Geography Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Geography - Assignment Example The first phase in weathering of rocks is fracturing, which entails the formation of joints and cracks. Jointing a means through which rocks yield to both external and internal stresses including tectonic movements, contraction and expansion as a result of chemical or physical changes. Joints in rocks result from cooling or when pressure on their rock surface gets offloaded through erosion. Joints facilitate weathering by creating free space weathering agents, which increasing the surface area of rocks exposed to agents of physical or chemical weathering (Spellman, 2009). â€Å"They play an important part in rock weathering as zones of weakness and water movement† (Spellman, 2009, p.96). A slope failure refers to the collapsing of a slope caused by weakened stability of the earth in the event of an earthquake or heavy downpour. In most cases, slope failure often catches people unaware when it happens near residential areas causing high fatality rates. In order to determine whether a building lot is safe, it is important to assess slope failure factors such as gravity, physical properties of slope materials, and level of saturation of the area. Assessing all these factors would reveal the level of safety of the building

Diversity And Discrimination In the Work Place, Can It Ever Be Essay

Diversity And Discrimination In the Work Place, Can It Ever Be Overcome - Essay Example Therefore, to overcome this discrimination, diversity management policies should have a high focus on increasing awareness, sensitizing the staff and ensuring inclusive policies. Causes of Discrimination and Strategies to Overcome Awareness In the recent years, eliminating any discrimination due to diversity has been a topic that has received the attention of researchers and scholars. One of the main reasons because of which discrimination takes place in workplace is the lack of awareness that leads to insensitive and discriminatory behavior (Nishii and Wright, 2008). Hence, creating awareness should be one of the most important steps when it comes to diversity management. In addition, creating awareness does not mean having certain non-discriminatory policies at workplace, instead it means educating employees and making them understand how to acknowledge as well as accept the diversity that they would be experiencing. This is particularly crucial in a situation where the majority of employees belong to one particular group (age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and so on). In such a situation, discrimination can even happen in the form of isolation (Nishii and Wright, 2008). For example, most organizations have a policy of non-discrimination with regard to homosexuals, but due to the stigma associated with homosexuality, it is possible that the individual is looked at in a different manner because of the sexual orientation. Therefore, both the Human Resources team as well as the management should work in tandem through formal sessions, online trainings and need-based individual sessions to improve awareness. Acknowledgement and Acceptance According to Green, Lopez, Wysocki... The paper stresses that with rising competition and challenges related to economic recession, it is necessary for the organization to ensure that any form of discrimination is eliminated because it can result in not just the loss of productivity, but it can also compromise the ethical foundation of the organization. Across the world, the message of equality and acceptance is being propagated and hence, a good diversity management policy which is effectively implemented can help in overcoming the challenge of discrimination at workplace. The report makes a conclusion that , most organizations have a process called diversity training which aims at informing and educating the management as well as the staff about diversity and the advantages that a diverse workforce can provide to the organization. Additionally, some organizations have also implemented the policy of diversity audit. This audit is carried out through means such as surveys and personal interviews to understand if there are any hidden prejudices or discrimination that exists in the organization. A diversity audit can not only help in resolving any discrimination issues, but it can also provide information on how to improve the diversity management strategies from an employee’s perspective. The author declares that one of the major mistakes that organizations make with regard to diversity management is that they frame certain policies and implement it, but do not subject it to periodic review. This can be drawback because as trends related to divers ity change; the needs of diversity management also undergo a change. Hence, they should periodically review these policies to see if it suits their needs of the current set of employees that the organization has.

