage that full utilization of resources and labor takes place in this technique If we talk about the disadvantages of chase technique of aggregate planning, money spent on adjusting various capacities like work force and others is very high which is not affordable by all the companies. Hence they try to avoid this technique. Another disadvantage is that it goes for a proper disaffection of the workforce. These are the two main disadvantages of chase technique of aggregate planning Level Approach: Level approach of aggregate planning is again the second best approach of aggregate planning. Under this technique, capacities like workforce, schedule of production and rate of outputs are constant for the entire period of the planning horizon. There are various advantages and disadvantages of this technique Advantage of level approach of aggregate planning is that there is an absolute stability in the rates of output and level of workforce Disadvantages are that investment for the inventory management is more than other techniques. Overtime for any job or idle time for nay work is more than normal techniques. There is variability in the resource utilization which means that there are times when resources are maximum utilized by the company but there are several situations when resources are not utilized by the company up to a mark able extent (AGGREGATE PLANNING) The necessity to balance between the Aggregate Demand the aggregate production capacity) This is necessary that there has to be a proper balance to be maintained between aggregate demand and aggregate production capacity. We will explain these terms of two different scenarios as examples. First we can give an example, let us suppose that aggregate demand in the market is more than what is produced by the company. In this scenario, it is true that company will not be able to satisfy the needs of the customers. Hence there will be fight for the products or services. Problems that occur because of this situation would be black marketing. Company will take an advantage of this scenario and will sell the product or services are a higher cost. Company will take more money for the same product which it used to take earlier. And problem would be that customer will have to pay the amount if it would not have the alternatives for the same. In the other scenario, we take an example where aggregate production is more than what ever is expected by the customers or what is needed by the customers. In this situation, company will produce more and market or the customers will require less because of which company has to stop the production or there may be possibility that product that has already been used by the customers and rest of the product will get wasted. This will give loss to the company. Hence it is necessary that aggregate demand and aggregate production should be same for best possible result of the aggregate planning The difference in aggregates sales and operation planning in different industries An aggregate sale is the term that is associated with the factor of aggregate planning in different possible modes. This can either be defined in long-range planning, intermediate-range planning, or short-range planning. This process is entirely dependent on the type of organization that is being taken into consideration. This is due to the fact that its predecessor, i.e. operations planning will be highly influenced by the type of organization and the industry it is operating. Also the fact that aggregate sales is the final outcome that is dependent on a number of variables and can be maximized by improving the efficiency of all the operating units in a well coordinated manner. Operations planning and sales are the two aspects that are related with each other to a core extent. Thus various facets of operations like MPS (Master Production Schedule), MRP (Material Requirements Planning), Rough cut Capacity Planning, Capacity Requirements Planning, and Ordering Scheduling can be held responsible for enhancing the aggregate sales of an organization, thus making it possible to gain an upper edge over its competitors. This can be explained with the help of IT industry and Telecommunication sector. An organization operating in Information Technology sector mainly considers human resource as its most important asset. Thus most of the aspects of operation are related to this particular factor only without taking any other feature into consideration. This makes Human Resource Manager as one of the highly influential authority in operations management and planning procedure that in turn is liable to raise aggregate sales of the company while in case telecommunication sector there are certain changes. In this case employees working in the organization plays an important role, but not as crucial as in previous case. In this particular industry, technological perspective that is a part of inventory is one major part required in this sector from operations point of view. This can also be understood from the fact that aggregate sale is the outcome that is generated by offering a specific or diversified service or product to its customers by an organization. Thus it has to be understood that it is just acting as a front end and should possess high end coordination with its source that is operational units and it entirely responsible for taking care of the production associated with the service or product of the company. (Frequently Asked Questions About Sales and Operations Planning) This can further be clarified by taking into account textile industry. Textile industry is one of its kind as for this particular industry it is highly inevitable to maintain quality standards at different sections of production. Various sources of raw material act as an elementary part for the operations management to be taken appropriate care. Its aggregate sales are quite difficult to retain as compared to many other industries as it is highly prone to external problems which may result in loosing fate in the competitive scenario. Due to this extremely high inter-dependency, aggregate sales and operations planning seems to be same but they are highly different from each other that have to be taken proper care in best possible manner for overall development of the organization. In this particular case factors like production rate, workforce level, inventory on hand, and production planning will be the factors that will be acting as prime contributors in making operational part to b e a successful implementation for the organization operating in this domain. It will further be taking supply of