Management Skills and Entrepreneurship

Business Description The business has developed out of the need to create employment for young people in Amman who happen to be gifted in calligraphy. The idea is a personal product that has been in existence since childhood. The following is therefore a description of the business from its inception, structure, and ownership.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Management Skills and Entrepreneurship specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The company that is to be established will be under the name H.T, which is derived from the initials of the partnership. The source of the capital is from a local bank in Amman coupled with savings of the partners. The main product of the business will be male jewellery. This decision is based on the market need for this product since business environment in the UK has much of female jewelleries and less of the male jewelleries (Bean 2007, p.17). The available outlets for the jewelleries are also rather expensive and monotonous since the trade is dominated by a handful of companies offering similar products. When established, this business will provide the population with a choice when shopping for jewellery besides creating a sense of satisfaction since each product will be unique. The bulk of shoppers in the UK has also changed with more and more men being involved in shopping and making financial decisions. With the well performing economy, the population will have more money at its disposal. The company to be set up aims to put in place an effective marketing strategy to attract buyers of all ages and ethnicities. Amman was chosen to serve as the headquarters for the business and as a source of labour raw material and resources required (Government in Jordan 1978 p.13) because it provides a good centre for the trade. Amman is known globally for her beautiful handmade ornaments, which have mostly been women’s ornaments (Jordan 1989, p.28). The population i s largely gifted in making the ornaments. This makes the marketing strategy for the capital and the country in general (Skinner 2003, p.15: South 2008, p. 12). Calligraphy is an art that dates back in the country to the Middle Ages as evidenced by the discovery of ancient works of art in the prehistoric sites in the country (Herr 1983, p.45).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The works of art have however been marketed in the country alone without exploitation of the international market. The jewellery will be made from different raw materials for start. Clients will be given the choice of selecting the kind of jewellery they want. Traditionally, the jewellery has been made from metals such as gold, silver, and bronze. This decision made the pricing high for the common market. This business enterprise targets to make cheap jewellery for the low income markets in the UK, as wel l as the upper class market thus creating a room for choice between the materials used. The capital required is estimated at a hundred thousand US dollars distributed in terms of equipment, labour, and export price. The three costs represent the largest financial requirements of the company. Buildings The company intends to start the trade by using an old warehouse that has been renovated. The warehouse is big enough to house the offices of the company in one section and the manufacturing area in one part. The floor size is also enough for storage. There are also plans to purchase more offices in some of the office blocks in downtown Amman with other plans being in the advanced stage to acquire a warehouse in the outskirts of London. This will constitute the main buildings owned by the company. The rest will be acquired depending on the demand, market, and quantity produced. Assets The assets that the company intends to acquire and own include tools used for the moulding of the meta llic jewellery, engraving tools, brushes, cameras, protective clothing, land for setting up the business, and a warehouse for storage of the goods waiting to be exported to the UK. The company also intends to acquire a van to transport the products to the airport. With time, more will be acquired to facilitate the movement of the staff and the trade equipment. Some of the other assets that the company intends to acquire include cranes to move the large boxes, forklifts, and advertisement assets.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Management Skills and Entrepreneurship specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Goals and Objectives The company has come up with goals and objectives to guide it in the future developments. These have been described as long-term and short term with the time period to be achieved defining the two. In the long-term goals, the company targets to be the leading export company in Jordan dealing with c alligraphy. The other goal includes increasing the net worth to a billion dollar company with branches all over the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The company also targets to be the leader in research and development in the country of Jordan creating employment to a mere thousand people both here and in the UK. The short term goals for the company are those to be achieved within a period of a year. The first short-term goal is to double the gross sales every two months. Secondly, the company targets to double the profit margins within the same period. The sales of jewellery is the third short-term goal. The company targets to make more than a thousand sales within the first two months of its inception in the UK. The fourth short term goal is to control a large market share of the male jewellery within the first year. The last short-term goal involves the introduction of new products into the market with the company targeting to introduce women’s jewellery in the market by the en d of the same year. Philosophy The company’s philosophy is based on the need to create employment for the youth in Amman by providing cheap and quality jewellery for the UK market. The current image of the company is that of a small firm with the desire to expand in the UK. The image the firm intends to create is that of a large company and a market leader in jewellery and supply of ornaments in the UK. The company is focused on achieving its set goals and objectives as governed by the laws formulated by the partners.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Legal structure The business is a partnership with members being drawn from the Capital, Amman, and having the common interest of making money and being self-sufficient. The partners include H.K and T. A from whom the business name is derived. Each member bases the sharing of the profits and other running costs on the contributions. The members however own business in equal proportions. Therefore, the sharing of the profits is on a 50-50 basis. The legal structure is not fixed. However, the company welcomes any likeminded shareholders and partners. The contributions they make will define the proportion of the profits they get after each sale. This will benefit the company by increasing its market share and capital base besides enabling it to expand to other markets. Location The business is to be set up in the outskirts of Amman, with an outlet in the capital of the UK. These locations were selected for several reasons. Amman was selected, as described above for its cost in terms of labour and human resource. The cost of the building, and other things needed to set up the location were relatively cheap compared to the prices elsewhere. The building location is on a lease from the previous owner, and plans are underway to fully process it. The neighbourhood is friendly and sparsely populated. This will provide an adequate environment for business. The floor space will consist mainly of the manufacturing area, and will therefore mostly house the labourers. The transportation facilities in place include pulleys for hauling large boxes, which will contain the raw materials and the completed works. The site also has ample space for parking, which will accommodate the vehicles transporting the Jewellery to the airport. It is also close to the airport. Thus, security in the area is also adequate. There are other businesses in the same location though they are mainly involved in the pottery business. The site is advantageous because the raw materials are just in the n eighbourhood. A smelting plant is located in the vicinity to provide raw materials for the metallic jewellery. The second site in London was chosen because of the strategic position to enable and facilitate in the marketing of the jewellery. This will however be changed with time to the centre of London where there are more customers and distribution outlets for the company products. Production Plan and Quality Control The production plan for the company from delivery of the raw material to the final product is short because most of the products will be handmade thus requiring no sophisticated process. The raw materials will depend on the particular product. For the bracelets, the raw material will mainly be silver and gold with iron being a major component. They will be moulded into shapes and cut using simple tools. Coating the resulting materials will then be made using the desired metals or alloys. The accessories to make them appear beautiful will then be added by the artisans followed by engraving of the ornaments by the use of calligraphy. This process will be followed for most of the jewelleries except for those requiring special processes. Quality control will be assured by ensuring that there is a quality control department in the company for checking the quality of products besides ensuring that only those that meet the set standards make it to the market. The quality assurance in the company will also work in collaboration with the quality assurance departments in both countries involved in the field of the jewellery trade. Management and Organisational Plan The management framework for the company will include the manager, sales representatives, and other key officials in the management. The finance section will have to be manned by one of the members. To begin the company, few numbers of the staff will be involved in management since this will be expensive for the company to maintain. The full time personnel will be the labourers involved in maki ng the jewellery. They will constitute the largest number of employees. Part-time workers will be utilised in the finance section. Personal responsibilities and those of the other partners will involve making the jewellery though this plan will later change to management functions after getting adequate labourers. Business Opportunities The business has a variety of opportunities in the region where it will be opened. The following is a description of the potential customers, the geographical area, and the competition. Potential Customers The population of the UK and London in particular is very large. Thus, it will provide the market needed by the jeweller. The purchasing power of the UK citizens is larger than that of Jordan as presented by the GDPs of both counties (Riley 2002, p.13: Sant 2004, p.76). The market also has a large appetite for handmade jewellery. It therefore suits the perfect consumer group. The choice to market the jewellery for the male sex is based on the theor y that the male sex also has a higher purchasing power compared to its female counterparts in this country. The average male also considers owning a piece of handmade jewellery from Amman to be prestigious and in fashion. Amman’s items and generally those from tm the Middle East are also fast moving here with stocks running out in the few centres offering them. There are varieties of customers in the business having different requirements in the way they prefer their jewellery to appear. Most of the customers prefer golden and silver jewellery. For those who cannot afford them, the company hopes to create gold-coated and silver-coated versions of the ornaments that it will produce. Geographical Area The company targets to conquer the market in London before proceeding to other markets within the UK. These are the long-term goals in the company’s framework. The plan is to establish outlets across London in the shortest time possible. This will involve a lot of strategic planning and re-investment back to the company. Other cities planned for expansion include the financial centres around the country. Business Competitors The business faces stiff competition from other companies in the region providing the market with similar products (Campedelli 2010, p.43). These are more established in the market. Their prices are competitive. To deal with competition, the company intends to lower the running costs by operating from Amman and exporting the jewellery to the UK using cheap cargo flights. Since the innovation uses labourers without the use of machines, the operating costs are set to be lower in relation to those for other companies thus maintaining the lower prices (Duhigg 2012, p.29). The other criteria of dealing with the competition will involve the limitation of the number of administrative employees and establishment of a strong marketing policy (Steingold Bray 2001, p.32). Marketing Strategy As indicated above, due to high competition in the industry, the business will have to adopt an elaborate marketing strategy to ensure success in the market (Marketing handbook 2006, p. 19). The strategy will be implemented in the pricing, costing, sales projection, and marketing plan. In developing the company, a research into the unmet need of handmade male jewellery in the UK preceded. This established that the products offered in the market were monotonous with fewer than ten companies offering handmade products. The market, though not significantly large now, had a chance for expansion with the shares meant to rise (Blythe 2006, p.18). The company has embarked on an ambitious project to open up new markets in the UK by approaching market partners and evaluating the need for mergers and added partners. The market stands to be affected by the invasion of newer products from china, which are selling at a considerably cheaper price based on China’s cheaper technology. This could however be overcome by the use of cheaper raw materials and production of more attractive jewellery with the option of having most of them custom-made to meet the needs of each client. National Economic Trends in the UK The UK’s market is experiencing a growth. This means that more and more men will be able to spend on accessories such as jewellery. This will increase the market to a greater size besides reducing competition (ICC financial survey 1979, p.12). The population is also shifting with the aged in the populace contributing a large number. The economy is also noted to be stabilising after the effect inflicted by the global crisis a few years ago (Book 2009, p.29: McLean Nocera 2010, p.13: Shiller 2008, p.19). Employment rate is also reported to be improving. Thus, more and more people are able to earn a living. The economy of Jordan is also reported to be performing well. The unique characteristic is the high unemployment in the country especially around Amman. This project therefore will exploit the existing economic conditions in both countries to produce a well performing business leader in the male jewellery section. In the year 2011 alone, the British economy improved from the previous years after being facilitated by the increase in the production and manufacturing sectors. The value of imports to this country has risen over the years. Jordan continues to be a major source of imported handmade jewellery to the UK (Amman et al 1996, p.32). The projected growth rate for the Jewellery market in the UK is 2% every year. This is a positive thing for the company (Amman et al 1996, p.32). As it stands, the jewellery market has a total size of over 4.5 billion pounds (Harrison 2010, p.29). This means that the market is performing well and is set to improve. The largest share of the jewellery section is made up of precious metals such as silver and gold. Even in the tough economic times in the UK, the jewellery market is described as growing at a fast rate, which is also encouraging. After precious metals, other categories with recorded growth include watches and costume jewellery (Amman et al 1996, p.32). The marketing plan will be as indicated above. This will involve commercials, adverts, and personalised marketing strategies. Salespeople will also be included in the marketing of the company. Their role will be to sell the company to the large public. There will also be competitions on the streets where the winner walks away with prizes as a way to promote the company. Business Operations The business will operate based on the written-down operations schedule. Each employee will have a designated task in the company. The operations will be organised in the form of the functioning of the company. Operational Function For the business to be operational, an elaborate structure will be provided with the inclusion of all employees and the supporting staff. In the manufacturing area, the personnel will consist of the labourers involved in the making of the jewellery. The y will be housed in the warehouse in the company grounds. Their day will start at 8 am to 5pm. The company will start with a handful of employees before proceeding to employ more in the manufacturing section within the next years. The service to be offered will mainly be the provision of the jewellery. In some special cases, delivery will be made at a fee. The other services to be offered to the clients will be shipping to the desired places. This will however start once the appropriate marketing procedures are in place. To increase the company’s market share, other services to be offered will include the engagement of personal information on the jewellery. The other significant service that the clients will receive includes the provision of accessories that match their taste and fashion. This will be initiated through the marketing strategy that will be set up in the company’s agenda. For the personnel, the company plans to ensure that they are provided with adequate payments to retain them. This will be met through aggressive marketing to ensure that the company has a large profit margin. Housing will be provided to them after the company establishes market control. For those without this provision, the company will embark on the payment of house allowances. Workers will initially work on a contract that will be renewed every six months. Based on the success of the company, most will be retained as permanent employees. The other incentives that the company will use to lure and maintain gifted artisans will be the use of gifts and special payments in the form of commissions for goods sold. This means that each employee will be paid in commission as a percentage of goods sold and made in addition to the regular salary. The employees will also work for five days a week with the weekend and extra hours worked being paid as overtime. A working schedule will also be made for the workers who will be consulted before the timetable is set up. Technology In this section, the technology and application to be used in the company and its operations will be discussed. Since the company will mainly provide handmade materials to market, the technology to be used is simple and readily available. The most important of this will include electric drills and engraving equipment. Since most of the calligraphy will be handmade, electrical appliances will have a limited use thus cutting down power consumption and or saving on the much-needed capital. The other tools to be used include hammers and chisels. They will be used to give the jewellery the required shapes by making the engravings. The other technology to be used include the transport pulleys and forklifts that will be utilised during transportation and packaging of the finished products. Mechanisation will be needed in the packaging of the jewellery, moulding the shapes, and coating the alloys. Electric saws will be utilised during the initial manufacture of jewellery from the raw mater ials to make the metallic frames on which to engrave and attach any added ornaments. The company will also utilise computers and office ware to keep track of finances, processes of manufacturing, as well as distribution. Finances This section covers the financial structure in the company in the present, past, and the expected financial situations. Capitalisation Plan This summarises the financial need of the company including the capital and any added expenses in the running of the business. The main means of raising the required capital in the business is through acquisition of a loan from a local bank here in Amman (Forstater Forstater 2007, p.31). This will fund 95% of the project with the rest of the money coming from the pockets of the partners. A bank loan provides the best opportunity to fund a business (Allman 2006, p.23: Banks 2011, p.13). The bank will be paid in a schedule that will be agreed upon based on the company’s returns and the loan size. The estimated tim e for payment of the loan is projected to be five years when the company is projected to have stabilised to become self-sufficient. The capital gathered will be split between paying labourers, buying raw materials and new equipment, as well as acquiring the new warehouse. To begin with, the company will lease the warehouse and obtain the raw materials from the smelting plant. This will cost around 50,000 dollars with the bulk of it being the raw materials. The rest of the money will cater for the shipping costs, the distribution, as well as the marketing of the products. Personal contribution to the business will be 20,000 dollars from personal savings. The rest of the money will be gotten from partners and the profits made in the first sales. The partners will make the products in the first few months. When the company has established itself, more labourers will be added on to provide their services. The estimated cost of materials is at 20,000 dollars. Advertisements and other mar keting strategies are estimated at 5,000 dollars including offers, sale prices, and payment for the sales officers involved in the process of selling the brand to the male customers in the UK. In the purchase of fixed assets, the building and land on which it stands will be valued with the company willing to spend about 20,000 dollars for the same. This is however not fixed, as the company is still in the process of working out the final price with the original owners of the asset. The money will also be used to purchase the technology to be used in the manufacturing process with the main utility being the electrical equipment. The purchase of the initial gold and silver raw materials will be made using capital from the loan because it serves the biggest proportion of the money being spent. Transport costs and tax levied on the final products to the market will also be included in the loan though this is estimated not to be over 10,000 dollars. The company’s vehicle to be use d to transport the final products to the airport to get raw materials is no included in the budget. Raw materials and jewellery will be transported using the locally available means of public transport. Cabs and rental cars will be used in doing this and in the transport of personnel to and from the airport. In the UK, transport to the outlets will also be via public means. This will continue until the company makes enough money to buy a van and other modes of transporting the jewellery. Security is a major component of capital. Jewellery is expensive and a target for theft. To avoid this, some of the money will go towards hiring guards during the transit of the precious metals and in the transport of the jewels to the final destination in the UK. The purchase of insurance for the company and employees will also be a significant step needed to cover any loss of the raw material, the jewellery, and other assets both in the production and in marketing processes because any loss will b e a setback for the company. The company will also set on a risk-reducing plan by ensuring that the market is evaluated adequately before entry and production of little jewellery to test the market. Contingency plans for the company will also be made should the company fail to make the targeted profits for the first year. This will involve laying off any employed on a contract basis and using the amount of money spared to pay any remaining part of the loan. The table below shows the source and cost of assets. Asset Cost (US$) Source of Funds Raw materials 20,000 Bank loan Pickup truck 6000 Bank loan Packaging machine 12,000 Bank loan Office desk and chair 600 Currently owned Warehouse 30,000 Bank loan Recurrent expenditure for the first year (salaries and overhead costs) 50,000 Bank loan and profits Personal computer 1000 Personal savings Financial Projections (USD) Expected profit in the first year 10, 000 Profit in the second year 50, 000 Profit in the thi rd year 100, 000 References Ali, W Bisharat, S 1989, Contemporary art from the Islamic world, on behalf of the Royal Society of Fine Arts, Amman, Scorpion Pub., London. Allman, B 2006, Banking, MN: Lerner Publications Co., Minneapolis. Amman, H, Kendrick, D, Rust, J, Tesfatsion, L, Judd, K 1996, Handbook of computational economics, Elsevier, Amsterdam. Amman, J 1968, 293 Renaissance woodcuts for artists and illustrators, Dover Publications, New York. Ballantyne, J 1844, Principles of Persian calligraphy, Madden and Co, London. Banks, E 2011, Finance, Routledge, New York, NY. Batt, R 1995, Amman, Maqbul Academy, Lahore. Bean, R 2007, United Kingdom, National Geographic, Washington, D.C. Bienkowski, P 1991, Treasures from an ancient land: the art of Jordan, Stroud, A. Sutton Pub, Gloucestershire. Blythe, J 2006, Marketing, SAGE Publications, London. Book, I 2009, Economics, World Book, Chicago. Campedelli, M 2010, Appliedcaligraphy graphic design, Links International, Barcelona. Duhigg, C 2012, The power of habit: why we do what we do in life and business, Random House, New York. Forstater, M, Forstater, M 2007, Economics, Chicago Review Press, Chicago. Government in Jordan 1978, Ministry of Information, Amann, DTI. Harrison, B 2010, Finding a role?: the United Kingdom 1970-1990, Clarendon, Oxford. Herr, L 1983, The Amman Airport excavations, 1976. Mich, American Schools of Oriental Research, Ann Arbor. ICC financial survey 1979, Knitwear manufacturers – turnover, profit, assets, liabilities, Company, London. Jordan 1989, Economy, Amman, DTI. Keman, H 1987, Coping with the economic crisis: alternative responses to economic recession in advanced industrial societies, Sage Publications, London. Marketing Handbook 2006, Writing to win more customers, Hollis Pub, S.l. McLean, B Nocera, J 2010, All the devils are here: the hidden history of the financial crisis, Portfolio/Penguin, New York. Product n.d., Analysis, Notes From the Rabbit Hole | Biiwii.co m’s Unique Market Perspective Notes From the Rabbit Hole | Biiwii.com’s Unique Market, Perspective, http://www.biiwii.com/. Riley, P 2002, The one-page proposal: how to get your business pitch onto one persuasive page, Regan Books, New York. Sant, T 2004, Persuasive business proposals: writing to win more customers, clients, and contracts, AMACOM, New York. Shiller, R 2008, The subprime solution: how today’s global financial crisis happened and what to do about it, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Skinner, P 2003, Jordan, Gareth Stevens Pub, Milwaukee, Wis. South, C 2008, Jordan, Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, Tarrytown, NY. Steingold, F Bray, I 2001, Legal guide for starting running a small business, Nolo, Berkeley, Calif. Watkins, D 1999, Jewellery, New Holland, London. This essay on Management Skills and Entrepreneurship was written and submitted by user Miranda Delaney to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Virtual Teams Virtual There

