Logistic Trend in Asean Countries Essay Example for Free

Logistic Trend in Asean Countries Essay ASEAN logistic Trend and Preferences ASEAN logistic trend and preferences have been dramatically changing since the world’s economy and production growth have been shifting toward ASEAN countries. However, the high logistic costs among these countries are unable to promote high quality and wide range of logistic service to international customers. Still, these countries acquire to eliminate the high costs to provide customer satisfaction and being cost efficiency. The inefficiency of logistic in ASEAN countries, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, is mainly due to lack of skilled and professional personnel, insufficient support of facilities and infrastructure which can raise defect the movement of cargos and distribution goods. For example, in Singapore has professional skilled workforce, high quality and wide range of logistic services, highly efficient logistics operations and excellent infrastructure and information system had lead to more sustainable supply chains and cost effectiveness. Unlike Singapore, some of the Asian countries must build the requirements to meet supply chains efficiency. Especially Thailand wants to become a regional transport center; Thailand must improve its infrastructure linkages to connect with neighboring countries. On the other hand, these countries must be proactive to take advantage of its location because this is a golden opportunity. To provide cost saving and flexible value added services, these countries must take initiative changes and improvement to proof that they are capable of offering logistic efficiency. Meanwhile, these counties must increase the quality of its reliability of inventory management and order fulfillment . i. e they must keep up with the effective and efficient logistic service. To fulfill the customer’s order, the logistic service in these countries must know the right product, right quantity, right condition, right place, right time, and right customer at the right cost. Focusing on existing network coverage is also a key to success in logistic management for these countries because it is a very important criterion where company can attract international trade customers. It is most likely that transportation is the most outsourcing logistic activity at inbound and outbound supply chain. Other out bound logistic activities are warehousing which is value added service, packaging, and labeling. Transportation, warehousing, freight forwarding must be managed well in order to provide cost effectiveness and high quality logistic service which can achieve high customer satisfaction. Finding Supply Chain Solutions Technology can help individual to improve their supply chains, cost efficient, high productivity, and customer satisfaction. Technologies nowadays are so advanced that they can provide any possible solution for supply chains and productions. The latest software offers to promote demand planning, advanced planning and advanced scheduling. They can also minimize the wastage and maximize productivity level at lower long term operation costs with high quality. Nowadays, many of the manufacturer and enterprise use technology to increase their revenue. When comes to warehousing, technology can improve performance efficiency by calculating the right storage at the right space, minimizing defective or expired product, delay and maximizing efficiency. In considering the huge quantity and diverse categories of products, holding costs and production costs must be managed with the right method. Implying low cost and random selection of inefficient storage could cause delay delivery, cost of lost of sales, the transportation of goods, and high incidence of missing stock. To avoid these barriers, the most up to dated computer software is available to assist the logistic manager to track delivery, freight forwarding, order fulfillment and ultimately customer service. When the company decided to set up a plan, he must take into account of transportation cost. It must meet customer’s needs and cost effective, and order fulfillment at any situation. So it requites to consider locations of plants and market place, actual distance of linkages, frequency of delivery, number of routes, volume of goods, product categories, and on time delivery. Supplier Development When it comes to business, all managers must be proactive and innovative. They also need to build and keep loyal and close relationship with their supplier. On the other hands, in the market economy system, everyone is supplier in one way or another. So having single supplier is not smart choice to play the game in the free market. Having one or few suppliers can cause not only limited control but also threats to the business. Thus, the best ways to be proactive and cost effective is having multiple sources or supplier which provides lowers costs, and innovation. But need inspection to monitor the quality. In order to do so, the companies should be able to outsource its production. In outsourcing, it is most likely to reduce the fixed cost and other costs. So developing alternative sources for raw material, manufacturing, or transpiration is likely to account for value chain. A smart business man would construct the strategic sources of supplier to avoid risks. Then they are willing to keep closed relationship with major suppliers by partnership to share costing, investment, and long term agreements. It is true that building loyal supplier relationship is competitive advantage in logistic management. Targeting New Potential Market Muslims world is becoming next target for logistic services considering the estimated 1. 7 billion consumers across the world. Now, it is time for the manufacturer and logistic service provider to shine among the Muslims. The consumer needs and wants Halal that they can trust and rely on. Thus, the Halal compliance should be addressed to the sourcing and distribution because this is a potential opportunity for the logistic to accumulate as a new mega trend. As the opportunity and benefits seem to be huge, the investment is also a large one. To provide perfect logistic service, it is require understanding the market, culture, religion, way of consumption point and behavior in Muslims societies. The new standardization is compulsory in inters of supply chain which is material and information flows through manufacturing, transportation, storage, warehousing, distribution. So, the companies must select the targeted location of production and distribution, imply and conduct the new standards, control high quality and safety of food to gain huge potential growth of market.