Analyzing Various Types Of Debt Instruments Existing Finance Essay

Analyzing Various Types Of Debt Instruments Existing Finance Essay INTRODUCTION First chapter describes the basis behind doing this study. Then, it examines the objectives of this study and some limitations of the study. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to analyze various types of Debt instruments existing. It aims to develop an understanding of the growth of the topic. It also includes the impact of these instruments on the country and on various companies. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The main objectives of this paper are To conduct a study on the requirement of debt instruments To understand why debts instruments are important To analyze these instruments LIMITATIONS OF STUDY Due to lack of information available the graphs and the statistics shown are of previous years (2007-2008) As the data was gathered from secondary sources, the authority of the data could not be tested. Another problem was knowledge constraint and this report is an attempt to gather as much of relevant data as possible. However, every effort was made to ensure that these do not in any way adversely affect the results of the study. INTRODUCTION The debt markets today are a major source of financing than the banking system. It is any market situation where debt instruments are traded. It establishes a planned environment where the debts are traded amongst the interested parties. The debt markets are known by other names based on the types of instruments are traded. For example when municipal or corporate bond are traded, debt market is called bond market whereas if notes or securities or mortgages are traded market is called credit market. The debt market is three times larger than stock/equity market. The debt markets are categorized into two other markets called money market and capital market. Money market is a subsection of the fixed income market. It specializes in short-term debts with the maturity of one-year. Capital markets specialize in long-term debts. It is a market in which financial instruments are traded by the institutions and individuals. Institutions or organizations in either private or public sectors sell securities to raise funds in these markets. Both these terms are mistakenly applied. In capital market assets (including equities) are taken into consideration and they are amortized over the period of time. Money market is more of debts which are readily sold at price predictable within short time. But it is very difficult to distinguish between money and non-money based on one year maturity line. Some of the debt instruments are traded Over-the-counter and not through exchanges. They are traded in an electronic network market where the brokers or dealers act as mediators. Money markets are not accessible by small investors except through MFs. Corporate associates or groups or even individual investors may participate in the debt market. There may be very little difference between how corporate associates or an individual participate depending on the regulations of the government. The interest rates are the price of the money which increases with the increase in the demand to borrow money. The debt market is influenced by credit-worthiness of the borrower, term-to-maturity, security for loan and many other factors. But government also tries to regulate the interest rates to stimulate the economies with complete focus on inflation. The main advantage of debt market is the degree of risk associated with the investment opportunity is very low. For the investors who avoid participating in the riskier ventures in which there is less or smaller returns favors bonds and similar investments. A significant amount of money is earned even of returns are not high in the debt market. WHAT ARE DEBT INSTRUMENTS? For every individual financial planning is an important task. For the preservation of principal amount the investors should distribute a major portion of their investments in debt instruments. A debt instrument is an electronic obligation or any paper that permits an issuing party to raise funds by assuring it to pay back a lender in accordance with the terms and conditions of a contract. The predetermined conditions which are mentioned in the contract are the periodicity and rate of interest and the date of the repayments of the principal amount. Debt instruments  are an easier way for  participants and markets transfer the rights of  debt obligations from one party to another. Debt obligation  transferability increases liquidity and gives creditors a means of trading debt obligations  on  the market. Without debt instruments acting as a means to facilitate trading, debt is an obligation from one party to another. When a debt instrument is used as a medium to facilitate debt trading, debt obligations  can be moved from one party to another quickly and efficiently. In Indian Securities market, the term bond is used for debt instrument given by Central and state government and the term debenture is used for the instruments issued by private sectors. OBJECTIVE OF DEBT INSTRUMENT Preservation of principal amount and getting modest returns is the main objective of the debt funds. Investors look for both short-term and long-term investments. There are many instruments available in the market so one can choose easily any or mix of instruments according to its requirements. FEATURES OF DEBT INSTRUMENTS The features of the instruments are: Safety of the principal amount Guaranteed returns for the investors. Some of these instruments also qualify for tax rebates under Section 80C. Currently 8-9% interest per annum are quoted for medium to long-term deposits whereas it is 6-7% returns for short-term deposits Nowadays, many banks provide funds sweep-in /sweep-out facility where a balance beyond a certain limit automatically gets converted into a fixed deposit and banks pay the fixed deposit interest on it. This can be an option for a short-term horizon. There are three main features of debt instruments Maturity Coupon Principal Maturity Maturity refers to the date on which the bond matures. It is the date on which the borrower agrees to repay the principal amount. Term-to-maturity refers to the number of years remaining for the bond to mature. It changes every day from the date of the issue to the maturity of the bond. It is also called the tenure or term of the bond. Coupon Coupon Rate refers to the periodic payment of interest made by the issuer of the bond to the lender of the bond. Coupons are declared either by stating the number (example: 8%) or with a benchmark rate (example: MIBOR+0.5%). It is usually represented as a percentage of the face value or the par value of the bond. Principal It is the amount which is borrowed. It is the face or the par value of the bond. The product of the coupon rate and principal is the coupon. For example a GS CG2008 11.40% bond refers to a Central Government bond maturing in the year 2008, and paying a coupon of 11.40%. Since Central Government bonds have a face value of Rs.100, and normally pay coupon semi-annually, this bond will pay Rs. 5.70 as six- monthly coupon, until maturity, when the bond will be redeemed. The term to maturity of a bond can be calculated on any date, as the distance between such a date and the date of maturity. It is also called the term or the tenor of the bond. For instance, on February 17, 2004, the term to maturity of the bond maturing on May 23, 2008 will be 4.27 years. The general day count convention in bond market is 30/360European which assumes total 360 days in a year and 30 days in a month. There is no rigid classification of bonds on the basis of their term to maturity. Generally bonds with tenors of 1-5 years are called short-term bonds; bonds with tenors ranging from 4 to 10 years are medium term bonds and above 10 years are long term bonds. In India, the Central Government has issued up to 30 year bonds. CHARACTERISTICS OF DEBT INSTRUMENTS The primary characteristics of debt instruments are: Issuance of an instrument is easy Any company with or without past track record can issue these instruments Rate of interest are fixed or floating Fixed commitments are imposed on servicing Debt instruments may be flexible in the period of repayment or nature of interest but they impose fixed commitments on servicing or business. Failure to do servicing of these instruments would be termed as default with adverse effects on the companys standing in the financial sector. Risk is low Investors in such instruments being creditors of the company have priority over equity and preference shareholders in receiving return (in the form of interest) in such instruments. These carries priority claim on the assets of the firm (if secured) in the event of bankruptcy. TYPES OF DEBT INSTRUMENTS There are various debt instruments. The debt instruments can be categorized