raw material sources like polyester, etc for making it possible that operations are carried out in best possible manner without creating any ambiguity in the vicinity. While aggregate sales will take relevant costs associated with all the above mentioned parameters into account so as to maximize this particular feature and define proficiency of the company among its rivals. This can be explained further with the help of a characteristic adopted by certain companies following JIT (Just in Time) approach. This approach laid its prime focus over inventory management in order to make sure that operational aspects of the company are handled in best possible manner and minimum possible time. This saves a number of expenses of the company which otherwise it has to carry like warehousing, etc. This approach can be applied in any organization working in any domain but it will be s uccessful only when different departments working together are present in highly close vicinity. This has to be made sure that this meticulous prerequisite is satisfied in every possible manner otherwise this approach will fail deliberately. This approach is generally followed Japanese companies because of readily available material in the market and will probably fail in case it is applied in UAE because of completely different scenario. This define difference in the operation planning and aggregate sales in an explicit manner as aim to maximize aggregate sales remains same for all the companies while operations planning depends on a number of factors. As for example, region in which that particular organization is operating makes an intense affect on the type of market and clientele it is serving. There is also a possibility that different industries are entirely reliant over its operational part while rest of them makes very minute dependency over its operational aspects, which d emonstrate main difference between these characteristics in a well defined manner and cannot be ignored. Echelon of difference may vary from low to high extent and should be taken care appositely as it is one of the most important features for an organization regardless of its industry. The importance of choosing the right strategy to plan operations The function of operations plan or strategy is to provide a map for the operations task so that it can build the most excellent use of its assets and resources. Operations strategy states the plans and policies for utilizing the firms resources to hold its long-standing competitive strategy. The figure provided below shows this association. It is to keep in brain that the operations task is accountable for managing the resources required to create the companys services and goods. Operations strategy is the map that specifies the plan and use of assets to bear the business strategy. This comprises the location, dimension, and type of facilities obtainable; employee skills and talents necessary; utilization of technology, special equipment, special processes needed; and quality control techniques. It is necessary that the operations strategy of the firm must be associated with the firms business strategy and facilitate the firm to attain its long-term goals. Now as different companies has different values to parameters like size, location, skill requirement of workers, types of facility for production and goals to be achieved, it is clear that both the appropriate selection of operation strategy and industry specific selection of operation strategy is necessary for the firm. For instance, the business strategy of a company called FedEx, the globes largest provider of accelerated delivery services, is to fight on time and reliability of deliveries. Talking about the operations strategy of the company, the operation strategy of FedEx formed a plan for resources to hold its business plan or strategy. To provide pace of delivery, the company acquired its personal convoy of airplanes. To provide reliability of deliveries, the company invested in complicated bar code machinery to footpath all packages. The significance of choosing right Operations Strategies: Operations plan did not come to the vanguard until the early 1970s. Till that time, companies in United States highlighted mass manufacturing of standard product intends. Till that time, there were absence of any grave international rivals, and companies in United States were pretty much free to sell anything they created. Yet, that altered in the year 1970s and 1980s. Japanese firms entered the market and began presenting products of better quality at lesser cost, and U.S. firms lost market capture to their Asian counterparts. In an effort to stay alive, many U.S. firms copied Japanese techniques. Unluckily, just copying these techniques often proved ineffective; it took time to actually understand Japanese techniques. It became obvious that Japanese companies were extra aggressive since of their operations strategy; which is, all their assets and resources were exclusively designed to openly support the firms general strategic plan. In a review, Michael Porter, a professor at Harva rd Business School says that firms often do not recognize the dissimilarity between strategy and operational efficiency. Operational efficiency is doing operations tasks fine, even superior than opponents. On the other hand, Strategy is a map for staying in the marketplace. A likeness might be that of organizing a race capably, but it might be the incorrect race. Strategy is crucial in kind of race you will triumph. Strategy and Operational efficiency must be united; otherwise one may be very competently performing the incorrect task. The function of operations plan or say strategy is to make certain that all the odd jobs performed by the process function are the correct tasks. Think about a software business that freshly invested thousands of dollars in budding software with features or services not provided by opponents, only to determine that these were services customers did not predominantly desire. Now that we recognize the sense of operations strategy and business strategy and their significance, it is clear that the software firm introduced here has performed the operation of developing new features very professionally but is not the correct task as people are not very interest ed in the new features developed. Inputs required to the production planning process: The production planning process is an aggregate process which depends on a number of factors internal and external to the organization. If we define these factors, they are basically the manpower, technical planning like