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and O

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There The three titles of Maurice Sendak’s famous picture book trilogy, Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There, name what Judith Butler calls â€Å"zones of uninhabitability,† places of abjection that form the borders of the self as both its constitutive outside and its intimate interior. These are dangerous places in the geography of childhood, places where the child’s very life and sense of self is threatened. More frightening still, they are present places, places that exist in the same time that the child inhabits, rather than the once upon a mythical time of fairy tales and legends. Hence they are places that beckon the child to trespass the boundaries of their current lived social and material landscapes and explore. What does happen where the wild things are? What goes on in the night kitchen? What fascinations lurk outside over there? Indeed because they are the mysterious places belonging specifically to childhood, Max, Mickey, and Ida negotiate these places such that they are more comfortable and empowered within these borderlands than they are on the outside. Max becomes King of the Wild Things, Mickey is the hero of the night kitchen, and Ida rescues her sister from the goblins that inhabit â€Å"outside over there.† Even though the protagonist of each book is different, there is nonetheless the sense that this trilogy tells a developmental story, a story of the ways in which a clean and proper social body emerges or is constituted through certain exclusions, and how that which has been abjected returns in both threatening and joyful guises. Thus a reading of these stories as a developmental narrative where... ... embodiment that must be worked through in childhood—fantasies of cannibalistic consumption, of the morph-ability of bodies, of infantile sexuality—in order to construct the lived body of adulthood. But as Sendak understands, these fantasies never completely go away, but always return to haunt or thrill the adult subject as terror and jouissance. Works Cited: Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of â€Å"Sex.† New York: Routledge, 1993. Kristeva, Julia. â€Å"Place Names.† Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1980. Powers of Horror. Trans. by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. Sendak, Maurice. In the Night Kitchen. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Outside Over There. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