into long-term and short-term debt depending on the time for which the amount has been raised or the repayment period. The debt instruments are mentioned as follows: C:UsersdellDesktopdebtinst.bmp Long term Debt Long-term debts are mainly bonds and debentures with the tenure greater than one year. Debentures A debenture is an instrument of debt executed by the company acknowledging its obligation to repay the sum at a specified rate and also carrying an interest. Company can raise loan capital from debentures A debenture is thus like a certificate of loan or a loan bond evidencing the fact that the company is liable to pay a specified amount with interest and although the money raised by the debentures becomes a part of the companys capital structure, it does not become share capital. The main characteristics of debentures are: Fixed interest instrument with changeable period of maturity May or may not be listed on stock exchange, if listed they should be rated by any of the credit rating agencies chosen by SEBI Can be either offered for subscription or privately placed A debenture redemption reserve has to be maintained when offered for subscription The period of maturity varies from 3 to 10 years and may also be more for projects having high gestation period Types of debentures Various types of debentures are as follows: Non convertible debentures (NCD) Fully convertible debentures (FCD) Partially convertible debentures (PCD) NCDs are those in which total amount if instrument in redeemed by the lender whereas FCDs are those in which the whole value of the instrument is converted into equity. The conversion price is given when the instrument is borrowed. PCDs are those in which part of the instrument is redeemed and part of it is converted into equity. Conversion price is the price of each equity share received by converting the par or face value of the debenture. The number of equity shares exchangeable per unit of the convertible security i.e. debentures is called the conversion ratio. The period of time after which the debenture is converted into equity is called the conversion period. The convertible instruments are generally used to stem the sudden outflow of the capital at the time of maturity of the instrument causing temporary liquidity problems. Alternately, the company has to raise funds from a different source or issue fresh instruments to tide over and also has to bear the transaction costs in the process. Debentures might be either callable or puttable. Callable debenture is a debenture in which the issuing company has the option of redeeming the security before the specified redemption date at a pre-determined price. Similarly, a puttable security is a security where the holder of the instrument has the option of getting it redeemed before maturity. Bonds A bond is a debt security in which authorized borrower or issuer owes the lender or the holder a debt and is obliged to repay the principal amount and interest at maturity. It is a loan in the form of securities having varying terminologies: The issuer is equivalent to the borrower, the bond holder to the lender, and the coupon to the interest. It enables the issuer to finance long-term investments with external funds. Bonds and stocks are both securities, but the major difference between the two is that stock-holders are the owners of the company (i.e., they have an equity stake), whereas bond-holders are lenders to the issuing company. Another difference is that bonds usually have a defined term, or maturity, after which the bond is redeemed, whereas stocks may be outstanding indefinitely. An exception is a consol bond, is a perpetuity bond (i.e., bond with no maturity). There may be many types of bonds- such as infrastructure, regular income, deep discounts or tax savings. These are instruments having fixed interest rate and a definite period of maturity. The main difference between bonds and debentures is that debenture is secured and bond is not. Hence bonds have higher rate of interest than debentures. There are many kinds of bonds available such as: Floating rate or fixed rate bonds High yield bonds Subordinated bonds Perpetual bonds Asset-backed securities Bearer bond Zero Coupon bonds Registered bond Inflation linked bonds Book entry bonds Municipal bonds War bond Lottery bond Medium term loan These are loans extended for a period of 2 to 5 years. The purposes for which these loans are issued are: Short gestation projects: The short gestation projects could be for purchase of balancing equipment, for incremental expansion of capacity. Refinancing of loans in case of very long projects where the repayment of the term loans might occur prior to sufficient cash flows being generated by the project. For meeting any other medium term shortfall in funding arising out of an acquisition or bulleted repayment of a large loan, etc The methods for issuing medium term loans are similar to those required for project finance. In case of meeting a medium term mismatches not linked to a project or equipment, the financing decision would be on the basis of a cash flow analysis indicating the need for such medium term funding and an analysis of overall profitability and financial to the business to provide lender comfort. Other than these aspects, the procedures for availing Medium Term loans follows the requirements sought by the lenders in case of Project financing/ long term lending. Public Deposits These are those deposits that are achieved by many small and large firms from the public. The public deposits are issued mainly to finance the working capital requirements of the firm. The rate of interest offered varies with time period of the public deposits. The rate of interest which is mostly offered by the companies on the deposits made on one year is 8-9%, for two year deposits rate is 9-10% and for three years rate offered is 10-11%. For public deposits there are some rules which the companies have to follow according to Companies Amendment Rules 1978: 3 years is the maximum period of maturity for public deposits whereas 6 months is minimum period For NBFC 5 years is the maximum period of maturity The companies need to disclose the information regarding the financial position and performance 10% of the deposits need to be kept aside by the companies every year by 30th April by the companies having public deposits. This will mature by 31st March next year. Advantages enjoyed by companies Simple and Easy process in gaining public deposit No restrictive agreement Reasonable cost incurred after tax No collateral Disadvantages Very limited funds raised Short period of maturity Advantages enjoyed by investors Higher rate of interest Shorter maturity period Disadvantages No tax exemption No collateral Short-term debts The debts which are raised for less than one year are short-term debts. These are categorized into market instruments and financial assistance granted by NBFC, Commercial Banks and Term Lending Institutions focusing on the short term needs of a business. Commercial Paper These are unsecured promissory notes. These are issued by those companies having high credit ratings. The maturity of CPs is 1 to 270 days. They are issued at face value and redeemed at face value. CPs can be issued by companies, which have a minimum networth of Rs.4 crores and needs a mandatory credit rating of minimum A2 (ICRA), P2 (Crisil), D2 (Duff Phelps) and PR2 (Credit Analysis Research). The rating should not be more than 2 months old. It can be issued for a minimum amount of Rs.25 lakhs and more in multiples of Rs.5 lakh. Since the companies are not pledging any collateral, only companies having high credit-worthiness are allowed to issue CPs. They are usually sold at discounts and have higher interest repayments dates than bonds. Advantages: Flexibility in maturity Lower cost of capital with high credit ratings Disadvantages: It brings down credit limits of the banks Very restrictive about issuance of CPs Limited to blue chip companies Inter-Corporate Deposits (ICDs) These are funds raised by corporate companies from other corporate. This is a form of dis-intermediated financing, where corporate with surplus funding directly lend to those in need of funding of such funds and thereby save on the spreads that banks would have charged in borrowing from one to lend to the other. This is very efficient means of investment. The ICDs issuance was very poor in India. In early nineties companies raised funds from public without even identifying the projects for investments. These sums were then deployed in the ICDs market where the borrowers more often than not invested in the booming financial assets (shares) or real estate. Often monies were lent to group companies for propping up the shares of different companies of the group. The end of the boom in financial and real assets saw significant amounts of defaults in ICDs and a virtual closure of the market.