Virtual Teams Virtual There Virtual teams The article, Virtual there, was written by Alison Overholt on February 28, 2002. The article focuses on Virtual teams and how they can be used to offer businesses solutions. The writer uses an example of breast-cancer diagnosis to illustrate the benefits that can be accrued from virtual teams (Overholt, 2002) This paper evaluates the article.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Virtual Teams: Virtual There specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Why the writer chose breast-cancer diagnosis as an example Breast cancer has of late become a global concern as men and women suffer. There are numerous cases of breast cancer each with its own characteristics and diagnosed differently. Specialists in the field have also increased. The writer notes that in most cases doctors are willing to offer medication that they are aware of, but since breast cancer takes different forms, then a doctor may offer medication that is not the most effective for a certain condition. When there is web interaction with other physicians and a review of past successful cases, through virtual teams, doctors will be in a position to offer better medication. Secondly the patient will understand the medication he gets its side effects and probably communicate with another medicated patient on the same. The example was used to explain the benefits that can be accrued from using virtual teams. The choice of breast-cancer diagnosis was triggered by the effects that it has on modern life (Overholt, 2002). Advantages of virtual teams The writer brings out a number of advantages in the article. The most dominant advantage is information and knowledge sharing. Virtual reality works across time, space and geographical area, thus information or experience in a certain area can be shared to improve services in another organization currently facing a similar issue. Information is power, thus when the systems are adopted, a company gets access to quality information it can use for informed decisions. Other than getting information, the information is real-time information. Updated information is crucial for decision making in the fast-changing business environments (Grenny, 2010). Virtual teams can be adopted as a cost saving strategy. This is because experts or employees will not have to travel across nations searching for information-making. Information can be gotten by a click of a button. Operational costs are saved in teams of time, travelling and accommodation costs and reduced cost of research and development.Advertising Looking for essay on health medicine? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More When a company have information about an issue it’s facing, it is able to develop alternatives and knowledge for decision-making. This results to improved quality, service delivery, and customer satisfaction (Driskell, Radtke Salas, 003). Suggestio ns for managing this virtual team The virtual team discussed in the article is likely to suffer from lack of motivation. Physicians need to be self motivated to deliver results. One way of motivating team members is by offering a token pay every time certain work or experience of a member has been used successively. This will motivate them work harder. Before a certain team member is absorbed, he or she should be vetted for excellence and professionalism. This can be done through verifying his qualification and experience. This will assist in building trust and confidence among members. Virtual teams should not be used to undermine the benefits of research. They should be conducted alongside research to offer rich information and improvements on different areas (Ebrahim, Ahmed Taha, 2009). Conclusion Businesses are using virtual teams to share information across time, space, and geographical area. This has resulted to better decision making and improvements of services. The method however faces a challenge in that its members lack motivation and trust among themselves. References Driskell, J., Radtke, P., Salas, E. (2003). Virtual Teams: Effects of Technological Mediation on Team Performance. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7(4), 297-323. doi:10.1037/1089-2699.7.4.297. Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S., Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual Teams: a Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic Applied Sciences, 3(3), 2653-2669. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Virtual Teams: Virtual There specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Grenny, J. (2010). Virtual Teams. Leadership Excellence, 27(5), 20. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database. Overholt, A. (2002 February 28). Virtual There? Fast Company, 56, 1-5. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/44596/virtually-there?page=0,4

Citizenship in United Kingdom under Neo-liberalism Essay

Citizenship in United Kingdom under Neo-liberalism - Essay Example Opening of markets refers to free trade and an international division of labor (Bateman 48). Neoliberalism usually favours multilateral political force through international organizations or treaty devices such as the WTO and World Bank. It promotes plummeting the role of national governments to a minimum. Neoliberalism favors laissez-faire over direct government intervention (such as Keynesianism), and measures achievement in overall economic gain. To improve corporate efficiency, it strives to reject or mitigate labor policies such as lowest wage, and collective bargaining rights. (Faulks, pp 34-37) Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy rather than a broader political ideology. The swing away from government action in the 1970s led to the prologue of this term, which refers to a program of dipping trade barriers and internal market restrictions, while using government power to enforce opening of foreign markets. This is strongly different by economic liberals, who favor a free market and free trade. Neoliberalism accepts a positive degree of government involvement in the domestic economy, mainly a central bank with the power to print fiat money. It also favors an interventionist military (Cate 73). While neoliberalism is sometimes described as overlapping with Thatcherism, economists as varied as Joseph Stiglitz and Milton Friedman have been described - by others - as "neoliberal". This economic agenda is not essentially combined with a liberal agenda in politics: neoliberals often do not pledge to individual liberty on moral issues or in sexual mores. An extreme example was the Pinochet regime in Chile, but some also categorise Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and even Tony Blair and Gerhard Schrder as being neo-liberal. It should be distinguished that, in the 1990s in the UK, a lot of social democratic parties adopted 'neoliberal' economic policies such as privatization of industry and open markets, much to the disappointment of many of their own voters. This has led these parties to become de facto neoliberal, and has often resulted in a radical loss of popular support. For instance, critics to the left of the German Social Democratic Party and the British Labour Party blame them of pursuing neoliberal policies by refusing to renationalise industry. As a result of this, much support for these parties has been gone astray to the Christian Democratic Union and the Liberal Democrats, correspondingly. (Cate 77) Sometimes 'Neoliberalism' is use as a catch-all term for the anti-socialist response which sweep through some countries during the period between the 70s and 90s. 'Neoliberalism' in the form of Thatcher, Reagan, and Pinochet claimed to move from a bureacratic welfare-based society in the direction of a meritocracy acting in the interests of business. In actuality, these governments cut financial support for education and taxed income more deeply than wealth, which augmented the influence of big business and the upper class. Some conservatives perceive themselves as the true inheritors of classical liberalism. Jonah Goldberg of National Review argues that "most conservatives are nearer to classical liberals than a lot of Reason-libertarians" because conservatives want to protect some institutions that they see as wanted for liberty

La Belle Epoque 1900-1914 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

La Belle Epoque 1900-1914 - Essay Example The working conditions were improved with the rise of labor unions and this made it possible to coexist peacefully. Regarding losers and winners, it was expected for gender equality issues to surface. Women were primary winners as they for the first time were allowed to work in factories and also to form their liberation movements. Besides equalization and factory safety for all professions, the right to vote was claimed by everybody as evident during voting exercise in the video. France also won as it achieved great strides in technology and military advancement in Europe. As with losers, the world leaders who were strong peace advocates became losers as the 1st World War startedright away (Grapevine, 2014). As with transformations, various changes are evident in urban development, gender equality, and to technology. During the La Belle, major urban development took place that shows the rise of icons such as Eiffel tower to surface (Grapevine, 2014). The nature of manufacturing work also evolved. The proceeding production became split between mechanization and rationalization. Consequently, the formerly hard to treat diseases could now be treated leading to the decline of infant mortality and a substantial increase in life expectancy. Whereas it is not apparent how long the period was, it is estimated to have lasted for less than 15 years. The La Belle à ©poque did not last, but it was a short period of prosperity and transformation.