Lean Operations – Dell

Lean Operations Today – Case of Dell Computers Co. – [pic] Instructor: C. Liassides Thessaloniki, 18/5/10 City College, Business 2ab Spring Semester Lean Operations Today – Case of Dell Computers Co. – A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation. ~Andrew Grove There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. ~Peter F. Drucker AbstractAs the lean manufacturing philosophy has gained a lot of attention in the modern industry, this paper will analyze some basic concepts of lean operations and the importance of â€Å"Lean Thinking† in a competitive market. However, besides providing its advantages, the paper will have a close look at some most common managerial mistakes in implementing lean operations. Furthermore, through the real life case of Dell Company we will see how lean operations operate in practice and what difficulties may arise. – Table of Contents – Introduction3Literature Review – Lean Operations3 Dell – Lean to the Bone6 Conclusion8 Reference List9 Appendix11 Figure 111 Introduction For the last few decades there has been a great talk about lean operations. Many companies have decided to implement lean operations as a result of the global competition and the shift from batch production to more personalized, individual production. However, even though the system promises numerous advantages, companies out there still fail to get the best out of it and in most cases experience various losses.The reason for such misfortune lies in the superficial examination of lean operations. To be more straightforward, one thing is to talk about it, and one thing is to implement it. Therefore, throughout the paper we will discus the basic concept of lean operations and some components of lean operations that managers usually tend to oversee. Furthermore, based on the real life company, Dell Computers, we will see what lean means in practice, what are its biggest advantages, but also what are its disadvantages and how it might suffer in the future. Literature Review – Lean OperationsIt all started after the WWII when the competitive Japanese market was recovering from the war crises. At that time the economy was experiencing raw material leakage, fluctuating customer’s demand, and no capital for automation. The need for a different production approach was necessity (Percy and Rich, 2004). The fist ones with a different production approach were Eiji Toyado and Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Company who developed a lean production system ( i. e. Toyota Production System or TPS) or differently known as Just-In-Time (JIT) system (Stuart and Boyle, 2007).The system was nothing secret. It meant find the waste, eliminate the waste, have trucks deliver parts moments before they're needed (no inventor y), and know the demand (Levans, 2006). Further on, as the manufacturing industry grew, many different elements and techniques had started to adding up to the definition of lean, including six-sigma quality, visual display, defect prevention, one-piece flow, Kanban, setup time reduction, quality at source, just-in-time supply, preventative maintenance, value analysis and value stream mapping, etc. (Stuart and Boyle, 2007). According to Womack et al. 1990), depending on the type of manufacturing process, lean includes all these practices, but in different degrees of importance and intensity. Nevertheless, lean system as an operational system also has to manage on how to integrate all the those elements so they can fit and work together in order to attain waste reduction, production and quality improvement, as well as high workforce engagement (Stuart and Boyle, 2007). Regarding to Womack and Jones (1996), this integration of elements in a working cell that reduces waste, improves pro ductivity and quality, and enforces workforce engagements is called: â€Å"Lean Thinking†.Therefore, based on the success of processes used at Toyota, Womack and Jones (1996), proposes five key principles of the lean enterprise approach (see appendix, Figure 1) (Carnes and Hedin, 2005). The fist principle is called Value Stream Mapping (VSM). It is the process of â€Å"mapping the material and information flows of all components and sub-assemblies in a value stream that includes manufacturing, suppliers and distribution to the customer† (Seth and Gupta, 2005; p. 44). Once, we have mapped all wasteful activities[1] we can start the process of elimination of those activities in every value stream (Percy and Rich, 2004).The third principle is making the value flow run constantly (Carnes and Hedin, 2005). In other words, avoiding batch production and inventory queues by keeping things moving. According to Percy and Rich (2004), this is usually done by using modular designs , cellular working, general purpose machines, quick changeovers, multi-skilled operators, etc. The forth principle is basing flow on customer demand (pull). This principle is founded on the Kanban or differently, Work Flow Control system which states that materials are released into production only when the customer demands them ( i. e. nly when needed) (Percy and Rich, 2004). Finally, the fifth principle implies continuous improvement and pursue of perfection (Carnes and Headin, 2004). However, according to Professional Engineering (2005) this is just the first step in the lean process. The important thing is how to â€Å"make it stick† over a long period of time. Regarding to Professional Engineering (2005) the problem is that the companies nowadays are too static. After they implement lean operations, they tend to â€Å"sit† and wait for the things to happen. However, what Vasilash (2000) points out, lean operations are like a â€Å"journey with no end† (p. 3 ). In order to get the positive results, companies need to be constantly committed to the lean operations that they are running. There is no such a thing as â€Å"Whew! We are done. Thank God it’s over. † As Vasilash (2000) states: â€Å"it is never over† – or if it is, than our implementation of lean operations was of no use. But besides being continuous, a company in order to be lean has to have â€Å"lean workforce† (Carnes and Hedin, 2004). This is the part of lean where the importance of management infrastructure comes in place. According to Vasilash (2000), lean is a behavior rather than a product.How a particular machine is being used and weather the machine is lean, depends primarily on the management infrastructure (the way that the manager organizes his workers). For example, if we put our grandmother behind an extra hi-tack computer that can do a billion things at the same time is not the same as if we would have a computer scientist. In the first case we would get much less machine utilization than in the second one. Therefore, we can say that it is the manager and the workers are the ones that makes the process lean. At the same time, it is not true that machines are unimportant.It is just that people within an organization are fundamental part of lean operations. Regarding to Vasilash (2000), comparing to products, information, supplier/customer, and process flow, management/trust and people are weighted as more important ( e. g. 50% comparing to 1. 6, 1. 8, etc. ). Moreover, Vasilash (2000) continues and states that before we start the process of implementation the fist thing that we should consider doing is building trust among the workers and managers and have them functionally organized. It is almost impossible to perform kaizen (Process/Flow) without considering management/trust and people.However, organizing workforce, building trust and commitment is not an easy thing to do. In other words, it is one of t he biggest problems of lean operations (Percy and Boyle, 2005). Regarding to Carnes and Hedin (2004), numerous companies worldwide experience the problem of employees and management resistance. These resistances come from lack of upper management support, poor employee training, resistance to change, etc. After all, we are not all Japanese. Dell – Lean to the Bone As we have already mentioned in the introduction – One thing is to talk about lean operations, and another is to implement them.Therefore, the following discussion will focus on how some major world corporations, such as Dell, have managed to successfully implement lean operations and get the best out of it. Back in 1984, the founder of Dell Computers Company, Michael Dell, came up with an extraordinary and amazing idea: Selling PCs directly to consumers, avoiding retail stores and limiting customer support, thus offering radically lower prices than the competitors (Kharif, 2005). Soon afterwards, the company grew at an amazing speed becoming a multibillion company and a leader in the industry (Chopra and Sodhi, 2004).However, what actually has made the company a leader in the industry is the implication of its â€Å"Direct† approach, mostly being based on the Toyota Production System (TPS). The company takes orders directly and than builds product according to the order (Kharif, 2005). According to Breen and Aneiro (2004), in order to make the built-to-order process run smoothly, Dell relies on its unique supply chain systems. As the orders come directly form the customers (demand pull), Dell is able to know the exact demand for a particular product at any operating market and thus alert the suppliers.The way it alerts the suppliers is by connecting all suppliers and suppliers’ suppliers together, so when the information about sold product arrives, everybody is dealing with it (Pritchard, 2002). By doing this, the company manages to keep its inventory level at the lowest possible points. As Michel Dell argues, when dealing with inventory it is all about flow (Pritchard, 2002). Manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland is one of the rare hyper-efficient factories in the world.Regarding to Breen and Aneiro (2004), it has no warehouse, assembles nearly 70,000 computers every 24 hours, has two hours of inventory in its factories, and a maximum of just 72 hours across its entire operation. In other words, by keeping its stock for as little time as possible, the company manages to keep costs to the minimum and makes sure that the customer gets the brand new parts. Furthermore, other characteristics of the Dell business model that goes along with the TPS are employee commitment and continuous improvement (Pritchard, 2002) A key part in the organization is people.According to (inside) â€Å"Dell has a highly skilled workforce and puts a strong emphasis on education. † (p. 16). As a result, workers show more pride in the quality of their work and are w illing to share ideas for further improvements (Kharif, 2005). Therefore, since there exists great employee commitment; continuous improvement in order to gain competitive advantage becomes unproblematic task. Regarding to Pritchard (2002), Dell is constantly working on improving its production process. One of the newer innovations is Dell’s PC cases that do not require any screws (snap shot system).This system simplifies assembly and at the same time improves reliability. At the end we can see that even though the Dell’s Direct Model is based on the TPS, it takes it to the new level. Its financial model is the company’s most powerful weapon on the market. The model creates a â€Å"cash-convention† cycle of 36 negative days by receiving payments from customers right away through credit cards the company is able to pull products directly form the supplier and builds and ships the product within 4 days (Breen and Aneiro, 2004). In other words, Dell is able finance its operation costs through suppliers.Another important aspect of the Direct Model is the management of supply-chain risk. Dell minimizes delay-related risk by using high-cost air transportation to deliver important parts from Far East, while for less expensive parts keeps some inventory that is shipped from the US on the regular basis. Moreover, Dell has some high-value suppliers in Asia on which it can rely on when needed (Breen and Aneiro, 2004). However, nowadays, there are too many academics out there suggesting that the Dell’s Direct Model is actually in crisis. They argue that it may no longer be an asset, but become a liability.One of such critics of the model is Berry Zellen (2004) who states that the biggest problem in Dell model is that the company is forgetting the basics of lean operations. As the years go on and the competition increase, the system is getting more and more complex which may result in terrible consequences. According to Gottfredson and As pinall (2005), in 70% of lean cases with an increase in complexity meant rising costs and hindering the profit growth. The catch is either to keep things simple and target what customers actually need or to raise the prices. In Dell’s case the company is doing exactly what it should not.It increases the complexity but keeps the prices low (Zellen, 2004). This managerial move according to Zellen (2004) may have a detrimental effect on the company’s further growth. The reason why is because slowly in the USA (Dell’s biggest market) computers are becoming a commodity (e. g. Apple) and the market is moving on to the new level leaving all non-followers in a horrible financial struggle. Conclusion As we have seen so far, the bottom line of lean operations is: have flexible technology, break down operations to the basic elements, frequent materials movements, speed, and most importantly Simplicity.Without simplicity, companies like Dell that once where the leaders of l ean operations are expected to experience some profit losses in the near future. The reason is that the company has forgone some of the basic principles of the lean philosophy – Constant Improvement and Keeping things Simple.