A Doll’s House Essay -- Literary Analysis, Kate Chopin

As a child progresses through the various stages of life, he or she may crawl across the knots of knitted carpet, gallop around the plastic structures of a schoolyard and weave amongst a mass of people, each one traveling a different route to arrive at destinations poles apart, but unless a sense of worth, instilled by a parent’s assurance, overflows from the mouth of this developing being, the journey to find oneself amid the throng of individuals will prove an arduous and extensive one—possibly spanning one’s lifetime. Kate Chopin, in The Awakening, and Henrik Ibsen, in A Doll’s House, understood the significance of a parental figure in the development of a young person’s self-esteem, even in the Victorian Era, highlighting this fact with a void in the parental seat of the lives’ of their protagonists, Edna Pontellier and Nora Helmer, respectively. The vacant maternal role and feeble paternal relationship influences each of the protagonis ts’ sense of self-worth, which projects through relationships with their husbands, children, society as a whole and, their ultimate choice of abandonment. Employing realism, ridding the work of all fantasy and overtly extravagant elements for the audience to recognize themselves in various situations, Chopin and Ibsen allow â€Å"unfolding† (Roberts 1664) events as their works progressed, to disclose events previous to the span of the work; they cast shadows on events in literary present, exposing the cause of the problem—the mother’s absence in the protagonists’ lives. In the case of Edna Pontellier, her father’s â€Å"authority† (Chopin 77), â€Å"putting [his] foot down good and hard† (77), facilitated her mother’s expedition to the grave, while Nora Helmer’s mother goes without mention over the play’... ...arch of other’s to tell her of her beauty, for she does not have this revelation within herself since her father seemingly forgot to inform her. Likewise, Nora, although the decision lacked good, needed to Anne’s confirmation that her children â€Å"would [not] forget their mother† (Ibsen 30) if she were to leave, due to her inability to come to this conclusion alone; both search for others’ approval and finding that it comes only from within, each abandon their oppressing forces which all stem from their society’s establishments. In the denouements of both works, the protagonist realizes that their entire lives have been guided and charted by others rather than themselves and make a decision to press forward, without the superfluous contributions and disdain of others, despite the ramifications such a decision incurs, such as the repetition of the motherless child.

The Life of Andrew Carnegie

A man of Scotland, a distinguished citizen of the United States, and a philanthropist devoted to the betterment of the world around him, Andrew Carnegie became famous at the turn of the twentieth century and became a real life rags to riches story. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25, 1835, Andrew Carnegie entered the world in poverty. The son of a hand weaver, Carnegie received his only formal education during the short time between his birth and his move to the United States. When steam machinery for weaving came into use, Carnegie†s father sold his looms and household goods, sailing to America with his wife and two sons. At this time, Andrew was twelve, and his brother, Thomas, was five. Arriving into New York on August 14, 1848, aboard the Wiscasset from Glasgow, the Carnegies wasted little time settling in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, where relatives already existed and were there to provide help. Allegheny City provided Carnegie†s first job, as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, working for $1. 20 a week. His father also worked there while his mother bound shoes at home, making a miniscule amount of money. Although the Carnegies lacked in money, they abounded in ideals and training for their children. At age 15, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in Pittsburgh. He learned to send and decipher telegraphic messages and became a telegraph operator at the age of 17. Carnegie†s next job was as a railroad clerk, working for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He worked his way up the ladder, through his dedication and honest desire to succeed, to become train dispatcher and then division manager. At this time, young Carnegie, age 24, had already made some small investments that laid the foundations of his what would be tremendous fortune. One of these investments was the purchase of stock in the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company. In 1864, Carnegie entered the iron business, but did not begin to make steel until years later. In 1873, he built the Edgar Thomson works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, to make Bessemer steel. He established many other steel plants, and in 1892, he merged all of his interests into the Carnegie Steel Company. This act from Carnegie is fitting with one of his most famous quotations, â€Å"Put all of your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket. † This firm became one of the greatest industrial enterprises in America. Carnegie later sold it to J. P. Morgan†s United States Steel Corporation in 1901 for $400 million, which would be a little over $4 billion today! After retiring, Carnegie†s fortune was estimated to be as large as half a billion dollars. From that time on, with the philosophy that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their money, he devoted himself to philanthropy. Although ironic, this man of great fortune strongly believed in the merits of poverty for the development of character and work ethic, and determined that wealthy men should not leave their fortunes to their children, but should give it away, claiming â€Å"The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced. † The picture of community service, Carnegie is quoted as saying, â€Å"Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy, and cannot be torn out. I can never be one hair†s breadth less loyal to her, or less anxious to help her in any way, than I have been since I could help anything. My treasure is still with you, and how best to serve Pittsburgh is the question which occurs to me almost every day of my life. † Colonel James Anderson, who Carnegie believes to be his childhood benefactor, established a public library in his hometown of Allegheny City. This library was the first opportunity for Carnegie to take advantage of free information, and he developed a vast interest for knowledge, checking out at least one book a week, and developing himself as a young boy. With Colonel Anderson†s generous contribution to his society molding Carnegie†s childhood, and his beliefs on how large fortunes can be used for the betterment of society, it becomes obvious that Carnegie would focus particularly on promoting education, establishing 2,811 free libraries in all. Of these, 1,946 were located in the United States with at least one in every state except Rhode Island. Also, 660 were founded in Britain and Ireland, 156 in Canada, and a handful of libraries were also scattered in New Zealand, the West Indies, and even Fiji. Caregie†s contributions gave existence to his dream of establishing chances of self-education in a time when public libraries were scarce. Not only did he give large amounts of money to libraries, but also to other philanthropic organizations, establishing some of his own. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was established for â€Å"the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. † The $135 million donated by Carnegie was used in grants to colleges, universities, and other educational institutions. Money also went to organizations that conduct basic research and experimental programs dealing with education and public affairs. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was founded to promote international peace and understanding, conducting programs of research, discussion, publication, and education in the international affairs and United States foreign policy. Currently the program focuses on issues such as arms control, international law, and relations between the United States and foreign countries. It publishes the quarterly journal, Foreign Policy, and has offices in New York City and Washington, D. C. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching promotes the dignity in the teaching profession and the cause of higher education. Chartered by Carnegie in 1905 with $15 million, the foundation established the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in 1918, and currently provides retirement pensions for teachers of colleges, technical schools, and universities in the United States and Canada. Their studies have had much influence on American higher education. Also benefiting from Carnegie†s charity include various Carnegie museums of history, science, and art, Carnegie Hall in New York, and other public spirited organizations. Before 1919, when Carnegie died, he had given away $350,695,653, and at his death, the last $30 million was likewise given away to foundations, charities, and pensioners. He left a mark on society not only through his enormous monetary provisions, but also with his own literature. Carnegie loved to promote his ideas and opinions in print, and has written many works outlining these philosophies, including Triumphant Democracy (1886), The Gospel of Wealth (1900), The Empire of Business (1902), Problems of Today (1908), and an Autobiography (1920) (Mitzen 182). Although Carnegie only stood somewhere between 5†³2†³ and 5†³6†³, he â€Å"had to be a great, tough, disciplined giant of a man. † His commitment to others is not only seen through his many munificent works, but in the way he lived, including his tombstone in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery of North Tarrytown, New York, where the epitaph reads, â€Å"Here lies a man who was able to surround himself with men far cleverer than himself. â€Å"