Final Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Final - Assignment Example Consumers who purchase these foods often have tight schedules that cannot allow them to be preparing food at any time. People also prefer buying frozen food due to health concerns. Some are keen to avoid being obese and thus prefer frozen foods due to their low cholesterol content. Television sets purchase is influenced by economic factors. Economic factors mainly centers on a person’s financial status. The wealthy are able to buy bigger and more advanced television than the common people. The choice of buying a television depends on the money one has available at his or her disposal (Armstrong, 2009). For a company to build and manage a brand strategy they must make decisions on the way to add value to their products. This is by use of distinct style, and design, good style makes the product to be attractive to the customers. This can decrease production cost and enhance the reputation of the product thus beating of competition. Nestle USA products have distinct designs and styles which make them stand out from the rest. With the name, they have built in the market they do not spend much on advertisements because people already know them. Choice of packaging is also an important decision to be made by the management. Good packaging means the products becomes more attractive to the customer hence promoting sales. The Nestle USA products have some of the best packaging methods for their products. This ensures their product continues to attract the required attention and the same time maintain their mark of quality. (Armstrong, 2009). Market segmentation is the division of a market in terms of its demographics geographical boundaries and political nature. This creates distinct submarkets with distinct needs and interests. Through segmentation, it is possible for one to get a target market from a division whose interest fit with ones products. The five characteristics of a substantial market segment are measurability, accessibility,