engineering and maintenance planning, information of marketing, quality control, investment planning and distribution planning, These factors can be categorized into two parts: internal and external to the organization. Talking about the internal inputs to the production planning process, it may include manpower availability, machinery, and technology. Talking about the external requirements of the planning process, this includes factors like financial availability, demand/marketing estimation, distributors, customer expectation of quality and distributors. The correlation between these variables and production planning process can be shown by the following diagram. It is clear form the diagram that both internal and external factors and say internal and external inputs defined above are essential parameters of production planning process. Strategies to meet demand Cut and Try Method: Cut and try method can be seen as one of the popular and easy to handle methods for the aggregate planning. This strategy helps the company to analyze the status of the project planning under different consideration. The basic structure of the plans assists the analysts to come to a conclusion to what plan could be successful under which circumstances. The various aspects of the project planning are highlighted and it becomes more effective for the management to take decision regarding the planning. The working of the cut and try method can be studied as four different strategies deployed in the aggregate plan work sheet. These are as follows: Production Plan 1 or The Chase strategy: This particular section of the method employs two very significant parameters namely, workforce and production. It analyses the situation under the condition when the exact production is given but the workforce is varying. It checks the ratio between rate of production and the order rate. In other ways, it could be said that it studies the effect which could be caused on this ratio by hiring employees and by laying them off as per requirement varies. Production Plan 2 or the Stable Workforce strategy: This method of the cut and try involves the constant workforce. In this the case the factor which varies includes inventories and stock-outs. The variation in output is caused because of variation in the working hours the employees due to the non-rigidity in the time schedules allowing overtimes and an altering number of hours of work. Production Plan 3 or the Level strategy: This technique employs low workforce which is constant in nature. This is realized with the help of Subcontracting. In this strategy, output rate or the production rate is constant and the workforce is also invariant. All the shortages or excess or in other words surpluses are absorbed by the fluctuations caused in the various levels of the inventory, backlog in the order and the sales which were lost. Production Plan 4 or the mixed strategy: Overall objective of this method is to optimize cost which it does by employing multiple strategies mentioned previously, two or more, together. It schedules overtime and also the workforce is kept constant. Now let us consider the example of The CA J Company. Generally a company which has a pronounced seasonal variation plans its production for whole one year. This is so that the extreme demands of the busiest and slowest months can be captured altogether. In this, companys plan for six months has been illustrated. Similarly data[i] for remaining parameters is taken as: Materials: Rs. 100.00/unit Inventory holding cost: Rs. 1.50/unit/month Marginal cost of stock-out: Rs. 5.00/unit/month And so on. Software like, Microsoft excel make the calculation more convenient. However, it should always be taken care that cut and try method might not always give optimum solution Software available nowadays can give more optimized results as they are more sophisticated. Aggregate Planning Applied to Services: Tucson Parks and Recreation Department Aggregate planning can be applied to various services so as to get the optimum and the most beneficiary solution. These can be implemented using charted techniques or methods involving the graphical representations of the plans. Such techniques are employed by the Tucson parks and recreation department. The main objective of this firm is to demonstrate the citys department of parks and recreation can be involve alternatives of the employees working full-time as well as the part time employees and also utilizing benefits of the subcontracting techniques in order to fulfill its commitment to provide a useful service to the city. This institution is required to maintain and produce open spaces, gardens, tennis courts, pools, all recreational centers and so on. The data used in the example is as follows: The total budget is allocated of Rs. 9,760,000. The number of the full time employees is 336. Among these 336, 216 employees are such that they are full time permanent personnel who involved with working of maintenance all the year round and are responsible for the administration. The remaining 120 full time employees are divided into two sections. They are staffed with part timers. About three-quarters of these are deployed in summers and the remaining one-quarter work in spring, fall, and winters seasons. The three fourth or 90 full time employees turn up about 800 part time jobs of summers like those of lifeguards, instructors in some children schools or training programs and baseball umpires, etc. Part time jobs last for a month or two while full time employers last for whole one year. Hence considering many other factors and the data, we can conclude that the department is open to the following three options regarding the development: The present method is continued. According to which, they have to maintain full time employees at a medium level and hence schedule work in the off seasons ( such reconstructing baseball fields in the months of winters) and then use them as a part time assistance during peak seasons. Second option is to maintain a low level of the staff around the year. Whenever there is a requirement of more staff, technique of subcontracting could be used. All additional works currently done by full time employees with the assistance of part time employees. Third option is to hire only administrative staff and subcontract all the remaining work with the help of the part time staff people. This technique will consequently result in contracts to various landscaping firms and companies responsible for maintaining pools and will also give
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