Define Functional Organizations and Product Organization

Functional Organizations This is the traditional type of organization. Under functional departments, employees with closely related skills and responsibilities (functions) are located in the same department. Workers in each of these functions specialized in their tasks and knowledge. For example, senior management set rules and procedures as how to transfer the sales orders into the production schedule, how the customer service deal with complaints and warranty issues. They also have large input in the production process.The main advantage of functional organization is efficiency. It works best in small to medium-sized firms that offer relatively few product lines or services. Example of this functional organization will be for a company that manufactured outdoor BBQ stoves. The Sales people get the orders from the customers; the orders are transfer to the production department for production. Products are made and shipping department ships them to customers. Each department is rated by their department performance.Quality department could delay shipment if they feel the product is not meeting specification, affecting Sales target and their commission. Product Organizations Product organizations are formed based on a particular product, or service. Each of these departments can operate fairly autonomously. A key advantage is better coordination and fewer barriers to communication among the functional specialists who work on a particular product. , Therefore, able to response to customers in a timely way.On the other hand, the disadvantage is that product-oriented departments might actually work at cross purposes. For Example, Toyota has a luxury high end line of automobiles called Lexus in addition to their Toyota Brand. Dealer either sells Toyota or Lexus but not both. Each dealer has the same Sales and Service department. The logic behind this split is Toyota management believe the customers who buy the Lexus brand are more affluent and demand higher and bett er service.

Free Essays on True Father Of Huck

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, tells the story of Huck’s travels down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave. Huck lived in a small town with his biological father, Pap; a drunk who had caused him many problems. However, in the novel, the character of Jim is portrayed as the â€Å"true father† of Huck. Because Jim acts as a role model and a mentor to Huck along their journey down the river, he proves to be more of a father figure to Huck than his biological father Pap. A father teaches his son lessons. Jim taught Huck many lessons both intentionally and indirectly. Jim shows Huck that slaves are real people, just like himself, despite the different color of skin. Huck gained a greater amount of respect for Jim when he talked of missing his family. Jim also shared with Huck that he remembers beating his little four-year-old girl once. Jim told Huck he regretted his actions and was overcome with sadness, and of how he misses his family towards the end of the novel. Jim teaches Huck that slaves are not different because of color; they have feelings, emotions, and love their families just as much as whites. Sharing this compassionate side of Jim teaches Huck that slaves are not completely different simply because of color. Jim allows Huck to see that slaves have feelings, emotions, and love their families just as white folk would love theirs. Jim cares for and protects Huck, just as a father should. When Jim and Huck went exploring in the two-story house, Jim would not let Huck see the dead man in the house. â€Å"’Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face- it’s too gashly’. I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jim covered the man so Huck wouldn’t have to look at him. The dead man was his Pap. Jim did not want Huck to have to see his father’s face and be upset. Jim was looking out for Huck and t... Free Essays on True Father Of Huck Free Essays on True Father Of Huck The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, tells the story of Huck’s travels down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave. Huck lived in a small town with his biological father, Pap; a drunk who had caused him many problems. However, in the novel, the character of Jim is portrayed as the â€Å"true father† of Huck. Because Jim acts as a role model and a mentor to Huck along their journey down the river, he proves to be more of a father figure to Huck than his biological father Pap. A father teaches his son lessons. Jim taught Huck many lessons both intentionally and indirectly. Jim shows Huck that slaves are real people, just like himself, despite the different color of skin. Huck gained a greater amount of respect for Jim when he talked of missing his family. Jim also shared with Huck that he remembers beating his little four-year-old girl once. Jim told Huck he regretted his actions and was overcome with sadness, and of how he misses his family towards the end of the novel. Jim teaches Huck that slaves are not different because of color; they have feelings, emotions, and love their families just as much as whites. Sharing this compassionate side of Jim teaches Huck that slaves are not completely different simply because of color. Jim allows Huck to see that slaves have feelings, emotions, and love their families just as white folk would love theirs. Jim cares for and protects Huck, just as a father should. When Jim and Huck went exploring in the two-story house, Jim would not let Huck see the dead man in the house. â€Å"’Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face- it’s too gashly’. I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jim covered the man so Huck wouldn’t have to look at him. The dead man was his Pap. Jim did not want Huck to have to see his father’s face and be upset. Jim was looking out for Huck and t...

Java Final Exam Study Guide Essays

Java Final Exam Study Guide Essays Java Final Exam Study Guide Essay Java Final Exam Study Guide Essay Final Exam Study Guide Chapters from 6 to 12 Sections that you need to know from the chapters Chapter 6 6. 1Event Controlled Loops Using while 6. 2General Form for while loops 6. 4Looping Techniques (not animation) 6. 5 Type-Safe Input Using Scanner 6. 6Constructing Loop Conditions 6. 7Testing Techniques for while 6. 8Event-Controlled Loops Using do/While 6. 10Count-Controlled Loops Using for 6. 11Nested Loops (And everything else I taught you about loops) Chapter 7 7. 1Defining a Class 7. 2Defining Instance Variables . 3Writing Class Methods 7. 4Writing Constructors 7. 5Writing Accessor Methods 7. 6Writing Mutator Methods 7. 8Writing Data Manipulation Methods (I have taught you how to write the Calculation Class – â€Å"black box† concept. Encapsulation, Polymorphism) 7. 9The Object Reference this 7. 10The toString and equals Methods (you need to know equalsIgnoreCase †¦. ) 7. 11Static class members Chapter 8 8. 1Declaring and Instantiating Arrays 8. 2Accessing Array Elements 8. 3Aggregate Array Operations (not anything from 8. 3. 4) 8. Using Array in classes Includes all what I have taught you that is not in the book on single dimensional arrays. (Array of objects) Chapter 9 9. 1Declaring and Instantiating Multidimensional Arrays 9. 2Accessing Multidimensional Array Elements Chapter 10 Everything I covered on the two PowerPoint presentations on this subject Chapter 11 11. 1Simple Exception Handling 11. 2The java. io package 11. 3Reading and Writing Text Files 11. 6Writing and Appending to Structured Text Files Chapter 12 All Sections except 12. 8, 12. 12, 12. 16, 12. 18

Case Study of Management of Globalization at Ryanair

Case Study of Management of Globalization at Ryanair With increasing globalisation, numbers of companies are entering different foreign markets but some of them only attain success. This is because of their lack of knowledge about free markets advantages and limitations and role of enterprise within organisations (Brooke 1996). Firms that operate by assessing the impact of globalisation are much able to operate successfully rather than the firms that operate without analysing the impact of globalisation (Vittorio 2006). In this report all these aspects will be discussed with the help of a company, Ryan Air that is one of the oldest and most flourishing low-cost airlines of Europe (About Us 2011). This report will be completed by analyzing all previous researches or studies done in this field and its implications in real life. Different researchers and theorist have analysed free markets, globalisation and role of enterprise within organizations. With their analyses they have also given different theories and approaches that can be use d in a workplace to maximise its opportunities. All these theories and approaches will be used to analyse that what extent free market conditions have allowed Ryan Air to grow and prosper (Iyer & Masters 2000). As well it will also describe, at what extent the company had benefitted from free market conditions and to what extent it was constrained by limitations on this market. In addition to this, here it will also be analysed that how company and other markets are driven by enterprise led organisations. In the end, it will also be analysed that what extent the air travel market relies on globalisation and what is the importance of global expansion for Ryan Air. As well, in this report the importance of global markets in other industries will also be evaluated along with the analysis of importance of globalisation. Critical Evaluation of Ryan Air’s Entry Ryan Air was established in the year 1985 and it entered low cost European air travel market as a low cost airline. The co mpany attained huge success in Europe and it was all because of free market conditions (About Us 2011). The company success due to free market conditions can be understood effectively by critically evaluating it along with the discussion of its benefits and limitations. Significance of Free Market Conditions to Ryanair: Free market conditions refer to an economy or market in which buying and selling of products and services is done without any restriction related to price and valuation. European air travel market is also highly affected with free market conditions that in turn have also affected Ryan Air (Brooke 1996). The company is highly affected by free market conditions and it is an important reason of its growth and success. Due to the effect of free market conditions, the company along with its competitors has become able in allowing market forces to determine the price and values of air travel offered by them (Vittorio 2006). The free market concept was initially conceptuali zed throughout the First World War but in present it has become a reason of number of economies success. With the free market conditions of Europe, Ryan Air has derived various benefits like flexibility, freedom, and variety that in turn assist it in growing its business operations in Europe and in other foreign countries (Suneja 2000). With the free market conditions like deregulation and free market entry, Ryanair has been able to exploit the Irish and subsequently the European transport market (Brophy & George 2003).