Cutting Room Management System Economics Essay

Cutting Room Management System Economics Essay In todays highly competitive global market, manufacturers face constant pressure to reduce costs, offer greater product selection, and deliver products faster. Like many domestic manufacturers competing in todays international marketplace, the apparel industry has been forced to upgrade its responsiveness to customer needs. As a result, smaller orders are placed in a more dynamic fashion, requiring the efficient production of smaller lot sizes. Effective and economical production thus depends upon the interaction of many system components, one of the most critical being an efficient workflow control system. The cutting room maintains documents and books for the various cutting operations they perform. Generally the books and registers they maintain are require a lot of manual entries and the timely retrieval of previous records is a problem as these records are very vast. The focus of this project is on the means employed by the cutting room manager to instruct, monitor and control the processing of fabric cutting room and personnel. Documentation during and after cutting is designed to authorize the issuing of materials from store ,control the spreading, cutting and bundling activities, facilitate the analysis of losses and quantify losses against costed values. Cutting room is constantly challenged to cut costs on material usage. A small percentage of fabric saved during cutting can reflect a decent savings in the financial records of the company. The Marker making solutions are used constantly to minimize fabric usage while making markers. Another area where cost cutting can be done is by making an effective cut plan. An effective cut plan will make sure that garments are cut within the limits of the accepted quantity (as 5% extra delivery is allowed by the buyer against ordered goods), the required quantities are cut with minimum number of cuts (saving labor time). In most apparel industries, size mix i.e. how many and which sizes should be combined, in a marker is actually a very complex set of permutation combination. The number of variables possible combinations in most cutting problems exceeds human abilities. This projects aims to defining a system for effective management of cutting room and at the same time connecting it to fabric inventory so that track of the fabric in inventory can be made as most of the times the roll wise information of the fabric in inventory is not known and fabric issue is not made against a cutting instruction. Most of the time the fabric sent from fabric store is more than actual requirement of cutting instruction for a particular day so effective track of the consumption of fabric is not made in case there is no provision of returns of excess from cutting room. So designing of the system for effective flow is a need. OBJECTIVE To design a system which manages the activities that happen in a cutting room. The system should represent a model of cutting room and activities are recorded into the system. SUB OBJECTIVES The system is to be connected to the fabric inventory or database thereby maintaining record of each roll which is fed for cutting. To generate roll allocation plan for the cutting schedule to minimize remnants. To issue fabric against a cutting instruction. Proper Roll allocation comparing the actual material requirement for a production order against the roll in the inventory. Effective management of end bits form of end bits, minimizing it also tracking end bits. Storing and keep record of the remnants generated in the cutting room after the spreading and making them available for further use. Generating of effective reports from the cutting room. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Cut your losses: practical  tips to improve fabric yield  in the  cutting room. Fabric accounts for 25-40 per cent of the cost of making a garment, so controlling or negotiating fabric consumption has a significant impact on the bottom line. In this article Robert Broadhead addresses the process of estimating fabric yields, the complications involved in offshore contracting, and how to be as accurate as possible in predicting/negotiating fabric costs. Fabric accounts for 25-40 per cent of the cost of manufacturing a garment, so accuracy in this area is critical. Its been said a lot over the years, but is worth repeating here: no other single refinement in production can provide substantial cost savings as easily as fabric control. Controlling or negotiating fabric costs has become more complicated as overseas manufacturing and cut-make-trim (CMT)/package programs have grown. Before work went offshore, in-house fabric yield estimates and final production consumption reflected the efforts of the cutting department (either the manufacturers or a local contractors) and was readily known and monitored. However, it is surprising that many businesses do not track the variance between the actual cost of fabric at the end of production and the estimated cost of fabric on the bill of materials. This can significantly impact the bottom line. To have a truly effective material utilization, one need to look at all the factors that can contribute to fabric losses in cutting room. It would be impossible to eliminate all losses in the cutting room, but incremental improvements in material utilization could significantly improve the bottom line. Width Utilization careful measurement of the actual fabric received at a factory typically will show that more than 50% is at least  ½ inch to 1 inch wider than the minimum purchased width. This excess fabric width almost always goes into the trash yet it is usable and, if utilized properly, can save money. It requires the following actions: Measure the width of sort fabric when it is received. . Plan markers by fabric width. Issue cutting orders by fabric width. Marker Marker copies while copying the marker, regardless of the process used, length and/or width growth or shrinkage can occur. Marker growth can be more than 2% in extreme cases, but can be reduced to less than  ½ % with proper machine adjustment. Following points should be taken care of for accurate marker marker copies: In case of computer plotted original makers, keep the marker paper the plotting of the marker in the same environment where the cloth will be cut. Maintain a check marker, plot it at least once a week, measure it accurately to do the required adjustments. While using the ammonia or alcohol method, allow the marker copy to air dry, laid flat for 2-3 hrs, before using I to mark the table. Spread planning It is an analysis of the rolls of fabric available to be spread on existing sectional markers. The result is a plan of how many pairs/plies from each roll should be placed on each marker to minimize remnants. The requirements of this type of system to work properly are: Three or more marker plus remnant marker must be used on each cutting order. The markers must be different in lengths. Fabric flaw cutouts will require recalculation of the remaining fabric roll a resulting change in the spreading chart. The remnant marker is newly included in the chart calculations. It only is used for remnants remaining from the main sections. Table Marking More fabric is wasted in marking the table than in any other aspect of the spreading process. Tables constantly are being marked for spreading where unnecessary gaps are allowed between markers, start/finish line are purposely moved outward and splice marks are elongated. It is strongly urged that markers be prepared off-line by taping the individual marker sections together line-on-line with wide adhesive tape. End Bit Monitoring An end bit is a piece of cloth that is longer than the length required to lay up one complete size. End bits of course will come in all different lengths, and unless you splice there will be pieces of fabric which are shorter than the length of the lay being layed, these pieces should be treated with great respect. They should be measured, have a sticky label attached with the length on it, and then folded and put into piles of similar length to be used on smaller markers later. There is no point in keeping fabric for panel replacement unless there are important reasons to do so, so one must produce garments from all of the available fabric. The off cuts (pieces too small to make a garment) will be used to replace smaller parts of the garments that need replacement. The logic behind this is that if a large panel in a garment is replced then all of the profit on that garment is lost. Cut order planning The dot com way stitchworld It is interesting to note that size mix (how many what size in combined) in a marker is a mind boggling permutation computation but actually decided by the CAD operator or cutting master hypothetically and not through any scientific process. Generally the size mix marker combinations (how many different types of markers are needed for a given order quantity) are generated based on factors like size color ratio. There are some infrastructural constraints like lay height, lay length, working out the most optimum cut plan There are many optimal Cut Plan solutions, induced by interplay of many dimensions. The different, but often conflicting, dimensions are: Less Fabric Maximizing the extreme size-mixing. This is emphasized upon when the order quantity is high the fabric is also expensive. Less Labor Time Minimizing the no. of lays, leading to saving in spreading cost. Fewer Markers Minimizing distinct ratio, i.e. minimizing the no. of markers to be prepared. This is especially useful when one need to commit constant no. of sewing machines workmen for order completion. More Balanced Production Minimizing deviation in layer height across lays. This needs to be done when the order quantity is low the time cost involved in marker making process is more compared to spreading cutting. More Balanced Packing Simultaneous production of garments of all sizes. At times of urgency, interim lots can be sent to the purchaser without waiting till the whole order complete. Heuristics Algorithm The term  heuristic  is used for algorithms which find solutions among all possible ones,but they do not guarantee that the best will be found,therefore they may be considered as approximately and not accurate algorithms. These algorithms, usually find a solution close to the best one and they find it fast and easily.Sometimes these algorithms can be accurate,that is they actually find the best solution, but the algorithm is still called heuristic until this best solution is proven to be the best.The method used from a heuristic algorithm is one of the known methods,such as greediness,but in order to be easy and fast the algorithm ignores or even suppresses some of the problems demands.( http://students.ceid.upatras) Alternative formulations for layout problems in garment industry Before cutting, several layers of cloth are put on a cutting table and several templates, indicating how to cut all material for a specific size, are fixed on top of the stack. The problem consists of finding good combinations of templates and the associated height of the stack of cloth to satisfy demand while minimizing total excess production. considering high fashion clothing which is made by specialized designers in small quantities. It is sold only in exclusive shops. Typically, extremely expensive fabrics are used. The high cost together with the limited demand make it worthwhile to produce with minimal excess production, which is defined as the number of pieces which are produced above demand. Before production, demand data is gathered both from placed orders and forecasts. A demand set for a specific piece of clothing is composed of the demands for all the different sizes. The cloth is spread out in several layers on a cutting table. The number of layers of cloth is limited b y the length of the knives and the thickness of the cloth. For each size a stencil or template is made where all the different parts of the article are placed in the most economic way, such that they can be cut with minimal loss of exclusive fabric A good overview of solution approaches forgenerating good stencils can be found in Dowsland and Dowsland (1995). An application of the apparel trim placement problem is described by Grinde and Daniels (1999). After the spreading, the selected stencils are fixed on top The number of stencils which can be cut in the same operation is limited by the length of the cutting table. Since all the stencils have approximately the same length, the maximal number of stencils on the table is independent of the combination of the stencils used. A feasible combination of stencils is called a cutting pattern. It is quite possible that such a pattern contains several times the same stencil. After the cloth is spread on the table and the stencils are fixed on top, the cutting operation can start. For these high fashion and very expensive garments, spreading of the cloth, fixing of the stencils and cutting are time consuming and costly operations. Consequently we want to keep them at a minimum. The problem is now to find cutting patterns and associated stack heights which minimize total excess production for a given demand. The original layout problem is very similar to the fixed charge cutting stock problem (FCCSP). Haessler (1975) and Farley and Richardson (1984) proposed heuristics for solving FCCSP. However, the second part of the objectivefunction is different. In the FCCSP, the cost of trim loss is minimized, whereas we minimize the cost of overproduction. We need to stress that for our low-demand, high fashion clothing the cost of being near optimal, i.e. too much overproduction, can be very high, whereas for the high demand clothing industry this is not so much a problem. This cost issue, together with the fact that we are dealing with real life problems, justifies our search for better optimal solutions. Farley (1988) described a planning model for a cutting stock problem in the clothing industry. He argues that this problem differs from the traditional cutting stock problem because of the unique characteristics of the production process such as the laying, stacking, cutting and sewing operatio ns. Farley also makes an explicit distinction between high-turnover garment, for which overproduction and stock is allowable, and high fashion clothing, for which stock and overproduction should be kept at a minimum. He noticed that the planning model he described is effective for high turnover garment, but not for the made-to-order garments because too much oversupply is generated. The model proposed here is explicitly focused on the high fashion clothing with little demand. Farleys model maximizes the total contribution margin and takes into account demand and capacity constraints. It is used as a planning tool but it cannot be used for solving our scheduling problem. A problem closely related to this is the cut order planning (COP) for apparel manufacturing, described by Jacobs-Blecha et al. (1998). The problem consists of finding how to spread the fabric, determining how many layers to use and assigning various sizes to sections of the spread. The underlying assumptions, however , are not the same as those here and hence a direct comparison is not possible. COP allows for example different stack heights on one cutting table. The authors adopt a minimal cost approach. They consider the actual fabric cost, spreading cost, cutting cost and the marker making cost. The following constraints are taken into account: demand, a limit on the table length and an upper bound on the ply height. As it is very difficult to solve their model optimally, they resort to heuristics. Their test data consist of 20 orders, with 1-6 sizes per order and are based on real life problems. They conclude that one of their heuristics is as good as or better than the commercial packages. Elomri et al. (1994) also consider a cutting problem in the clothing industry. Their problem consists in choosing cutting patterns and associated heights from a small library of available patterns. The objective is to minimize total operating costs while satisfying demand. A linear approximation of the co st function is used. The most important costs in the objective are the costs for cutting and fabric. Documentation and control of fabric usage. The cutting room maintains documents and books for the various cutting operations they perform. Generally the books and registers they maintain are require a lot of manual entries and the timely retrieval of previous records is a problem as these records are very vast. The focus on the means employed by the cutting room manager to instruct, monitor and control the processing of fabric cutting room and personnel. Documentation during and after cutting is designed to authorize the issuing of materials from store ,control the spreading, cutting and bundling activities, facilitate the analysis of losses and quantify losses against costed values. The large contracts are divide into small but economic batch sizes that are suitable for the processing in cutting rooms.The details of these individual batches are entered on a cutting instruction , which authorizes the issue of fabric and provides essential information for the spreading and cutting. While the cutting instruction accompanies the material during its passage through the cutting room, the situation is monitored by entering data on the cutting instruction record. Management must control both the output of the cutting room, to achieve production targets, and also the various processes to ensure that materials are efficiently used. The fabric reconciliation record provides a comparison of the actual usage and costed usage and reports variances.This forms link between the cutting room activities and financial control projections as materials compromise approximately 40% of the manufacturing costs ,should be regarded as vitally important. Cutting Instruction is the main documentary output of cut order planning process.As a minimum requirement of cutting instruction it should have the following information 1.the fabric to be processed. 2.the marker to be used. 3.the number of plies authorized Fabric usage control The essence of fabric reconciliation is that for each lay a comparison is made between costed and actual usage of fabric,and the variance is reported.This document Plays an important role within management as it ties together what management planned to do with what they have achieved.Fabric reconciliation takes place after the fabric has been cut. Documentation management functions. Managers need to use documents but documents are no substitute for management.A manager who enters data on documents is not doing the work of a manager but is better described as a clerk. Documents are useful only when they allow managers make informed decisions which change the way the activities are undertaken. Cutting problems are NP-hard Thus, only small size problems can be solved optimally. These problems are solved using either integer linear programming or dynamic programming, or branch-and-bound, depending on the type of problem. But most of the cutting problems use heuristic algorithms. Although any given solution to such a problem can be verified quickly, there is no known efficient way to locate a solution in the first place; indeed, the most notable characteristic of NP-complete problems is that no fast solution to them is known. That is, the time required to solve the problem using any currently known  algorithm  increases very quickly as the size of the problem grows. As a result, the time required to solve even moderately large versions of many of these problems easily reaches into the billions or trillions of years, using any amount of computing power available today. As a consequence, determining whether or not it is possible to solve these problems quickly is one of the principal unsolved problems in computer science  today. Because (COP) is NP-complete, efficient algorithms for realistically sized problems will necessarily be heuristic in nature. This insight leads to the need for analyzing (COP) for characteristics that can be exploited for development of heuristic methods. Jacobs-Blecha et al. (1998) describes the heuristics developed for (COP), the reasoning behind these types of algorithm, and justification for the evaluation techniques. Heuristic development is based on the examination of typical industry cases that COP cost is dominated by total fabric length. It explains the experimental design that we used to establish this characteristic of the cost function. It should be noted that in some cases the cost factors that are consider in the model developed may have a significant role in the cost of cut order planning. For example, spreading costs may be very high due to negotiated labor rates; cutting costs may be driven up by manual or equipment parameters; or a large data base of historical markers may not exist, greatly increasing the cost of that process. However, they assumed that the statistical results, which confirm practitioners intuitions, are valid for the types of problem addressed by their work, and therefore the model can be modified to reflect this assumption. Note that under this assumption the only change in the model occurs in the objective function, where all terms go to zero except those involving the fabric length parameters. An alternative method for problem solution is to solve the linear relaxation and check the resulting solution for satisfaction of the integer constraints. However, this approach is not practicable: for realistically sized problems the number of variables prohibits explicit computation. Furthermore, most apparel manufacturers who would use these solution methods do not have sufficient computing capability on site to utilize sophisticated integer programming solvers. Therefore the development of heuristic algorithms to solve (COP) focuses on finding computationally efficient procedures for finding good (i.e., relatively low cost) solutions to (COP) for a robust set of problem instances. They selected two types of algorithm for the development of such heuristics, constructive and improvement. A constructive algorithm takes the input data and builds a feasible solution using intuition, clues from the spatial aspects of the problem, and guidelines found in the mathematical model. An improvement algorithm begins with an existing feasible solution and attempts to change the solution in some manner so that the cost of the solution is reduced while feasibility is maintained. The value of the cost function associated with the feasible solution produced by one of these heuristic methods can then be compared with some numerical bound, or other benchmark solutions. CUTPLANNER CutPlanner is a software package for use in the textile manufacturing industry for automatic cut order planning. CutPlanner takes a customers order for a clothing item and creates a cut plan for that item, including different sizes and different fabric types or colors, which minimizes production costs. A cut plan is an assignment of sizes and fabric types to markers. For each of these markers, the required number of plies is computed to fulfill the orders specifics. The objective of CutPlanner is to minimize total production costs. They consist of the costs for the fabric used, and several production costs incurred by making the markers, preparation of the cutting process, and the picking of pieces to be cut CutPlanner provides two different modes of operation to calculate material consumption: 1. Conventional mode: The user dictates the estimated yield values that specify the material consumption, which depends on the number of sizes in a marker. 2. Exact mode: CutPlanner engages an integrated automatic marker making engine to calculate the real material consumption. Here, the user does not have to supply any estimations: the software runs automatically. Genetic optimization of fabric utilization in apparel manufacturing. In apparel manufacturing, cut order planning (COP) plays a significant role in managing the cost of materials as fabric usually occupies more than 50% of the total manufacturing cost. Following the details of retail orders in terms of quantity, size and colour, COP seeks to minimize the total manufacturing costs by developing feasible cutting order plans with respect to material, machine and labour. A genetic optimized decision-making model using adaptive evolutionary strategies is proposed to assist the production management of the apparel industry in the decision-making process of COP in which a new encoding method with a shortened binary string is devised. Four sets of real production data were collected to validate the proposed decision support method. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce both the material costs and the production of additional garments while satisfying the time constraints set by the downstream sewing department. Although the total operation time used is longer than that using industrial practice, the great benefits obtained by less fabric cost and extra quantity of garments planned and produced largely outweigh the longer operation time required. Cut order planning Cut order planning (COP) is the first stage in the production workflow of a typical apparel manufacturing company. It is a planning process to determine how many markers are needed, how many of each size of garment should be in each marker and the number of fabric plies that will be cut from each marker. Marker is the output of the process of marker planning, which is the operation following the COP.Planning process using commercial computing to arrange all patterns of the component parts of one or more garments on a piece of marker paper,. Following marker planning, the third operation is fabric spreading, which is a process by which fabric pieces are superimposed to become a fabric lay on a cutting table. The last operation is fabric cutting. Garment pieces are cut out of the fabric lay following the pattern lines of the component parts of one or more garments on the marker, and then transported to the sewing department for assembling to be a finished garment. COP, the most upstream activity, plays a significant role in affecting the fabric material cost and the manufacturing cost in the cutting department. Based on the requirements of customer orders in terms of style, quantity, size and colour, it seeks to minimize the total production cost by developing cutting orders with respect to material, machine and labour. In the cutting room, after the completion of COP and marker planning, spreading and cutting are then executed, and the time and costs required for these two operations will be affected by the quality of the cut order plans being developed. A good plan can improve the rate of fabric utilization. The COP usually begins with a retail order comprising the quantities, sizes and colours of garments to be manufactured. The following example demonstrates how a cut order plan is derived. For simplicity, only the quantities of garments and sizes are considered. The details of the customer order are as follows: Size Small Medium Large Quantity (in pieces) 300 600 400 The constraints on fabric lay dimensions are: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Maximum number of plies for each lay: 75 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Maximum number of garments marked on each marker: 5. The maximum number of garments produced per lay is 5ÃÆ'-75=375 pieces and the number of garments required by the customers is 300+600+400=1300 pieces. Therefore, the theoretical minimum number of lays is equal to 1300/375=3.47. This gives a practical minimum of four lays to cut the order. If the order is to be cut at the lowest cost, the lays need to be as long and deep as possible. One of the possible solutions is: Small Small Small Small Small Lay 1: 60 plies Medium Medium Medium Large Large Lay 2: 75 plies Medium Medium Medium Large Large Lay 3: 75 plies Medium Medium Medium Large Large Lay 4: 50 plies An alternative of lay 1 is to have a four-garment marker and to spread 75 plies. This would reduce the cutting cost but was rejected because of the fabric cost since there would be 15 more plies and high fabric end loss, which occurs on both end of each fabric ply (more plies mean greater end loss). This solution has demonstrated that sizes Medium and Large are in the ratio of 3:2. The marker for lay 2 can also be used for lays 3 and 4, thus reducing the costs of marker making. This example shows that numerous other possible COP solutions can be generated. The COP problem becomes more difficult when the numbers of garments and sizes increase. The problem will be further complicated when the parameter of color is also considered in the plan. In addition, labors are needed to operate the spreading and cutting machines. As the fabric cut pieces will be transported to the sewing room for garment assembly, COP needs to consider the fulfillment of the demand quantity of cut piece from the downstream sewing room. Current industry approaches in generating the COP range from manual ad hoc procedures by cut order planners to commercial software. However, many apparel manufacturers are still using rather primitive methods; they rely mainly on the expertise and subjective assessment of the planners to produce the plans. Therefore, the optimal COP cannot always be guaranteed. Commercial COP software is available for use, but the COP heuristics are usually kept by the proprietors as confidential. Apart from generating a COP with the right quantity of garments with right size and colour, there is little room for minimizing material, machine and labor costs. Near-optimal COP solutions to reduce both materials and labour and machine costs using a genetic optimization model based on adaptive evolutionary strategies. The objective is to assist the production management of the apparel industry in the COP decision-making process and improve the quality of the decisions. It has been pointed out that the COP problem is NP-completeness in nature and it is feasible to use a heuristic approach to solve the problem accordingly by using constructive heuristics with intuition start and fine-tuning the solution with another improvement heuristic (Jacobs-Blecha et al., 1998). Roll Planning of fabric spreading In the process of fabric spreading, the variance of fabric yardage between fabric rolls may lead to a difference in fabric loss during spreading. As there are numerous combinations the arrangement of the fabric roll sequences for each cutting lay, it is difficult to construct a roll planning to minimise the fabric wastage during spreading in apparel manufacturing. Recent advances in computing technology, especially in the area of computational intelligence, can be used to handle this problem. Among the different computational intelligence techniques, genetic algorithms (GA) are particularly suitable. GAs are probabilisti