A Brief Note On The Civil Rights Movement - 1745 Words

Throughout ours lives we all have learned about history before our time. We ve learned about the issues and changes people of have through and how those issues and changes have affected us as of now. What makes up some of our histories are movements that came about to change the way certain people were being treated. What caused the Civil Rights Movement to slow and splinter in the mid-to-late 1960s? One movement, in particular, is the Civil Rights Movement, this movement, in summary, is about reach equality for the black community and stop separation from having certain opportunities as whites did. I want to walk through the ins and outs of the slow and splinter of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-to-late 1960s. From the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement the black communities goal was very clear to most but for some, the goal of the movement was something completely different which caused a lot of misunderstandings, hatred, and even violence towards the movement. The reaction to the Civil Rights Movement, the many disagreements with the Civil Rights Bill, and the many boycott backlashes all contributed to that slowness of the many goals of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s. While It caused lives to be lost and others to show more hatred, what started the Civil Rights Movement; because it leads to a few different events that change the future for all blacks, it stopped inequality for blacks, but was it the right move at the time? The Civil RightsShow MoreRelatedA Brief Note On The Civil Rights Movement1429 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction The Civil Rights Movement ended in 1968, ending segregation between whites and blacks. People back then saw it as the ending of racism in America. The majority of the population would say today that racism is still a problem whether it is racist remarks being said, police brutality towards other races, bullying because of one s race, and many other examples. 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