Advantages and disadvantages of the commercial use of strong Essay

Advantages and disadvantages of the commercial use of strong cryptographic products - Essay Example Private keys are not supposed to be revealed or transmitted to any other individual. On the other hand, secret-key systems have to be transmitted through a communication channel or manually since the same key used for decryption is also used for encryption. In this case, the might be serious threat of an enemy discovering the secret key when it is being transmitted (Guo and Jin 2011). In addition public-key systems can provide signatures digitally thus preventing repudiation. During authentication through secret-key systems, there is the need of sharing secrets and in other cases it requires the involvement of a third party. This third party can go against the other members and repudiate a message that was previously authenticated and claim the shared secret was compromised. For example, a company may involve a central database that keeps copies in its secret-key system authentication. If this central database is attacked, a widespread forgery on the product of this company would occur. Public-key authentication can prevent this forgery and secure the products of the company. Cryptography has the disadvantage of speed during encryption. Some encryptions methods are faster than others but they take time to encrypt. In order to maximally reduce the time used during encryption, it is advisable to combine several methods to obtain security advantages and speed. This is done by using public-key systems together with secret-key systems. Public key-systems have the advantage of security while secret key systems have the advantage of speed. This protocol is normally referred to as digital envelope (Mollin 2001). The creation of the code used in the encryption and decryption process takes time. For one to figure out the best code to use they have to be an expert in that field and at the same time is patient. This makes the process of make the process of cryptography a hectic and tiring one. In the past sending a code from one person

Employee motivation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Employee motivation - Essay Example Making an employee feel that they are working towards a better result for themselves and the company, is the best way for an organization to initiate motivation among their work force and offer the best results in relation to the productivity that the company is able to achieve. Though the issue of employee motivation involves the entire organization as a whole, the main people who are involved in ensuring that this motivation exists are the individuals in management positions. This is because they are the ones who deal directly with the different sections of the work force and thus are in an advantageous position to better understand the employees and what it will take to sufficiently motivate them to work harder (Allen & Heidi, 2011). The managers in the company are also in a sense directly responsible for the attitude that employees will have towards the organization as they are deemed to be the representatives of the company. Thus, their treatment of their subordinates technically reflects how the company views their employees (Jon & Paul, 2009). This means that if the employees are mistreated on a frequent basis or are simply treated with callousness by their superiors, they will automatically assume that the company does not care about them. This is n ot concerned about their wellbeing despite the fact that the employees of higher positions may not even be informed of what is going on within the lower ranks as they may have put their trust on those appointed to take care of the work force and see no need for vigorous supervision of their activities. However, ignorance has still no excuse for the poor treatment of a company’s work force. It is the organization’s duty to ensure that their employees’ morale remains high and should track their attitude and level of motivation on a frequent basis to ensure that this goal is not only achieved, but maintained (Jon & Paul, 2009). This can be done by concentrating on

Business plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business plan - Assignment Example Our company therefore aims to target this area by producing electrical power that will also fulfill the demands of future consumers. Production cost of solar energy is minimal once our project is operational. Our company will aim to benefit from the shortfall that exists in the area by producing clean electrical energy by the use of solar power. The rising prices of electricity are an additional benefit in terms of earnings for the company that is likely to make the project a huge success in a very short period of time. Reduced cost of production of electricity will also provide us a competitive advantage over the traditional producers of power, thereby making it possible to offer electricity at lowered prices than the current market rates. The society is well aware of the fact that solar energy is the safest form of energy since there is almost no pollution associated with the use of this form of energy. Due to this reason a high degree of acceptability is likely to result for our proposed project. This will reduce our cost for promotional activities (e.g advertising) that are otherwise required to grab the attention of users. Elevated acceptance of our project will definitely provide us an edge over our traditional competitors which we will use to establish our customer base. The previously used solar panels for energy production were efficient in the range of less than 25%. However, with the passage of time, the technology has advanced and now it has become possible to attain an efficiency of close to 50%. Our plan is to use the latest technology for our project which will increase productivity and will continue to serve the purpose for an extended period of time. Moreover, extra production means the ability to expand our market further. Keeping in view the fact that solar energy is green (clean), there is general consensus that the promotion of

Fences (play) by August Wilson Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fences (play) by August Wilson - Essay Example he name of the play comes from the request made by Rose that Tory and Cory build a fence around their backyard which seems to represent her wish to keep the family together. It also shows her desire to keep those whom she loves close to her within the same house even if they are not really willing or able to stay with her. Despite these wishes of a perfect family oriented life, Rose is not someone who lives in the dream world since she is quite a realist in her expectations. The backdrop of the drama is taking place against race issues and the development of the idea of being African American while living with all the prejudice and hatred one has to suffer as an African American. In this sense, Rose does not have a longing for better days to come or a nostalgic approach which is displayed by other characters. She accepts what she has been given in life and the role she has to play in the world is very clear to her since she is a mother and wife to the best of her abilities. She is certainly trying to improve her condition through practical and available means such as asking her son and husband to build a fence for her but she does not seek out things which might be too much to ask for from the world. In fact, the only thing she does seek quite strongly is a bright future for her own son. She supports his decision to play football and supports him fully in his struggle to be a player that can overcome the barriers placed before him due to his race. As further proof of her compassion, she accepts the illegitimate child of her husband with open arms even though she does not forgive her husband for cheating on her. This reflects the nurturing and sensitive side of her nature and it does certainly add to her character as a mother figure. As a mother figure, Rose certainly goes through her trials and tribulations the least of which is coming to terms with seeing the proof of her husband’s faithlessness in front of her. However, it is her mother instinct which takes

Nursing Learning Experiences Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Nursing Learning Experiences - Coursework Example The study analyses the nine essential aspects that outline the results expected of graduates of baccalaureate nursing. The essentials enhance a nurse graduate to work in diverse fields because they oblige an individual to integrate skills, knowledge and attitudes developed from the study in his or her daily activities. The nine essentials are the key to nursing activities; they involve learning and portraying knowledge and skills in all aspects of nursing. Through this essential, nurses learn that good cohesion between a nurse and the community is very essential in nursing profession. It enhances success in most of the activities involving patient care. According to â€Å"The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Practice† (2008), liberal education constitute broad understanding of wide scope of science, cultures, social practices, and ability to implement the learnt elements in overcoming complex problems and challenges. From this, it is evident that nurses d o learn that having broad understanding of different cultures as well as social practices assist significantly in offering nursing care to patients from different backgrounds. It is also evident that broad understanding of science as well as arts enables a nurse to solve complex problems and challenges associated with nursing care. It is evident that broad understanding of cultures as well as social practices enables a nurse to advance his or her leadership skills through intermingling with people of different societies and cultural practices easily.