Islamic, Ancient Egyptian, and Ancient Greek Art Essay

Elisabeth Siddiqui has written: â€Å"Art is the mirror of a culture and its world view. There is no case to which this statement more directly applies than to the art of the Islamic world. † Seeing that Muslims are believers in only one true God of the universe, they have been advised by Prophet Muhammad not to make pictures of human beings, for these pictures may often turn out to become idols for people, thereby turning them away from the Lord of the universe. Hence, Islamic art has focused on anything other than the human form. Muslims have used Arabic calligraphy to express their creativity in countless art works. â€Å"Arabic script lends itself wonderfully to decorative use,† writes Siddiqui. It is the language of the Qur’an, even if it is used to write something other than the Qur’anic verse. The choices are limitless. Thus we find a beautiful piece of calligraphic art as an inscription on a carved wood panel from a door that was made in the late medieval Islamic period (See Appendix). The inscription on the panel consists of the signature of its maker. The script is monumental, with large and rounded proportions. The seven words of the inscription are deeply carved in three horizontal registers. These are set against a scrolling leaf background (Late Medieval Period, 2004). Contrary to the believers in the unseen God, the ancient Egyptians were Pharaoh worshippers. The king of ancient Egypt was the Pharaoh, who appeared larger than life in the art works of the period. Ti Hunting the Hippopotamus is a wonderful depiction of the subject (See Appendix). Carved on a surface of a stone, this is a relief using the typical ancient Egyptian style of frontalism, in which the head is drawn in profile while the body is seen from the front. In this ISLAMIC, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, AND ANCIENT GREEK ART Page # 2 picture, Ti is enormous as compared to his slaves as well as the animals. He is the god of both slaves and animals, and is therefore shown as a higher being as compared to the lesser beings. The slaves in the picture are relaxed. So are the animals. Moreover, the animals shown are more realistic than all humans, perhaps because of the ambivalence felt by the artist toward both the â€Å"higher† and the â€Å"lower beings† within humans (Kremen, 1996). Lastly, the ancient Greeks, who also had plenty of gods and goddesses, downplayed the divine aspects of their gods, unlike the Egyptians, by giving their gods a typically human form. There did not have to be higher or lower beings in ancient Greek art. Instead, the most perfect of figures created were recognized as gods naturally. The ancient Greek civilization enjoyed the beauty of the human form, including the naked human form which was admired for its harmonious proportions. The Torso of Apollo is one of the most perfect examples of this art (See Appendix). Made in 2nd century AD, the torso of marble shows young Apollo, the Greek god of light, music, archery, healing, atonement, prophecy and flocks and herds. The figure was popular with both Greeks and ancient Romans. It is an unclothed manifestation of splendor and courage, only expected to be shown of Apollo, who wears a belt over one shoulder to which a quiver of arrows were attached at his back (Torso of Apollo). By showing the god as distinctly human, the artist inspires into viewers the spirit to take Apollo for a courageous model and turn into heroes themselves. Thus all art appears as a mirror of its culture and the worldview. References 1. Kremen, Lisa. (1996, December). â€Å"Understanding Egyptian Art. † Egyptian Art. Retrieved from http://www. bergen. org/AAST/Projects/Egypt/egyptian_art. html. (10 February 2007). 2. â€Å"Late Medieval Period. † (2004). Islamic Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved from http://www. lacma. org/islamic_art/intro. htm. (10 February 2007). 3. Siddiqui, Elisabeth. â€Å"Islamic Art. † MSA. Retrieved from http://www.colostate. edu/orgs/MSA/index. html. (10 February 2007). 4. â€Å"Torso of Apollo. † DIA Galleries Ancient Art. Retrieved from http://www. dia. org/collections/Ancient/ancient. html. (10 February 2007). ISLAMIC, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, AND ANCIENT GREEK ART Page # 4 Appendix Islamic Art Ancient Egyptian Art ISLAMIC, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, AND ANCIENT GREEK ART Page # 5 Ancient Greek Art.

Brand management Essay

1) What is the product mix of Trung Nguyen? What are the key attributes of its coffee? How do these attributes help Trung Nguyen to differentiate itself from its competitors? The product mix refers to the total composite of products offered by Trung Nguyen coffee. It consists of different product lines, various product items in each product line and within each item is the product depth. Firstly, the product line is a group of product or service items that are closely related because they are sold to the same consumer groups, are marketed through the same types of outlets, have similar usage or fall within given price ranges. Thus, Trung Nguyen Coffee’s product lines are: Trung Nguyen Coffee, Passiona Coffee and G7 Instant Coffee. The Passiona Coffee targets at consumers looking for low-caffeine coffee and especially women, while the G7 Instant coffees are made for people who are too busy to brew a cup of coffee themselves. Trung Nguyen Coffee has 3 different product items, namely Creative Coffee, Blend Coffee and Espresso Coffee. Passiona Coffee consists of 2 product item, Passiona roasted coffee and Instant Passiona coffee. As for the G7 Instant Coffees, the product items are G7 Pure soluble, G7 Cappuccino and G7 Instant 3-in-1 coffee. Lastly, product depth is the number of variants in a product item. Trung Nguyen’s product depth of Creative coffee includes the Weasel Coffee and Legendee Coffee. Also, some variations of G7 Cappuccino are the Mocha G7 cappuccino and Hazelnut G7 cappuccino. Different sizes of coffees are considered as product depth as well. For example, the G7 Instant 3-in-1 coffee is sold in 3 different sizes: a box of 18 cafe sticks, a bag of 22 sachets or a bulk pack bag of 100 sachets. Table1: Summary of product mix of Trung Nguyen | Product lines| | Trung Nguyen Coffee| Passiona Coffee| G7 Instant Coffee| Product items| -Blend coffee-Espresso coffee-Creative coffee Product depth: Weasel coffeeLegendee coffee| -Passiona roasted coffee-Passiona instant coffee| -G7 Pure soluble-G7 cappuccinoProduct depth:Mocha G7 cappuccinoHazelnut G7 cappuccino-G7 instant 3-in-1Product depth:box of 18 cafe sticksbag of 22 sachetsbulk pack bag of 100 sachets| Key attributes refer to the most important characteristics of a product. Trung Nguyen makes its point of difference through its key attributes like using the best coffee beans, unique brewing style and the new coffee concept. Trung Nguyen has a unique selling point because some coffees offered cannot be found anywhere else. Its coffees are authentically Vietnamese. For example, the Weasel coffee is produced based on the legend in Vietnam. To differentiate itself from its competitors, these key attributes must communicate benefits for consumers. The coffee offered by Trung Nguyen is of a higher quality compared to other coffee brands because they use the best coffee beans sourced from four of the world’s best coffee-growing regions. In addition, Trung Nguyen is awarded with the EureGAP certificate for its good agricultural practices such as having consistently good quality coffee beans and using environmentally friendly technologies. Coupled with their oriental secrets, consumers would prefer Trung Nguyen because their coffee is brewed much more aromatic and rich. Trung Nguyen used their new concept of coffee to set up a â€Å"Creative Coffee House† in order to differentiate itself and gain market share. It is now well-known for the innovative clubhouse whereby customers can enjoy coffee in a beautiful and sentimental ambience while experiencing Vietnamese cultural events and exhibitions. For consumers who value such innovative product services, they will choose Trung Nguyen’s coffee over the other â€Å"grab a coffee to go† coffee styles. 2) What are the roles of branding? What are the benefits of branding to sellers and buyers in the coffee market. The role of branding is to create an identity for the product. The identity created can have some personalities and can gain brand equity. Benefits of branding Some benefits of branding for sellers of the Trung Nguyen coffee are that they are able to accentuate the bases of differentiation from its competitors due to its distinct identity. They can obtain legal protection like trademarks to avoid copycats of their brand. The counterfeit products are capable of stealing Trung Nguyen’s sales when consumers are unsure of how the real packaging of coffee looks like. There is also a chance for the counterfeit coffee to ruin Trung Nguyen’s reputation. Consumers who bought the counterfeit coffee by mistake may view Trung Nguyen to be of a lousier quality instead. All this would be effectively prevented by branding because counterfeiting is an offense. Brand equity is created by branding and careful marketing. Trung Nguyen can in turn earn higher profits as consumers are willing to pay a higher price for this particular brand of coffee. Also, brand equity can lead to higher economic value of the brand, whereby it becomes an asset for Trung Nguyen when it wishes to sell its brand. Last but not least, Trung Nguyen can achieve brand loyalty through creating preferences towards their brand. If Trung Nguyen coffee is able to sustain a consistently good quality coffee product, consumers would remember the brand, spread the word around and continually purchase its coffee. On the buyers end, they may reap the most benefits from Trung Nguyen’s branding. Coffee is a convenience product and it is important to make it easy to find. Consumers will be able to correctly identify the products in a short period of time due to Trung Nguyen’s branding thus becoming more efficient shoppers. Furthermore, consumers may gain assurance of product quality and performance. Employees need to ensure products offered are of consistently good quality and so are specially trained to deliver this promise. Consumers will remain loyal to Trung Nguyen coffee because they are satisfied with this brand and have no need to search for another. 3) What constitutes the brand identity of Trung Nguyen? What is your evaluation of this identity? How can the brand identity be improved? Brand identity is the noticeable elements of a brand and also what the organization wants consumers to perceive the brand as. It constitutes of â€Å"Trung Nguyen† as its name, the logo and its tagline â€Å"Explore creative inspiration† A successful brand name should reflect the personality and values of the brand, be simple, memorable, positive and emotional. A logo is the image that embodies an organization. It is one of the most prominent branding elements that consumers will think of when someone mentions the company. A good brand logo should be memorable, futuristic and consistent and be able to portray the benefits to its target audience. The tagline must be simple and easy to remember. It also needs to remain short since the tagline is always incorporated into many marketing pieces. Evaluation of brand name: Consumers associate Trung Nguyen to â€Å"Central highlands† which refers to Dak Lak, the county capital of coffee where green coffee is grown. This gives an advantageous association between Trung Nguyen and high quality and fresh coffee beans. Also, the brand name represents the uniqueness and richness of the Vietnamese culture. However, the name Trung Nguyen does not hold any meaning for non-Vietnamese. This may alienate consumers from other parts of the world. Another bad point could be that its name is hard to pronounce for non- Vietnamese consumers. Possible improvements: Because the company’s name has been around since 1996 when it was founded, it cannot be changed otherwise the company has to build up brand awareness from scratch all over again. Thus, the company should work hard in educating people and let them understand the positive association between Trung Nguyen and â€Å"Central highlands†. For example, they could use their existing Internet website and include this under the â€Å"learn more† option. People visiting the website can then learn about the association and slowly adopt Trung Nguyen as their favourite coffee. Evaluation of logo In my opinion, the logo might be a little small and insignificant. Psychological influences such as selective exposure and retention affects consumer buying behaviour. For example, the appealing cup of coffee printed on its packaging of Creative coffee may distract the consumers from the brand name. The logo is also unattractive and boring due to the usage of dull and non-contrasting colours. The font used in the logo has little stylistic variations making it rather boring as well. Possible improvements Firstly, the logo should be scaled to a bigger size. Also, the marketing manager of Trung Nguyen can make use of brighter and more contrasting colours to make its logo more outstanding and attention-catching. The font could be changed to something cursive. This can better capture consumer’s attention thus leaving a deeper impression and resulting in better brand memory and recognition. For example Coca Cola, with its logo in a strikingly bright red background and white cursive words, is very successful at making sure that every consumer remembers it. Evaluation of tagline: Trung Nguyen’s tagline â€Å"Explore creative inspiration† consists of only 3 simple words hence should be relatively easy for everyone to remember. However, Trung Nguyen tagline is still quite foreign to people across the globe as they do not use much above-the-line marketing. Possible improvements Through the print media and mass media, Trung Nguyen can improve this aspect of its brand identity. The marketing manager could set up a Facebook page and make it known to people. Maintaining a Facebook page is relatively low-cost as compared to constant TV advertisements. Because millions of people are using Facebook, it is very effective for Trung Nguyen to get their brand identity across. Another point of improvement also through the mass media is through its online website. Perhaps the tagline can be added in the â€Å"history of Trung Nguyen† tab as it is currently not. On top of that, they can make use of emotional branding to elicit a favourable emotional response. Adding emotional words like â€Å"Happy†, â€Å"Healthy† and â€Å"Beautiful† could boost sales of their coffee. As consumers become increasingly aware of health and beauty these days, Trung Nguyen can market more of their Passiona coffee which is enriched with collagen, vitamin PP and other rare oriental herbs through its tagline. 4) What is the branding strategy of Trung Nguyen? What are the advantages and risks of this branding strategy? Trung Nguyen uses an umbrella branding strategy. Different types of coffees have a sub-brand which combines the corporate brand with a new brand. Trung Nguyen’s Passiona Roasted coffee and Trung Nguyen’s Espresso coffee are 2 examples. Advantages of umbrella branding: Capitalizing on the existing brand equity of Trung Nguyen, it can sell newly introduced products quickly. Consumers who have had a good experience with its coffee will transfer this favourable attitude to new items. For instance, Trung Nguyen’s Creative coffee may have been developed earlier than Passiona coffee. Consumers who liked Creative coffee would have a higher chance of buying the Passiona coffee because they are under the same brand and so would also be of an equally good quality. Furthermore, the Passiona coffee can be set at a higher price as consumers are willing to pay more for brand value. This can bring about additional profits for Trung Nguyen. Another advantage of using an umbrella brand is a lower advertising and promotion costs. Trung Nguyen only needs to come up with a single advertisement because its coffees share one identity. Also, because Trung Nguyen is used on all of the products, level of brand awareness is easy to raise. To name an example of a successful sub-branding strategy, Gatorade has developed and introduced Gatorade Frost, Gatorade G2, Gatorade energy bar, etc into the market and stayed popular being the leading sports drink brand in many countries. Risks of umbrella branding: In every marketing strategy there is bound to be a down side. Some risks of umbrella branding are that the failure of one type of coffee may affect the sales of the whole Trung Nguyen branded products. It is inadvisable to put all the eggs into one basket. For instance, if the production G7 Mocha had some discrepancy that caused the coffee to be too sweet, consumers may feel that the rest of Trung Nguyen packet instant coffees are as sweet and so switch over to Nescafe coffee instead. Secondly, sales of one product item may come at the expense of other items offered in the same product line. Lastly, the meaning of Trung Nguyen may also be diluted with an umbrella branding strategy. Apart from coffee, Trung Nguyen also has other product such as Green Tea, Oolong tea, etc. However, Trung Nguyen refers to Dak Lak, the county capital of coffee and so offering tea as an alternative beverage is not so relevant to the brand name.

Methods of evaluating location alternatives Essay Example

Methods of evaluating location alternatives Essay Example Methods of evaluating location alternatives Essay Methods of evaluating location alternatives Essay Know your customers: Every business should know who your customers are, do you know them, most of the organizations think that they know, but often they are wrong. It is very important to understand who your customers are. It is very important to know your regular and frequent customers and if the organization knows who their frequent customers are, it will help to identify other areas that may have demographics with similar characteristic. Before selecting a new location for the business, Rotis management should consider on this factor. Trade area: Trade areas come in many shapes and sizes, so the organization should know what area they intend to serve. Trade areas are not actually round, square, or rectangular, instead they usually reflect irregular shaped pattern. It correspond to road or street pattern, it is altered by competition, physical and psychological barriers, and the demographic of the local residents and employees of the certain area. So Rotis management needs to consider which is the realistic area and can attract more customers. Structure of the market: Every city, town, neighborhood, building, house has a structure and it is determined by physical and psychological barriers. Socio-economic characteristic, street and motorway patterns, industrial and commercial concentrations, type of employment, income, age, topography, and other factors, and by identifying these most important benefits of the structure, Roti can substantially improve the opportunity for success. Demographic area: When organizations select or look locations, they have to consider on the local areas population, because if you are taking help of the leasing agent or a real estate broker, they usually throw away the population numbers, or you may also be given a computer generated data listing the population, households, age, and income of the given area. The organization should develop their own feel for the market, they can also consider how much population growth is expected in certain period of time. The most important element is not how many people reside in the population area, but it is rather who are the people, what are their ages and what is the income. So every organization should clearly analyze these facts. Accessibility: Access mainly occurs at three levels, so the organizations have to analyze these three levels. 1 whether there is easy access to the business location, 2 the access to the particular site and (3) lastly whether this access is via adequate curb cuts, traffic signals or others, and if the access is poor it can be overcome by reputation or promotion, especially when competition is at its peak. Rotis management have to consider whether there is an easy access for their customers and suppliers where they are going to re-locate their restaurant. Competition: Most of the organizations in todays era thinks that they are unique, and some are, and some not. Therefore, competition is a significant factor that an organization should consider before choosing a location. Organization must determine competition and measure its importance. You should know the sales, service level, production level of your competitors, and if the one do not know answer to above all, how can they determine their own success. Roti should know all the main Indian restaurants in the area they are going to choose. They should also observe and research how customers are attending these restaurants and at which hours. Visibility Exposure: Here visibility means ability to see or recognize the location, as its exposure is being seen and recognized over a long period of time. Visibility can create huge success and opportunities for the business. Visibility is the most important factor that a restaurant or any business should consider before selecting a particular location for you business. Restaurants location is as important as the food it serves. Management of Roti should consider all the above factors before selecting a new location to relocate their restaurant. I will suggest them that they should try to find the location near the commercial area or office towers. The new location should be easily accessible for the people and the suppliers and it can be easily reached by walk or drive. The new site should avoid facing another restaurant because it may mislead the customers to enter the wrong place when they want to come to your restaurant. The new location they are going to select should be in the convenient zone, the transportation tool and pedestrian can pass it conveniently. The also need to consider the nearby parking lot has enough space for your customers vehicles. They should also consider the location in well known dining area, location near the street corner and the street name should be well known, because everybody will know when they pass by it no matter car driver or pedestrian. And when people feel hungry or they think the location is convenient they will come to the restaurant enjoying your place without hesitation. So in the nutshell we can say that the management should say that they the location they are going to select should be convenient, in well known area, easily accessible, in the busy area, and enough parking space. Methods of evaluating location alternatives The decision where to locate is based on many different types of information and inputs. There are different models and techniques available which will help organization to organize site information and that can be used as starting point for comparing different locations. For Roti I have selected the most popular method the factor-rating method. Decisions from this method will not be made based solely on these ratings, but they will provide a good way to organize and rank factors. We con also consider it as a quantitative approach.

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buy custom ECS essay ECS (2010) asserts that bilingual education is a mode of teaching entailing students who are language-minority in public schools. The notion here is that coaching English Language Learners (ELLs) partly in their native language will promote their comprehension of the curriculum and aid them achieve in an otherwise English-based setting. The anticipation is that ELL students can go on with their education in classes together with their English-speaking counterparts when they become fairly proficient in English. The ELL program ensures that students are subjected a satisfactory program until they are in a position to write, read and understand English well enough to partake meaningfully in all elements of schools curriculum (ECS, 2010). There are different programs that schools use to engage ELL including ESL/LEP, dual-language immersion, and transitional bilingual education. This paper will therefore discuss ESL/LEP, the challenges and the effects of this approach on academic and soci al aspects of the students. Additionally, the paper will talk about the measures in place to correct the issue. In ELLS, the initials ESL stand for English as a Second Language meaning English learned in a setting where predominantly, English is the communication language. On the other hand, LEP stands for Limited English Proficient, a phrase used to refer to English language learners using English as their second language. An LEP student is the one who is not totally English proficient, speaks another language at home as opposed to English, and does not exhibit English language comprehensions skills, writing, reading and speaking at a position that would put them in a mainstream, English only environment (ECS, 2010). The chief focus of an ESL program is teaching students in the English languag. Students of diverse languages may be included in a class, entirely getting intensive instructions. In most cases, the language of instruction is English entailing little or no absence of native language of ELL. ESL is normally taught within a particular school session, and students participate in other bilingual, immersion or mainstream classes through the day. Challenges of EPL and How It Affects Students Academically and Socially There are a number of challenges that face student in an ESL/LEP program and the students within in it in general. First of all untrained teachers are frequently unable to identify high potential indicators within traditional populations. This difficulty as ECS (2010) reports is multifaceted with language minorities. This affects students academically in a negative way as their academic needs are not adequately taken care of. The social implication is that there underperformance may make them feel isolated and lower their self esteem. Secondly, most of these students are from poor families hence their level of formal education and poverty are thought to affect their academic achievement and performance. According to researches, students from families that are limited English proficient are 12 more likely to have completed less than five years of schooling than English-proficient students (ECS, 2010). Additionally the likelihood of LEP students to live in poverty is 50 %, hence both the socioeconomic status and longer learning years negatively affect the academic and social well being of the students. Another obstacle experienced by ESL/LEP school principals and students is segregation. Studies indicate that from 1991 to 1992, approximately 73% of Hispanic students attended secondary and elementary schoolss with tremendous enrollments of minority students. This figure represents an 18% increase from 1968-69. 38 % of Hispanic students got enrolled in schools with at least 90% minority students in 2000. Additionally, 77% of this group was enrolled in schools where minorities entailed more that 50% of the population. Furthermore primary LEP students have two times high chance of attending inner-city schools made up of high concentrations of minority and poor students (Crawford,1997). Another challenge is inappropriate placement and assessment of LEP students. Historically, this there has been overrepresentation of this group of students in classes of special education due to improper LEP students placement and assessment (ECS, 2010). Failure to properly address this issue has facilitated a failure to realize the academic potential of LEP students, making their scores to be often artificially low. LEP students will also lack friends because of the belief that they are academically challenged. Another challenge relates the parents English skills. There a big percentage of language minority students stay in households where there is no one who can fluently speak English, over the age of 14. This is a big problem as there is no one at home to help them perfect in their English speaking skills. Communication with others in school becomes a problem and also there is a problem in understanding subjects taught in English (ECS, 2010). Lastly, language diversity in schools is also another issue facing LEP students. Most schools having LEP students, who enrolled recently, face problem of school community and staff being insufficiently trained to efficiently educate language learners. The students face hardships in their academics due to inadequate coaching. Buy custom ECS essay