Business and Consumer Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business and Consumer Society - Essay Example When the consumer buys and consumes more, he has wealth and satisfied, than producing more of what he cannot fully utilized. It is advantageous to create more employment, give skills and knowledge to consumers to be independent. This will create more producers and universal employment. Building projects on consumer’s choices reduce the expected targets, therefore, investing on the production of skilled and knowledgeable consumers leads to more production and sustainability (Bauman 203). When there is adequate disposal of consumer choices, the consumer will have more variety of products. The same to the producers, when they have a variety of products targeting all range of consumers, the producers will have a wide range of consumers who utilize their produce. For example, when a food processing company produces a variety of food products, like margarine, peanut, cooking fat, and honey, it targets a wide range of consumers. The consumers who do not use honey may opt for peanut. It is difficult to plan for the consumer products that one has not yet acquired. When one plans, for what has not acquired, he may run short on the targeted budget. So it is advisable to create consumer products that target all the wide range of consumers’ needs. ... Though it is a good business, there was no immediate market for the produce. The firm ended up closing down because there was no market for the animal feeds. The firm ran at an enormous loss. Therefore, before putting up a business, take time to study the market and the favorable conditions for business. Demand for consumer products plays a leading role in the consumer products. Sufficient markets for the products reduce the wastage of consumer products. Demand for consumer products helps in the acquisition, the distribution and the use of these consumer goods. With sufficient demand of the consumer goods, there will be the adequate equitable of the consumer goods. This will make the producers produce be utilized by the consumers (Bauman 219). Creating demand for products enables the sustainability and specialization in the economy. The producers will have their market where they sell their products and consumers will get the products they need (Bauman 67). The producers should creat e market for the products they are producing for the already existing market they have created. This will enhance equitable in the products produced, and development in the resources produced. Resources is fully utilized when the demand for the finished products is available, reducing the wastage of finished goods and services. All the targeted consumers will receive the products of their choice. This leads to specialization enhancing development of other sectors in the economy. Therefore, it is advisable take time and knows ones demand and the markets. When the market has been known, selling and buying of consumer products will be easily and successful. This will enhance full

Nursing Learning Experiences Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Nursing Learning Experiences - Coursework Example The study analyses the nine essential aspects that outline the results expected of graduates of baccalaureate nursing. The essentials enhance a nurse graduate to work in diverse fields because they oblige an individual to integrate skills, knowledge and attitudes developed from the study in his or her daily activities. The nine essentials are the key to nursing activities; they involve learning and portraying knowledge and skills in all aspects of nursing. Through this essential, nurses learn that good cohesion between a nurse and the community is very essential in nursing profession. It enhances success in most of the activities involving patient care. According to â€Å"The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Practice† (2008), liberal education constitute broad understanding of wide scope of science, cultures, social practices, and ability to implement the learnt elements in overcoming complex problems and challenges. From this, it is evident that nurses d o learn that having broad understanding of different cultures as well as social practices assist significantly in offering nursing care to patients from different backgrounds. It is also evident that broad understanding of science as well as arts enables a nurse to solve complex problems and challenges associated with nursing care. It is evident that broad understanding of cultures as well as social practices enables a nurse to advance his or her leadership skills through intermingling with people of different societies and cultural practices easily.

Managerial economics Essay Example for Free

Managerial economics Essay 1. If a firm raises its price for Product X, TR will increase. Uncertain, Total revenue = Price Ãâ€" Quantity Sold. The price elasticity of demand tells us there are two eï ¬â‚¬ects, first is price eï ¬â‚¬ect. If price increase, each unit sold sells for a higher price, which tends to raise revenue. Second is quantity eï ¬â‚¬ect. If price increase, fewer units are sold, which tends to lower revenue. This is determines by which price eï ¬â‚¬ect or the quantity eï ¬â‚¬ect is stronger 2. When MR MC, MP (marginal profit) will be positive.  True, for each unit sold, marginal profit equals marginal revenue (MR) minus marginal cost (MC). Then, if MR is greater than MC at some level of output, marginal profit is positive and thus a greater quantity should be produced. 3. If a 10% increase in price leads to a 5% increase in TR, demand must be elastic. False, if an increase in price causes an increase in total revenue, then demand can be said to be inelastic, since the increase in price does not have a large impact on quantity demanded. 4. If the cross price elasticity is positive for two goods X and Y, X and Y must be complements. False, if the goods are complements, the value will be negative because quantity demanded increases when the price of complement falls. Example, if the price of petrol decreases to RM2 a litre, sales of cars would increase. 5. Maximizing TR is never a desirable goal for a firm.  True, profit is the difference between a firms total revenue and its total opportunity cost. Total revenue is the amount of income earned by selling products. But it does not include the total opportunity costs of all inputs into the production process. Hence, it is never a desirable goal for a firm. Firm should consider maximizing Profit instead of TR. 6. The more inelastic the demand, the more likely it is that a firm can have regular price increases. True, if firm have regular increase in price (refer to Appendix 1) from P4 to P5, the decrease in the quantity demanded is relatively small (from Q4 to Q5). It means that, the more inelastic the  demand, the percentage change in quantity demanded is less than percentage change price. Hence, firm can have regular price increases. 7. If EP = -1.25 for Group A, and EP = -.375 for Group B, and a firm uses price discrimination, Group A should pay a higher price than Group B. False, Group A is elastic and Group B is inelastic. The consumers in the inelastic sub-market will be charged the higher price, and those in the elastic sub market will be charged the lower price. So Group B should pay higher price. Please refer to Appendix 2 for illustration. 8. A consumer spends 1% of her income on Good A and 25% on Good B. Price Elasticity of Demand should be greater for Good B. True, if the consumer spends less of her income, means that Good A is a necessity good and spends more of her income means that Good B is a luxury good. Luxuries tend to more elastic than necessities as there are more options for consumer. 9. Income elasticity for an inferior good is always negative. True, because quantity demand falls as income rises. Quantity demanded and income move opposite directions, inferior goods have negative elasticity. 10. The more inelastic the demand, the flatter the demand curve. False, inelastic demand have steeper curve because quantity demanded does not respond strongly to price changes. Please refer to Appendix 3 for illustration. For a inelastic demand product such as cigarettes, when price increase by 10%, the quantity demanded will fall by 3.8%. 11. If demand goes from P = 1850 .05Q to P = 1700 .05Q, Demand has increased. False. If P = 1850 .05Q then Qd= 37000-20P and if P = 1700 .05Q, then Qd= 34000-20P. The demand curve shift to left and hence, the demand decreases. Please refer to Appendix 4 for illustration 12. If TC goes from TC = 1250 + .5Q to TC = 1200 + .6Q, FC have gone up and VC have gone down. False, because TC=TFC+TVC. From the equation above shows that, the FC decreases leads TFC to fall from 1250 to 1200 and the VC increases leads TVC to gone up from 0.5 to 0.6. Part B (Explain in a short Essay (not more than 1 page each)) 1) Define demand, discuss various determinants of demand. Demand is the quantities of good or service that consumers are willing to buy at various prices within some given period of time. Holding all other factors constant, the price of a good or service increases as its demand increases and vice versa. When factors other than price changes, demand  curve will shift. There are 5 determinants of the demand curve. First factor is price of related goods. A good or service can be related to another by being a substitute or complement. If price of a substitute changes, we expect the demand for the good under consideration to change in the same direction as the change in the substitute’s price. For instance, if the price of coffee rises, the demand for tea should increase. The complement goods are the goods that can be used together. Price of complement and demand for the other good are negatively related. Example, if the price of sugar increases, the demand for coffee will fall. Second factor is income, as people’s income rises, it is reasonable to expect their demand for a good to increase and vice versa, the demand curve will shift right. A fall in income will lead to a decrease in demand for normal goods. Goods whose demand varies inversely with income are called inferior goods. Third determinant is future expectation. If enough, buyers expect the price of a good rises in future, the current demand will increase. Also, if consumers’ current demand will increase, they expect higher future income. For example, in 2005 housing prices rose, but people bought more because they expected the price to continue to go up. This drove prices even further, until the bubble burst in 2006 (Stafffullcoll.edu. n.d.). Forth factor is tastes and preferences. This is the desire, emotion, or preference for a good or service. If consumer preference is favorable change will leads to an increase in demand. Likewise, unfavorable change leads to a decrease in demand. Example, companies spend thousands on advertising to make you feel strongly that you want a product. Last determinant is number of buyer. If the number of buyers in market rises, the demand increases. For example, the housing bubble case. Low-cost mortgages increased the number of people who were told they could afford a house. The number of buyers actually increased, driving up the demand for housing. When they found they really couldnt afford the mortgage, especially when housing prices started to fall, they foreclosed. This reduced the number of buyers, and demand also fell. 2) Briefly explain the concept of Law of diminishing returns? Discuss its assumption and importance? The law of diminishing marginal returns means that the productivity of a variable input declines as more is used  in short-run production, holding one or more inputs fixed. This law has a direct behavior on market supply, the supply price, and the law of supply. The main reasons the marginal product (MP) of this variable input declines is the fixed input. The fixed input imposes a capacity constraint on short-run production. For example, in a sandwich production, the size of the sandwich-producing kitchen and equipment is fixed. The company employs additional workers, the kitchen becomes increasingly crowded. Only so many workers can use the sandwich-preparation counter to prepare sandwich. While adding additional workers do increase total sandwich production, the extra production attributable to these workers is certain to fall as the capacity of the fixed input is limited. In fact, adding too many workers actually results in a negative marginal product, hence, total product falls. The law of diminishing marginal returns is reflected in the shapes and slopes of the total product, marginal product, and average product curves. The most important of these being the negative slope of the marginal product curve. Appendix 5 shows the graph three product curves. The total product (TP) curve shows that the total number of Sandwich Company produced per hour for a given amount of labor. The increasingly flatter slope of the TP is attributable to the law of diminishing marginal returns. Also, the marginal product curve indicates how the total production of Sandwich Company changes when an extra worker is hired. The negatively-sloped portion of the MP curve is a direct embodiment of the law of diminishing marginal returns. Further, the average product curve indicates the average number of Sandwich Company produced by workers. The negatively-sloped portion of the AP curve is indirectly caused by the law of diminishing marginal returns. As marginal product declines, due to the law of diminishing marginal returns, it also causes a decrease in average product. 3) Explain the various economies and diseconomies of scale? Economies of scale are the cost advantages that a business can exploit by expanding the scale of production. The effect is to reduce the long run average (unit) costs of production. Economies of scale have brought down the unit costs of production and feeding through to lower prices for consumers (appendix 6). It could be achieved by buying new machinery, and build a bigger factory. There are two types of economy of scale and depending on the particular characteristics of an industry, some are more important than others. Firstly, internal economies of scale are a  product of how efficient a firm is at producing, that is specific to individual firm. Example, advantages are enjoyed by expansion. Next, external economies of scale occur outside of a firm but within an industry. Example, industry’s scope of operations expand due to better transportation network, will result a decrease in cost for a company working within industry, , external economies of scale have been achieved. Diseconomies of scale are the forces that cause larger firms to produce goods and services at increased per unit costs. The concept is the opposite of economies of scale to a situation which economies of scale no longer function for a firm. Rather than experiencing continued decreasing costs per increase in output, firms see an increase in marginal cost when output is increased (appendix 6). When a firm expands its production scale beyond a certain level, it suffers certain disadvantages. These disadvantages are called internal diseconomies of scale. The result of these diseconomies of scale is a fall run average cost. There are a number of factors that might give rise to inefficiencies as the size of the firm grows. As the size of the firm grows beyond a certain level, organization, control and planning is needed. This makes the managerial responsibilities more difficult. Delegation of the management functions to lower personnel becomes very common. Since the lower personnel lack the adequate experience to undertake the task, it may result in low output at higher cost. All these lead to an increase in the long-run average cost. Further, the external diseconomies of scale are beyond the control of a company increases its total costs, as output in the rest of the industry increases. The increase in costs can be associated with market prices increasing for some or all of the factors of production. For instance, high competition for labor, when there is more firms in industry, there will be increased demand for labor, making the best workers harder to keep (Keat and Young, 2009). References Stafffullcoll.edu. n.d. DETERMINANTS OF DEMAND. [online] Available at: http://staffwww.fullcoll.edu/fchan/macro/1determinants_of_demand.htm [Accessed: 28 Mar 2014]. Keat, P.G. and Young, P.K.Y., 2009 ‘Managerial Economics: 6th ed. Economic Tools for Today’s Decision Makers’. Pg. 266-268

Main Concerns In Internet Banking Information Technology Essay

Main Concerns In Internet Banking Information Technology Essay The Internet banking is changing the banking industry and is having the major effects on banking relationships. Even the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Internet research emphasised that Web is more important for retail financial services than for many other industries. Internet banking involves use of Internet for delivery of banking products services. It falls into four main categories, from Level 1 minimum functionality sites that offer only access to deposit account data to Level 4 sites highly sophisticated offerings enabling integrated sales of additional products and access to other financial services- such as investment and insurance. In other words a successful Internet banking solution offers  · Exceptional rates on Savings, CDs, and IRAs  · Checking with no monthly fee, free bill payment and rebates on ATM surcharges  · Credit cards with low rates  · Easy online applications for all accounts, including personal loans and mortgages  · 24 hour account access  · Quality customer service with personal attention DRIVERS OF CHANGE Advantages previously held by large financial institutions have shrunk considerably. The Internet has leveled the playing field and afforded open access to customers in the global marketplace. Internet banking is a cost-effective delivery channel for financial institutions. Consumers are embracing the many benefits of Internet banking. Access to ones accounts at anytime and from any location via the World Wide Web is a convenience unknown a short time ago. Thus, a banks Internet presence transforms from brouchreware status to Internet banking status once the bank goes through a technology integration effort to enable the customer to access information about his or her specific account relationship. The six primary drivers of Internet banking includes, in order of primacy are:  · Improve customer access  · Facilitate the offering of more services  · Increase customer loyalty  · Attract new customers  · Provide services offered by competitors  · Reduce customer attrition INDIAN BANKS ON WEB The banking industry in India is facing unprecedented competition from non-traditional banking institutions, which now offer banking and financial services over the Internet. The deregulation of the banking industry coupled with the emergence of new technologies, are enabling new competitors to enter the financial services market quickly and efficiently. Indian banks are going for the retail banking in a big way. However, much is still to be achieved. This study which was conducted by students of IIML shows some interesting facts:  · Throughout the country, the Internet Banking is in the nascent stage of development (only 50 banks are offering varied kind of Internet banking services).  · In general, these Internet sites offer only the most basic services. 55% are so called entry level sites, offering little more than company information and basic marketing materials. Only 8% offer advanced transactions such as online funds transfer, transactions cash management services.  · Foreign Private banks are much advanced in terms of the number of sites their level of development. EMERGING CHALLENGES Information technology analyst firm, the Meta Group, recently reported that financial institutions who dont offer home banking by the year 2000 will become marginalized. By the year of 2002, a large sophisticated and highly competitive Internet Banking Market will develop which will be driven by  · Demand side pressure due to increasing access to low cost electronic services.  · Emergence of open standards for banking functionality.  · Growing customer awareness and need of transparency.  · Global players in the fray  · Close integration of bank services with web based E-commerce or even disintermediation of services through direct electronic payments (E- Cash).  · More convenient international transactions due to the fact that the Internet along with general deregulation trends, eliminate geographic boundaries.  · Move from one stop shopping to Banking Portfolio i.e. unbundled product purchases. Certainly some existing brick and mortar banks will go out of business. But thats because they fail to respond to the challenge of the Internet. The Internet and its underlying technologies will change and transform not just banking, but all aspects of finance and commerce. It represents much more than a new distribution opportunity. It will enable nimble players to leverage their brick and mortar presence to improve customer satisfaction and gain share. It will force lethargic players who are struck with legacy cost basis, out of business-since they are unable to bring to play in the new context. MAIN CONCERNS IN INTERNET BANKING In a survey conducted by the Online Banking Association, member institutions rated security as the most important issue of online banking. There is a dual requirement to protect customers privacy and protect against fraud. Banking Securely: Online Banking via the World Wide Web provides an overview of Internet commerce and how one company handles secure banking for its financial institution clients and their customers. Some basic information on the transmission of confidential data is presented in Security and Encryption on the Web. PC Magazine Online also offers a primer: How Encryption Works. A multi-layered security architecture comprising firewalls, filtering routers, encryption and digital certification ensures that your account information is protected from unauthorised access:  · Firewalls and filtering routers ensure that only the legitimate Internet users are allowed to access the system.  · Encryption techniques used by the bank (including the sophisticated public key encryption) would ensure that privacy of data flowing between the browser and the Infinity system is protected.  · Digital certification procedures provide the assurance that the data you receive is from the Infinity system. Concluding Part Claus Nehmzow, a Principal in the Information Technology Group in London at Booz Allen Hamilton, writes of some compelling research findings and offers his projections for European banks in The Internet Will Shake Backings Medieval Foundations. He believes the low transaction cost will make banking on the Net irresistible, but also that this will require institutions to carefully consider and plan customer relations programs.  · It is believed that everything will be determined by content and context, and where execution will be key. From a customer and service provider perspective, this is where the world is moving-it is going to be real-time, on-line, personalisation for both marketing and the service experience. If existing banks dont want to disappear, it is this challenge of Integration that they need to embrace in order to win and survive. The more things change, the less they change. In the months and years-ahead are going to be how Service Providers integrate and market their offerings across different channels. The strategic and executional battles of the future are going to be fought for Channel Integration. What does Channel Integration means? It means that an institution presents an identical face to the customer-be it in the branch, on the web, at an ATM or for that matter, through a sales representative or a broker. An identical face, an identical message. Or better still, messages that re inforce each other. If a sales representative tries to sell you a housing loan, you get e-mail a day later reminding you about the loan. Thats called Integrated Sales, which results in incremental economic activity and improved efficiencies of communications. Channel Integration across the phone web can clearly lead to a gain of several percentage points of GDP. The beauty of this approach is that one channel does not displace another. They feed on each other to create incremental value for the customer, as well as the institution. The incremental value comes from two distinct sources. Firstly, you reduce inefficiencies. You dont send people junk mail because you know that they are not likely to buy a particular product or service today. That results in net saving for the economy. Secondly, you persuade people at the right time (the right time from the customers perspective, not from the service providers perspective) to opt for a tailor made offering. This too increases value. Actu ally, this has to do with the Internet itself, and more to with the underlying technologies of the Internet which allow incremental efficiency, and empowers the customer to make more enlightened and timely choices.  · Lastly the product range is another issue which becomes important. It will take a technological revolution to make available advanced banking products on the net and given the rate at which the technology is developing we can expect this to happen in near future. STRATEGIES TO BE ADOPTED BY INDIAN BANKS Internet banking would drive us into an age of creative destruction due to non-physical exchange, complete transparency giving rise to perfectly electronic market place and customer supremacy. The question to be asked right now is What the Indian Banks should do Whatever is the strategy chosen and options adopted, certain key parameters would determine the banks success on web: 1. For long term success, a bank may follow:  · Adopting a webs mindset  · Catching on the first movers advantage  · Recognising the core competencies  · Ability to deal multiplicity with simplicity  · Senior Management initiative to transform the organisation from inward to outward looking  · Aligning roles and value propositions with the customer segments  · Redesigning optimal channel portfolio  · Acquiring new capabilities through strategic alliances. 2. The above can be implemented in four steps:  · Familiarising the customer to new environment by demo version of software on banks web site. This should contain tour through the features which are to be included. It will enable users to give suggestions for improvements, which can be incorporated in later versions wherever feasible.  · Second phase provides services such as account information and balances, statement of account, transaction tracking, mail box, check book issue, stop payment, financial and customised information.  · The third phase may include additional services such as fund transfers, DD issue, standing instructions, opening fixed deposits, intimation of loss of ATM cards.  · The last step should include advanced corporate banking services like third party payments, utility bill payments, establishment of L/Cs, Cash Management Services etc. Enhanced plan for the customers in future can include requests for demand drafts and pay orders and many more to bring in the ultimate in banking convenience. All the above strategies will help banks in translating their traditional business model into an Internet one, falling into three main categories  · One stop shop  · Virtual one-stop-shop  · Best of breed supplier.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a Fantasy Epic Essay -- Tolkien Hobbit Es

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a Fantasy Epic    "Long ago in my grandfather Thror's time our family was driven out of the far North. . . . It had later been discovered by my far ancestor, Thrain the Old, they mined and they tunnelled and they made huger halls and greater workshops-and in addition I believe they found a good deal of gold and a great many jewels too. Anyway, they grew immensley rich and famous, and my grandfather was King under the Mountain again. . . . Undoubtedly that was what brought the dragon. Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know. . . . There was a most specially greedy strong and wicked worm called Smaug. . . . [W]ell, from a good way off we saw the dragon settle on our mountain in a spout of flame. . . . and has been there ever sense. . . . we have never forgotten our stolen treasure. . . . we still mean to get it back, and to bring our curses home to Smaug" (31-33). This is the goal of all the main characters that J.R.R. Tolkien portrays in the novel, The Hobbit. It starts as any normal day for Bilbo, sitting in his quiet home, enjoying the piece and quiet and having a good smoke. The next thing Bilbo knows, an old friend named Gandalf appears before him. They reminisce for awhile about past times and lost adventures. Gandalf finally decides to leave Bilbo in piece, but not without convincing him of the journey they should soon embark on. Bilbo wakes up the next day to find thirteen knew faces in his home. Thirteen dwarves to be exact. They continue to propose to Bilbo the plan of stealing back the gold and treasures that was once theirs. Before Bilbo knows what's going on, he sets out, with his new friends, to conquer the Dragon that stole not only their riches, but also the lives of many men who d... ...e found. . . . That is why I settled on burglary. . . . And here is our little Bilbo Baggins, the burglar" (30). This quote is a perfect example of how The Hobbit is unusual. Not only is Bilbo not a fierce warrior, but he is also a thief. Heroes usually have the record of being loyal and honorable, but because Bilbo is a burglar, he isn't quite as honorable as most would think. In The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien takes the reader on a unique fantasy epic without the traits of previous epics like Homer's Illiad. By using the different traits, the hobbit has set a new standard for modern epics, and will continue to inspire future authors to compose classic yet groundbreaking novels.       Works Cited    Harmon, William, and Holman, C. H. "Epic," Handbook to Literature. New York: Macmillian, 1992.    Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966.

Greed in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby :: Great Gatsby Essays

Gatsby and Greed In this day and age, money is a very important asset to have. One needs to have at least enough to live on, though great amounts are preferable. In The Great Gatsby, by Thomas F. Fitzgerald, having a large amount of money is not enough. It is also the way you acquire the money that matters. Gatsby and Tom both have a lot of money yet Daisey picks one over the other, not because of the difference in the amount they have, but because of the manner in which it is attained. To the main characters in the book, money is everything. Tom, Gatsby, and Daisey are all consumed by money and its prestige. Gatsby uses his money as a tool to lure Daisey back into his life by giving her a tour of his possessions inside and outside his house. Because Daisey seems to fall in love with Gatsby again, it shows that she was not really in love with Tom, it was his "old" money that she is truly in love with. Money is important to Tom and Daisey because it makes them feel superior to those who have less. All of these characters have been corrupted by their greed but the one person that has not is Nick, Daisey's cousin. He is nice enough to help Gatsby with Daisey out of friendship, not for his money. In the book, money symbolizes a social evil as it destroys lives of people corrupted by wealth. In the first chapter, Fitzgerald treats money as if it was a cookie cutter for social classes and tells how wealth divides the society into different groups. For instance, East Eggers have "inherited money" whereas West Eggers have newly acquired money. Tom is an example of an East Egger who has "prestigiously" inherited quite a lot of "old" money. Gatsby is a West Egger who by boot legging, swindling and doing favors for others, has acquired "new" money. The difference between social and economic classes is best demonstrated by the comparison between Tom and Gatsby. Tom was born an East Egger, which was something that Gatsby could never achieve. No matter what he did, he would always be a West Egger. Although Gatsby could have been an economic equal to Tom, he would never be a social equal.

Mcdonalds

Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds Mcdonalds Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds Mcdonalds Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds