Gender Roles Exploited with Humor Essay Example for Free

Gender Roles Exploited with Humor Essay The use of gender roles and stereotypes in commercials has slowly become more of an issue as men and women’s true societal roles have undoubtedly changed over time. The push for women’s equality over the past 50 years has been progressing each and every year, and rightly so. As women have become more self-sufficient in their everyday lives, their dependency from males and gender stereotypes have been changing drastically. These social changes have also sparked the progression of gender roles in advertisement and how men and women are presented to the public through television. Recently, many commercials have made drastic efforts in order to present more equal gender roles by trying to eliminate some of the stereotypes that have been part of our society for years. However, despite many of the progressions that have been made, commercials tend to revert back to some of the old stereotypes and perceived gender roles in order to create humor. One type of humor that has been prevalent in many recent commercials is the exploitation of gender stereotypes in an attempt to make a mockery of certain socially acceptable gender roles and actions, while at the same time displaying some of the characteristics that are not accepted by society. The humor in these types of commercials comes through the comparison of the same actions performed by both men and women, but one of the genders looks ridiculous performing these actions, despite the fact that they are the same. This type of marketing technique tends to cause a disproportion of equality between the two genders, because it is displaying how the actions of one gender are accepted by society, while similar actions by the other gender just appear to be unreasonable. In order to create a comedic effect in their commercials, many companies have started to disregard the progression for equality in gender roles and have started to display some of the same old gender stereotypes that w e, as a society, have tried to separate from. Through my exploration of Snickers and Heineken commercials, I was able to outline a very particular style of comedy that affected both genders in negative ways. Two very well known brands, Heineken and Snickers, have started to show men displaying some of the female stereotypes we have seen in other commercials. Now, some might say that this is a good thing because it is trying to blur the line between the two stereotypes and show that men can experience some of the same things that women do. However, I see this as quite the opposite. It seems that use of men displaying female stereotypes is, in a sense, making fun of the women. While the brands have achieved their ultimate goal of providing a humorous commercial, this humor comes at the expense of us laughing at how ridiculous the men appear when they are acting out some of the women stereotypes. To get a better understanding of how the commercials are creating this style of satire, lets take a closer look at some examples from Heineken. In a Heineken commercial from 2009, the scene starts out inside a home, and the women of the house leads a group of her five girl friends through the living room, the kitchen, her bedroom, and eventually they arrive outside of a closet. The woman proceeds to proudly open up the closet doors, unveiling shelves full of shoes and clothes, with a table in the middle full of shimmering jewelry. All of the woman’s friends go absolutely crazy and begin jumping up and down while simultaneously releasing screams of excitement. As the excitement begins to die down, they hear faint cries of excitement coming from across the house. The scene then immediately switches over to the men’s closet, a walk-in freezer, full of Heineken beer. All of the men appear to be imitating the women’s excitement that was displayed moments earlier, with slight exaggeration, as one of the men begins to shed a tear. The two stereotypes displayed in this commercial were pretty clear. It shows men getting overly excited about a room full of beer, while women are getting excited over a room full of shoes and jewelry. These stereotypes are not what make the commercial offensive to any one of the particular genders though. When the audience sees men getting excited over beer as much as women get excited over shoes it tends to expose the ridiculousness in the actions of women because people are thinking â€Å"wow†¦imagine if men got as excited over beer as women got over shoes†¦that would be stupid†. This train of thought is what starts to draw the lines between men and women and how one gender’s actions can be accepted by society, but similar actions from the other cannot. It suggests that men should remain calm, cool, and collective at all times unless they want it to be viewed as a joke. On the reverse side, it suggests to women that their actions are only acceptable because they’re girls, and that if men were to do the same thing, it would appear ridiculous. The next commercial I looked at was a Snickers Super Bowl commercial from 2010. The commercial shows three men working at a construction site, all of the sudden one of the men transforms from a man in work boots and a hardhat, into a women with nice clothes and heels, while still standing in the middle of the construction site. After this transformation the â€Å"woman† begins to complain about the work and how hot it is outside. The two men look at the women with a disgusted look on their face and advise her to â€Å"eat a Snickers†¦you turn into a diva when you’re hungry†. The woman gets tossed a Snickers bar from one of the men, takes a bite, and suddenly transforms back into his original character as a construction worker. This commercial displays one of the very old and outdated stereotypes of women not being able to perform laborious tasks. When the man turns into a woman, he begins to start complaining about the hard work and the hot weather. This commercial again exposes how unacceptable it would be if a man were to act like a woman on the job. In contrast, it also tries to show how out of place a woman would look on a construction site by placing a nicely dressed woman in the middle of the dirt filled construction area. It attempts to show how men are expected to be tough and free of complaints, unless they want to be ridiculed by their co-workers with words such as â€Å"diva†. The commercial implies that as soon as men start to complain about work or being tired, they are immediately labeled as having female characteristics due to our current stereotypical views on gender roles and actions. Through these commercials I have discussed above, it is clear that some of the new tactics for adding humor to commercials has become a sort of mockery of the stereotypes between men and women. Heineken and Snickers have both tried to show scenarios in which we see men behaving like women in an attempt to show how ridiculous it would be if males were to exhibit some of the same social stereotypes we associate with women. By doing this, the two commercials begin to draw a line between the actions and characteristics that are acceptable for women, but not for men. These marketing schemes are detrimental because they provide a clear example of how society can accept the actions of one gender, but when the other gender performs some of the same actions it becomes humorous satire. I think that a comedic commercial without gender stereotypes would appear much more sophisticated and would be better received by the public. I hope that advertising agencies will begin to realize this and that future commercials will appear both humorous and professional.

System Analysis Cinema Booking Information Technology Essay

System Analysis Cinema Booking Information Technology Essay Waterfall Life Cycle: Waterfall life cycle is the most familiar and classic life cycle model. It is sometimes referred to as the classic life cycle or the linear sequential model. It the simplest type of life cycle and very easy to use and understand. In the waterfall life cycle, each phase needs to be completed before the next phase can start. Each phase is separate and does theres no overlapping. Requirements Analysis System Design Implementation Unit Testing Integration System Testing Operation Maintenance Phases: Requirement Analysis: Requirements are collected from end-user consultations and then analyzed. A requirement Specification Document is created which guides the next phases of the model. System Design: System design is prepared by studying the requirements specification from the 1st phase. The hardware requirements are specified in this stage and a picture of the overall system architecture is produced. Implementation Unit Testing: In this phase, the work is divided in small units; actual coding starts. Testing makes sure that the software successfully meets the required specification; and that any errors are identified. Integration System Testing: All units are integrated and tested to ensure that the system meets the requirements. At the end of this stage, the software is delivered to the customer. Operation Maintenance: This is the longest phase in the model. The software is updated in this phase to correct any errors, make the software more efficient and to meet the changing needs of the customers. Advantages: It is a linear sequential model Very easy simple to implement; therefore well suited for small projects It is also cheaper Minimal amount of resources are required to implement this model Testing is done after each phase to ensure the project is on the right path Easily manageable because model is rigid; each phase has certain deliverables a review process after a phase is over, which makes understanding of the designing procedure simpler. Disadvantages: High risk uncertainty. Not suited for long projects where the requirements may change. The working software is only produced late during the life cycle. It is difficult to estimate the cost and time for each stage. No back tracking possible; if an error occurred in the earlier stages of the cycle, it cant be corrected for that batch. V-Shaped Model: The V-Shaped Model is very similar to the Waterfall model life cycle, but testing is done upfront instead of later in the life cycle like in Waterfall model. Like Waterfall model, V-Shaped Model is also a sequential cycle and a new phase is only started after the completion of the previous phase. Each development stage is matched with its respective testing stage; Requirements Æ’Â   System Testing, High-Level Design Æ’Â   Integration Testing, Low-Level Design Æ’Â   Unit Testing. V-Shaped model is very useful for systems which require high reliability. System Testing Requirements Integration Testing High-Level Design Low-Level Design Unit Testing Implementation Phases: Requirements: Commences the life cycle; system test plan is created. High-Level Design: Focuses on design system architecture; integration tests are created. Low-Level Design: Software components are designed unit tests are created. Implementation: Coding takes place in this phase. Advantages: Its easy to use; but not as easy as the waterfall model. More chance of success than the waterfall model due to the early testings. Project moves quickly to the implementation stage. Useful for small projects; considering the requirements are easily understood known upfront. Disadvantages: Bugs in the final stage are very costly to fix. Total development time of v-shaped model is more than the waterfall model. Does not contain any risk analysis activities Throwaway Prototyping model: Very useful in situations the users needs and requirements are not clear. The main objective of this model is to validate or drive the system requirements. This model is developed to reduce the requirement risks. This prototype is developed and then delivered to the user for experiments and then it is discarded, hence throw away prototype; and it should not be considered as a final system. Advantages: Requirement risks are fewer If delivered model does not meet the users needs, then it can be discarded and new models can be developed. Disadvantages: Can be undocumented Developers may be push to deliver the throw away prototype as the final system, which is not recommended. System structure may be degraded due to the changes made during the software development process. Evolutionary Prototyping model: In evolutionary prototyping, the initial prototype is developed and it is then refined through number of stages to final stage. The main objective is to deliver the working system to the user. Verification is not possible because there is no specification. Requirement gathering, Refinement Quick Design Building Prototype Refine Requirement End-User Evaluation End Product Refine Prototype Advantages: System development involves the user Working system is delivered fast A more useful system can be delivered Disdvantages: Time required to complete project is unknown. May have problems; Management, Maintenance and Verification problems. Incremental model: The incremental model is similar to the Waterfall life cycle model, but there are multiple development cycles here, which makes it a multi-waterfall cycle. It has an iterative approach (repeating), and each iteration passes through each of the phases. A working version of software can be produced during the first iteration, which means a functioning software is available early in the cycle. 1st Increment Analysis Test Code Design 1st Increment delivery 2nd Increment 2nd Increment delivery Analysis Test Code Design nth Increment Test Code Design Analysis nth Increment delivery Time Advantages: Working Software can be developed quickly early during the life cycle. Its less costly to change requirements therefore; Flexible. Easier to test and fix errors End-users get to see working software early in the software development life cycle. Disadvantages: The total development cost is higher Well defined project planning is required to distribute the work properly. Spiral Model: Also known as Spiral lifecycle model. This model combines the features of the waterfall model and the prototyping model. The Spiral Model is most commonly used in large, complicated and expensive projects; and constant review is needed to stay on target. The main area in which Spiral model is used is Game development due to the constantly changing goals size of the large project. Cumulative Cost Progress 1. Determine Objectives, Alternatives, Constraints 2. Evaluate alternatives. Identify, and resolve risks. Review 3. Development Tests 4. Plan next Phases Advantages: Important issues can be discovered earlier, which makes estimation of budget schedule more realistic reliable. Good amount of risk analysis Really good for large projects Software can be conceived early in the life cycle. Flexible allows for multiple iterations. Disadvantages: Not suitable for smaller projects Success of the project depends on the risk analysis Costly Requires knowledgeable staff; for risk analysis. 2. Identification of the Functions and Purpose of a Systems Life Cycle. The systems life cycle is a series of well-defined phases in the development of systems. It is very important that a project should meet the required specification, should be within budget and delivered on time. Large system developments can take a long time to be developed and can be very costly too; therefore most organisations use the systems life cycle (stages) to develop systems because it saves time isnt as costly. Programming Maintenance Installation Design Feasibility Study Analysis 1. Feasibility study Different solutions are examined in this stage. First step of this stage is to discover the funds available and then compare with the benefits of the company, in view of their requirements because sometimes in order to arrive at final decision a trade-off (give and take) has to be accepted e.g. less functionality for less cash. There are three different options that a company could choose: Options Benefit Cost Performance Company does not change anything No interference to the business. Least cost System remains outdated. Less efficient N/A Company updates half of the system Least efficient parts are redesigned to improve performance while best parts of the system are not changed Moderate, light training for staff 40% improved Complete upgrade More profitable High, New equipments, Upgraded Software, Training for staff. 80% improved (over the old system) 2. Investigation and Analysis Investigation First step of this stage is to investigate the old system and problem it is causing. There are different ways to find out the problems: Questionnaires and Interviews Observing people using the old system Following the information from the point it enters the system till the point of output. Taking the cause of the problem These steps should lead toward the true cause of the problem Analysis The next part is to analyze how the existing system works how information is handled and how people interact with it. To Analyze, different methods are used e.g. System diagrams This shows the dealings between different systems in the company or outside. System diagram shows how they interact and what depends on what and so on. Data Flow Diagram This shows the movement through the system, how the system deals with the information, how information flows through the system, how dose it connect and disconnect and what the outputs are. Process Diagram This shows how people interact with the system for example an employee makes a claim, first it will go to manager who will counter-sign the claim it will then go to account manager who authorizes payment and so on. 3. Design This stage defines the system in greater detail and the best way to start this stage is to write down exact details of the new system e.g. The data Inputs The data Outputs Screen Layouts Documents that are printed out Procedure of the data that flows through the system The structure of any files that store data How information is accessed And so on The testing procedure comes after the system has been built. In my opinion it is really useful to build a test procedure before starting to build a system because, if you know how the system will be tested, it will lead you towards a better design. Prototype Prototype is something that allows you to build a program without having to worry about the details, it is to confirm that design is likely to work. The master document created in this stage is called System Requirement Document. 4. Programming This stage takes the design forward and put it into practice and this stage take place when the client has agree on what needs to be done (Requirement Specification) and the Analyst has clearly described what needs to be done(System Requirement Document). There are several terms involved in this stage so it is reasonable to break down the System Requirement Document into sections that each can develop. At this stage following things may take place: The software developers write code The hardware people develop equipment The testing team develops test plans The user-testing groups follow the test plans and check the system works as expected 5. Installation Now the system is developed and tested and it is working correctly and doing what client wanted. The key events in this stage are: Data conversion: Data stored on the old system are now converted into the correct format for the new system. System Change Over: switch off the old system and turn on the new system, which is not as simple as it sound. Alternatives Run the old and new system in parallel for a time Customer does not care what your IT system is made up of, they are only concerned about their order. One method is to run the old system along the new one, then in the quiet time the new system store the old system data and is then fully loaded and ready to go. Training Training is the vital part of this stage, staff training must take place. Staff needs to be shown how to use the new system How to access help when they run into difficulties Member of a development team should be available on call A user manual should be available for staff 6. Maintenance The new system is running smoothly and it will need to be looked after so maintenance stage takes care of the following that can take place: Problems are cleared as they occur Tweaks to the system are applied to improve performance The system has to be moved due to office movement Data is backed up and kept safe Equipment are replace as required Basically this stage never ends until the new system becomes old and is then switch with new system. 3. Undertake a User Needs Analysis (UNA) for your system. SYSTEM USED: CINEMA BOOKING SYSTEM UNA is the first stage in the system development process. UNA in system developing includes task that is demanded by the user for new or different system. Requirements must be actionable, measurable, and testable and must be related to user needs. The best way to undertake UNA in my view is to have a workshop with the users who will use the new system. This will give me one clear idea of what the new system must do. When working on developing the new system Ill have a better idea of what users wants from the new system, keeping every users requirements in mind. So Ill set up a workshop, in which Ill ask users what they want from the new system. I will document their requirements as I go along. Basically Ill ask different questions from the users and then the users themselves will work out what kind of a new system they want. Questions that Ill ask users: What the new system should do? Do you want it to be networked with other computers? How long the information needs to be saved? Should staff login when using the system? Anything needs to be printing? What information needs to be print out? Payment procedure/ types of cards? Discounts: student Inputs, process and outputs Internet booking/ serial number only for internet booking This is how Ill design the system, keeping in view the users requirements. It will be an advanced system which will be quite reliable and it will be easy for the users to use this system. System Requirements: Inputs Serial number only for Internet booking Name Payment Age/ discount Name of the movie Date Process Theater Number Discount reduction Output Movie ticket for customer Information saved in the system This program is supposed to save the information of the customer and print out a movie ticket containing the required information. Print out of the ticket Name Age payment Discount Payment after discount Theater Number Movies name Date System will show this information on the Ticket. 4. Produce a Systems Context Diagram for your system. User/ Staff New system Customer Info given Input filled Data saved Ticket Process Calculate discount if applied and check for seats in theatre Saved in server for 3 days and is access able by any member of staff Checks the Ticket Ticket given Check movie and time Login Administrator Login Update Movie Data Delete Old Data Updates the system This Diagram explains the program I am building for the Cinema. Circles in the diagram mean the first thing is done by Administrator, User/ Staff and the customer. Explanation: Administrator must update the system by inserting new movies and deleting old movies. User/ Staff is the person who can access the system by login in and takes the details (info given) of the customer. User/ Staff then enter the details (input filled) in the system. News System will process the input and process it, calculate discount if applied and check for seats available in theatre. Itll then give two outputs Data Saved and Ticket. Data Saved meaning the data will be saved in a server for three days and is access able by any member for staff but the saved data cannot be changed after the Ticket is printed out. Ticket will be printed out and is going to be checked by the staff. Staff will give the ticket to the customer. 5. Produce a Level 1 Current Physical Data Flow Diagram for your system. D1 User/ Staff/ counter Enquires Deposits and Withdrawals Process customer data Tickets recheck Data store System Cash Customer Customer details/ data Print Ticket Details are checked Ticket handed to the customer Resource Flow Data Flow Outside data Process D2 In this Physical Data flow diagram customer, who is outside data, goes to the counter to purchase a ticket for the movie. Counter/ staff take his query and process it, system then stores the data and process a ticket, which is given to the customer. 6. Produce a Level 1 Required Logical DFD for your system. Admin User/ Staff Customer System Process Data Stored Ticket Updates the System Customer details/ data Ticket Input customer detail/ data Calculates discounts Theatre No. Stores in a server Print out Ticket details are checked by user/ staff Data Flow Source of Data In this Diagram Admin is updating the data for the system and user is taking the detail/ data of the customer and entering it in the system to process a Ticket for customer. 7. Decompose one of the processes to a Level 2 Required Logical Data Flow Diagram for your system. Admin System Process Data Stored Updates the System Adding new movie data Deleting old movie data Stores admin new data Stores customer data Movie is suitable for customer (age) Theatre availability Calculate discounts Store data in server Auto deletes 3 days old customer data Access to old data In this Diagram Admin is updating the data for the system and system is processing customer details against admin updated data and it is then stored in a server for three days. 8. Construct a Logical Data Structure for the system you are producing. Customer Staff/ counter Ticket Enquires Ticket Customer will seek staff on counter for any enquiry or to purchase a movie ticket Provide service to customer Staff will take customer details from customer for a movie ticket To process a Ticket, staff will have to enter customer details in the system for a movie ticket Ticket is handed to the customer after staff checks for any errors 9. With the aid of your Logical Data Structure, produce an Entity/Event Matrix for your database system. Customer Purchasing a ticket for a movie Enquiry Staff/ Counter Staff/ Counter Solve the issue Yes No Job done Admin Enter customer details in the system System process Ticket Data stored Staff (checks it) Customer (takes ticket) Server 10. Describe the Required Physical Data Model. Customer details/ data Admin Admin login Update new movie data Delete old movie data Problem solving Staff Customer service System operator Staff login handle customer details Ticket Cashier Customer Enquires Ticket purchaser Updates the System Input customer detail/ data System Customer internet serial no. Customer name Customer age Payment method Discount Amount paid Name of the movie Theatre number Date Stores admin updated data Access to old data Check for any errors on the ticket Process Movie is suitable for the customer (age) Discount reduction Theatre number Draft ticket Print out Data stored Stored in server Access able Auto delete 3 days old data Ticket Customer name Customer age Payment method Discount Amount paid Movies name Theatre number Date Admin updates the system and solve problems Staff handles the customers and input the customers details in the system System processes the data and check for availabilities Data is stored for 3 days Ticket is issued for customer as a receipt

Accountability Representation Control Three Pillars of Organizational effiency

Accountability Representation Control Three Pillars of Organizational effiency Accountability, representation and control are often perceived as the three different entities; however, they are three interconnected topics which form the base of the organization. They function on the various aspects of the accounting which is a diversified field and can be studied under these three heads in more detail. I have tried to illuminate the major aspect of all these three topics with respect to accounting and then how these issues are applied in the recent economic debacle. To begin with first I would like to bring the notion of accountability and then representation and then control and lastly, the recent financial failures. Accountability: An Introduction Accountability breeds responsibility. This famous quote by Steven R. Covey gives the meaning of accountability in rather general terms. The concept of accountability can be defined as the process through which a person is held answerable for his actions and deeds.. Under the umbrella of the organization the notion of accountability can be stated as the phenomenon through which whether a person at the higher level of hierarchy or at the lower level is accountable for his works and services that he renders to the organization. Accountability from the organizational perspective bears great importance as it is the measure through which the performance of the organization and a person serving can be judged and analysed. Accountability has different forms which can be studied and understood by the findings of John Roberts (1991). He tries to explore different contemporary forms of the accountability and the possibilities in which accounting can be perceived. First, the individualising form of accountability can be studied in which the accountability contributes in making the realization of the image an individual perceives about it. (John Roberts,Page No. 358,1991). This perspective helps a person to polish his senses and action thereby improving his image that is noticed by others. Second view of accountability that Roberts illustrates is the socialising form in which a person can improve its performance and efficiency by interacting with some of the experienced people in the organization. Accountability institutionalizes the use of accounting through which it operates in the organizations and firms. How Accountability Works? Accountability within the organizations mainly works through three different levels of accounting. They are auditing, management accounting and financial reporting (Lightfoot, 2009 Accountability,2009 Available on https://blackboard.le.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_3872_1%26url%3D)). Financial reporting and management accounting aspect of accounting has been dealt in detail in representation and control part respectively. The third and more applicative form in which accountability holds in the organizations is the auditing in which companies accounts are checked and verified by some agency or authority assigned for it is covered in detail here. When it comes to organizational perspective the application of accountability expands. From the past there has been a practice in business and organizations to maintain the accounts of each and every transaction that takes place in the organization. In mode rn era this system has become more advanced and transparent. The organizations can be judged or held responsible economically on the grounds of the accounts or financial statements that they produce. This involves the concept of auditing of company accounts. Audit serves as a vital economic process and play an important role in serving the public interest by strengthening the accountability and reinforcing the trust and confidence in financial reporting ((Available on http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm/route/139474/icaew_ga/Technical_and_Business_Topics/Thought_leadership/Audit_Quality_Forum/Agency_theory_and_the_role_of_audit/pdf, 2005) ,2005). Auditing of accounts are generally performed by the people employed by the owner of the company, these persons are called auditors, agents or stewards. They generally work in the interest of the company with focus on the economic performance of the institution. This phenomenon is called as agency theory which suggests that because of the informa tion asymmetries people employ agents or stewards who works for the benefit of the company. Auditing gives a clear idea of accounts and also imparts the correct information to the shareholders. In UK, the auditing system was enforced after the application of Company Law Act 1985 where each and every registered company were supposed to produce an annual audit. (Available on http://www.icaew.com/index.cfm/route/139474/icaew_ga/Technical_and_Business_Topics/Thought_leadership/Audit_Quality_Forum/Agency_theory_and_the_role_of_audit/pdf,2005) . Interplay between Accounting and Accountability Accounting can be defined as the process of identifying, measuring and communicating the financial information about the entity to permit informed judgments and decisions by users of information. ( American Accounting Association as quoted in Atrill and McLane , Page No.5, 2002). Initially there were cruder forms of accounting first one was double entry system which was a binary system method used for recording the events in which all the debits and credits were represented in the tabular form and the second was bookkeeping which was the maintenance or the summary of all the financial transactions taken place.(Arizona, 2001). Accountability often comes to play where there is some accounting failures or discrepancies and the company or the person producing the account is held responsible. Historical perspective of Accounting The topic of emergence of accounting and some other new fields in accounting which has helped in making the inefficiencies of the individual visible and thus holding them responsible using the techniques of accounting viz standard costing and budgeting. Moreover, the authors have underpinned the notion of improving the individual performance by using these forms of accounting that emerged over the years. The studies of the accounting past reveal that the concept of accounting has changed over the years as per the nature and the requirement of the changing business scenario (Miller and OLeary 1987). One advantage of studying the concept of accounting from historical perspective is that a person can analyse where the accounting concept went in discord with respect to the demanding environment and these views can be elucidated and worked out at present. Representation an Overview Representation from the purview of accounting can be further studied as financial accounting is an important branch of accounting which deals with the accounting outside the organization as company . This comes under the financial aspect of accounting. Financial statements or reports can be defined as the [tool] which provide a picture of the financial position and performance of the business. (Atrill and Mclaney,2008:Pg No. 38)There are various objectives of producing financial statements such as informing the investors or creditors about the current positioning of the company, to keep a record of all the economic transactions taking place within the company, to help managers in taking decisions etc.( Lightfoot,Chapter No.7 Representing accounting 2009). There are three forms of financial statements produced viz. cash flow which is the net movement of the cash taking place over a period of time often referred to as the difference of cash in and cash out (Atrill and Mclaney,2008; Ge offrey Lightfoot Chapter 2 Representation of accounts and representation of theories of accounting. ,2009), the income statement which is also called as profit and loss statement and is the statement of sales and related costs(Atrill and Mclaney,2008; Geoffrey Lightfoot,2009) and finally the balance sheet which is the amount of assets and amount owed externally( Geoffrey Lightfoot, Chapter 2 Representation of Accounts and representation of theories of accounting : PageNo 5). All three aspects form the basis of the financial reporting of the organization. These are the methods which every company follows while producing their financial statements. Uses of Accounting: Creative accounting Companies often use these in a fraudulent way to produce accounts. These kinds of accounts are called as creative accounts and the practice is called creative accounting (Atrill and Mclaney,2008). It can be defined in a more specific way as the alteration in the accounting rules that raises concerns over the quality of published financial statements that is in line with what company wants others to see rather than what is fair and true regarding the financial position and performance. (Atrill and Mclaney,2008).There are mainly four methods of creative accounting which an organization can adopt. First, is the overstating revenues in which companies tend to exaggerate the revenues (total amount of money that a company receives by selling off goods or providing services). This is a core issue reported in many of the recent financial failures. Second is the massaging expense in which the directors handle the future costs of assets (anything that can furnish the money in the present or f uture; it can be tangible or intangible) skilfully which can in return make it possible to derive a consistent profit figures in the future. Third is the hiding or concealing of any losses or liabilities(help to make financial statements look in a great position. There has been a number of instances in the past of organization that this form of creative accounting has been adopted by the companies such as Enron Corporation failure was mainly because of this where they tried to hide their falling assets values ( Atrill and Mclaney,2008: Pg No.183). The notion was to represent the company accounts statements in a falsified way so that it may look healthier. Lastly, it can be overstating assets which are projecting the high values of asset than the fair market value which is again a spurious method of accounting. These practices are very much reported in the companies in recent past. But the major roll back in the history of accounting came after the Enron failure broke out in the year 2001 which caused the investors to lose money, a law was passed in the US in the year 2002 called the Sarbanes and Oxley Act (SOX) whose main objective is safeguarding the interest of the investors by completely revolutionising the financial reporting system (Ritto,2008). This law helps in keeping a check on the recording derivatives (that derive their value from the underlying assets) transactions. (Cunningham,2006:40) Key feature used by Enron Company to forge its accounts. Furthermore, many of these topics have been argued by a number of authors who have studied these topics in detail and have drawn various inferences ( Chwastiak and Young 2005;McSweeney1997). McSweeney has tried to focus on the authenticity of the financial reports that a company produces and termed it as representational faithfulness (McSweeney1997). These authors suggest that there are various conditions in which these financial reports cannot be trusted. McSweeney(1997) analysed two texts derived from US Fin ancial Accounts Standards Boards statement of financial accounting concept No.2:qualitative characteristic of accounting information(1980),and Tom Lees Cash Flow accounting(1984).( McSweeney1997: Pg No 694). In both of these texts McSweeney tried to reiterate that the representational faithfulness can be achieved only if the financial reports that are published should match with the economic transaction, events and circumstances that it purports (McSweeney1997: Pg No 695). Moreover, he argues that the representational faithfulness depends upon how well informed the reader is, if the reader has all the information then he can judge the authenticity and faithfulness of the representation himself. In addition to that he also gives the notion that the representation may be imprecise or in other words the accounting representations cannot always be accurate, it may vary but the question here is how much this variance must be considered. McSweeney affirms that impression can be a conseque nce of choice or to be unavoidable(McSweeney1997:page no 697).However, later on in the article when he studies the second text of Tom Lee in which Lee suggests that the Cash flow accounting can be a solution which offers accurate financial reporting without ambiguities. However, there are some authors who remain cynical in approach when it comes to discussing the annual reports that the companies produce (Chwastiak and Young,2005). They suggest that companies often do not care when it comes to projecting the profit maximisation in the annual reports. The financial reports are regarded as the dominant discourses which are always concerned to depict the profit maximisation without considering any other aspects like the earth hazards, human and animal hazards etc. He name these practices silencing of injustices (Chwastiak and Young,2005;Page No.534). Control Control can be defined as the method by which something is monitored or dominated. From organizational perspective the concept of control involves management accounting which is the branch of the accounting that deals with the nuances of management in the companies. It involves the notion of corporate governance which includes all the processes used to gain control over a firm.Control involves mainly two key features viz. future planning and decision making. Control can be accessed by the managers who have the related expertise in the relevant field however, Armstrong investigates that there has been a change in the recent management system which contradicts with the findings of the F J Taylor of scientific management which opines that the managers often have related experience in their relevant field and also Henri Foyal who also strengthens this view (Armstrong,2001). However, he further suggests the techniques in management system that completely revives the management system cove red in detail in latter part of the essay. Means and Measures of Control There are mainly two ways through which organizational control can be achieved. First is the budgeting and the other one is cost accounting. Budget Control Often control in the companies is achieved through proper future planning. This involves the budgeting where the future planning regarding the budgets of the companies are predicted and calculated and then the variances from the calculated performance and actual performance is calculated (Atrill and McLaney, 2008). As budgets are a sort of representation we can see the amalgamation of both the fields that is representation and control in one field. The main aims of budgeting are the monitoring variance, synchronization of activities in the organization, planning resource allocation (Geoffrey Lightfoot, Chapter4 Management Control and Control of Management 2009). Additionally, it also helps in the judgment of managers performance where it serves both as the measure of accountability and control as well (Geoffrey Lighfoot,Chapter 5 Management Control and Labour Processes 2009) Managers are also involved in the process of risk management where they can be held accountable in predicting the difference between the prepared budget and the variances. This is an important factor of failure of financial institutions. Budgetary control pattern can be further studies under two control systems: Feedback control system:- In this system first the budget is prepared and then the comparison between the actual performance and the prepared budgetary performance are juxtaposed and then the third step is the response to the variances and exercising control. It is a very useful measure by which the senior level management exercise the control and accountability over the junior level of managers in their budget preparation therefore, pressing towards the objectives of the business(Atrill and McLaney,2008;Glautier and Underdeum, 2001). Feedforward control system:- In this system anticipations are made as to where the prepared budget can go wrong. In this type of forecasting practice it is possible to know the short comings of the prepared budget and then actions would be taken on those areas and improved budget can be prepared (Atrill and McLaney,2008;Glautier and Underdeum ,2001). Activating based costing method (ABCM) This is another method which serves as a measure of planning and control. This involves the allotment of the costs and the services. This was formulated as a measure to revamp the obsolete process of the cost management system that involves the inefficiency of specifically predicting the production and services costs or convey the useful information for decisions. This is again an area where the concept of control and accountability is related as the managers performance can be measured based on the decision making of inaccurate data. ( Glautier and Underdeum, 2001).This is the technique that Armstrong consider in his paper as a modelling process which was developed to curb the inaccuracy of the previous accounting systems which comprises of single allocation base to the overheads costs.(Armstrong,2001). Senses of Control Senses of control imply various factors which can affect the organization working and its performance. It can be distributed into two fields viz. internal control or management control which are the process formulated to convey the reasonable assurance as regards to the attainment of the objectives of the organizations and external control (Cunningham,2006). These can be further classified in to two categories. They are as follows: Bureaucratic Control:- It refers to the usage reward, policies and rules that augments the performance of the employees in the organization. ( Available on http://www.strategic-control.24xls.com/en112 accessed on 09.12.2009) Clan Control:- It implies the use of the informal measures to enhance the efficiency of the employees working in the organization. ( Available on http://www.strategic-control.24xls.com/en112 accessed on 09.12.2009) The second type of control mechanism is external control in which the functioning of the organization is affected by some external factors. This involves market control process which employs the usage of price competition to judge the outputs. For market control system to operate there must be a reasonable degree of competition in goods or services it should be possible to clearly mention the requirements. (Barnat, 2005). Financial Institution failure All the three issues that we have discussed are the major factors which comes into play in the recent collapse of financial institution. Financial crunch or the recession of 2008 was mainly due to the failure of financial institutions. A financial institution can be defined as an institution which provides financial services to its clients. The recent failure of market was mainly caused due to the fall of Lehmans brother which was global financial player and dealt in a range of financial services like investment banking, fixed income sales, research and trading. It was in the month of September 2008 that it filed for bankruptcy with $639 billion assets and $619 billion in debt, its bankruptcy surpassed all the other reported bankruptcy like that of Enron and World.com.( http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp?viewed=1,2009). The reason of the failure of Lehman brothers was that during the economy boom time in US in the year 2005, it owned a stak e in the ownership of five mortgagers (acquired) including some of those who had tarnished image of credit history such as BNC mortgage, and Aurora Loan services, which were major subprime lenders at the same time Lehman also reported a record high of revenue earnings in the previous years enabled it to mount the profit rate 56% from 2004 to 2006. After the credit crisis broke out in 2007, it continued to its policy of lend more money in acquisition (Mortgage back securities) in order to boost up more profits. But due to credit crunch Lehman brother had to suffer losses(http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp?viewed=1,2009). It was here that the higher managerial authorities must have been held accountable. The argument of Chwastiak and Young seems relevant here that the financial entities are only concerned with the profit maximization. Secondly, the second factor of failure of Lehman brothers its high leverages value (usage of debt to fortify the investment in order to maximise the profit (loss)) (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp?viewed=1,2009)). Here the problem with the recording derivatives can be seen in which the Lehman failed. The third factor was the risk management failure in which the senior management failed in assessing the risk of the future and therefore, failed from the internal control perspective. Besides this there are other examples also like the failure of Merrill Lynch, Arthur Andersen etc. that failed to comply with the three issues viz accountability, representation and control. These three topics are very vital in respect to the organizations as it forms the three pillars on which the functioning of an organization is based. However, often these issues are overlooked and the companies suffer losses and eventually market collapses thereby undermining the public interest. However, after the recent failures and crisis the governments have taken up controls over economy in the recession hit countries and are trying to revive the global market scenarios. Nonetheless, it cannot be achieved until these issues are strictly considered with compliance.

american literature :: essays research papers

Romantic literature is such that an author writes in an attempt to convey his feelings on what the world should be like. It is unrealistic, unreasoning, and imaginative writing. William Cullen Bryant and Edgar Allen Poe are two examples of romantic writers. Though Poe fits the mold of a romantic writer it is obvious that his writings do not mirror those of Bryant or many other known romantic authors. His works share a uniqueness that is not found amongst the other writers, it is this uniqueness that separates Poe’s works from the rest. Bryant’s poem â€Å"Thanatopsis† is a good example of romantic literature. This work compared to Poe’s â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† will show that characteristics of Poe’s work that, both, make him a romantic writer and separate him from other romantic writers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Thanatopsis†, by William Cullen Bryant, is a very romantic poem about the relationship between man and nature. Bryant’s purpose for this poem is to spread his belief that at the last hours of life man is joined with the Earth and when that last hour is over man will join all those who have passed before him. From the first two lines of the poem it is obvious that this poem is romantic in nature. â€Å"To him who in the love of Nature holds – Communion with her visible forms,† (470). Bryant personifies nature in this poem by referring to it as a â€Å"she†. He does this to establish a common thread between the reader and Earth. It is easier for someone, reading Bryant’s work, to begin believing his ideas about nature if â€Å"Nature† is referred to as a human being. Along with Bryant’s approach to the reader his description of the connection between man and nature is also very romantic. â€Å"Go forth u nder the open sky, and list – To Nature’s teachings, while from all around – Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, - Comes a still voice-†(470). In this quote Bryant begins to speak about how Nature offers comfort, â€Å"When thoughts – Of the last bitter hour come like a blight – over they spirit..†(470), through a â€Å"still voice†(470), implying that Nature speaks. As the poem continues Bryant brings out more of his romantic ideas. â€Å"Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim – Thy growth, to be rolv’d to earth again..†(471) In this quote Bryant expresses his feelings that when life is over man will return to earth and become part of it once again.

Social Forces Affecting Education -Pressures on Children Essay

Social forces play a major role in the achievement that takes place in our nation’s schools. Factors that take place outside of the classroom have significant effects that intrude on a child’s learning environment. These social forces hold no prejudice to the youth for whom they afflict and arise in every school setting across the public school system. It is important that one recognizes the impact that social forces have on the future leaders of our country and what conflicts they create for our present day learners. Because we live in a competitive society and want to be able to compete in the global economy, achievement pressure runs rampant in classrooms across the country (Anxiety.org, 2011). When parents and teachers can become aware of the emotional burdens and adverse effects that high achievement pressures carry, they will no doubt second guess their choice to perpetuate them (Weissbourd, 2011). The first step in solving any problem is to first be able to ackno wledge it. Pressures on children in today’s society are a problem that is becoming more evident in academics as parents and teachers put more and more emphasis on these children to outperform their classmates, stress in the child’s life becomes an interfering problem (Anxiety.org, 2011 Weissbourd, 2011,). From preschool children to college adults, pressure to execute academic perfection extends across all areas of curriculum. In our highly competitive, American society, emphasis placed on academic achievement has never been so intense (Anxiety.org, 2011, Beilock, 2011). This need to be the best, fueled by our culture in America, has created a social force affecting education, a force to be reckoned with at that. Too often, parents and teachers sacrifice their chil... ... medical foundation. Retrieved from http://www.pamf.org/teen/byteens/academic-stress.html Kaur, S. (2011). pamf.org. Retrieved from http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/stress/academicpressure.html Anxiety.org. (2011, 5 16). Retrieved from http://www.anxiety.org/anxiety-news/general/childhood-anxiety-from-academic-pressure-are-we-pushin Herrfeldt, B. (n.d.). ehow.com. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how_2314755_cope-academic-pressure-.html Weissbourd, R. (2011, May). The Overpressured Student. Educational Leadership, Vol. 68, No. 8, 23-27. Kadison, R. & DiGeronimo, T.F. (2004). College of the Overwhelmed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. American Psychological Association (APA) (2012, March 12). Reducing academic pressure may help children succeed. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120312101439.htm

The Bargaining Power of Supplier of Mcdonalds

Supply Chain Management ADM 4620 Group Project- McDonald's Lecture Name: DR. ERNESTO DIMACULANGAN Student's Name: Li Yi Yang (1006D3UBA002) Zhang Heng (0901D3UBS008) Li Bo (0706D1UBS003) Li Jie (1006D4UBA002) Due Date: 06th, September, 2010 Table of Context Introduction 3 McDonald's Background 4 McDonald's Strategy 5 McDonald's Business Process 6 Customer service management 6 Procurement process 6 Product development and commercialization 7 Manufacturing flow management process 7 Physical distribution 8 Outsourcing/ partnerships 8 Performance measurement 8 Supply Chain 9 McDonald's Supply Chain 9 McDonald's Supply Chain in Indian 12McDonald's Supply Chain Challenges and its Potential impacts 14 Even stronger focus on freshness and quality 14 On-going product innovations 15 Strong customer demand fluctuations based on promotions 16 Order- and inventory management restaurant – DC – supplier – raw material supplier 18 Bull Whip effect 19 Change Management in a de- c entralized structure 20 Methods for Solve Problems 20 Build the quality supervised system 20 Build the detailed R&D process 22 Improve the level of marketing promotion and forecast 23 Build the direct supply system 25 Build the decentralized structure 26 Recommendation 27 Conclusion 28 References 29Introduction In this report, our team chooses to delve into the success of the global company- McDonald's. McDonald's is one of the most well known brands in the world. The objective of this report is to understand how supply chain management applied into real business in McDonald's. We will through the problems mainly analysis supply chain in McDonald's and its significance in real life and also will explain the successful reason of McDonald's how to use supply chain in their business. McDonalds are a multinational firm and their subsidiary company throughout all over the world, so McDonald's should have a perfect supply chain.McDonald's Background McDonald's is one of only a handful of brands that command instant recognition in virtually every country in the world. McDonald's is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 47 million customers visiting it per day through more than 31,000 restaurants in 119 countries worldwide. McDonald's sells various fast food items and soft drinks including hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, salads, fries, breakfast items and ice cream desserts. Many McDonald's restaurants have included a playground for children and advertising geared toward to children.Company has expansion of McDonald's into many international markets; the company has become a symbol of globalization and the spread of the American way of life. It also expanded the McDonald's menu in recent decades to include alternative meal options like salads and snack wraps in order to capitalize on growing consumer interest in health and wellness. Each McDonald's restaurants is operated by a franchisee, an affiliate or the corporation it self. The corporation's revenues come from the rent, royalties and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company- operated restaurants.McDonald's Strategy McDonald's marketing strategy is concerned with the internal resources, external environment and its basic competencies along with its share holders. McDonald's strategy to develop its global workforce is designed to be aligned with and support the execution of its over- arching strategic business goal, which is ;amp;quot;to become everyone's favorite place and way to eat". McDonald's current strategy is to further promote the image of healthy food that can be found at ;amp;quot;New or Re- modeled McDonald's. amp;amp;quot; McDonald's new strategy of presenting its restaurants as the convenient place where healthy food can be found is in line with its recent attempts to create a healthier image for itself. The corporation is planning other menu changes, such as switching to a cinnamon roll and a sausage burrito as its core breakfast offering, while bagels would become an alternative item. Some chain that individuals ;amp;quot;confront a future of accelerating McDonaldization. ;amp;quot; These changes are part of its strategy to offer a range of choices that support a balanced lifestyle, thus to attract new clients and retain old ones.McDonald's Business Process Supply chain business process integration involves collaborative work between buyers and suppliers, joint product development, common systems and shared information. According to Lambert and Cooper operating an integrated supply chain requires continuous information flows, which in turn assist to achieve the best product flows. However, in many companies, management has reached the conclusion that optimizing the product flows cannot be accomplished without implementing a process approach to the business.The key critical supply business processes in McDonald's will comb following processes: Customer service management Customer relat ionship management concerns the relationship between the organization and its customers. Customer service provides the source of customer information. It also provides the customer with real- time information on promising dates and product availability through interfaces with the McDonald's company's production and distribution operations. Procurement process Strategic plans are developed with suppliers to support the manufacturing low management process and development of new products. In firms where operations extend globally, like McDonald's it sourcing should be managed on a global basis. Activities related to obtaining products and materials from outside suppliers requires performing resource planning, supply sourcing, negotiation, order placement, inbound transportation, storage, handling and quality assurance, many of which include the responsibility to coordinate with suppliers in scheduling, supply continuity, hedging, and research into new sources or programmes.Product dev elopment and commercialization Here, customers and suppliers must be united into the product development process, thus to reduce time to market. The appropriate products must be developed and successfully launched in ever shorter time- schedules to remain competitive. Manufacturing flow management process The manufacturing process is produced and supplies products to the distribution channels based on past forecasts. Manufacturing processes must be flexible to respond to market changes, and must accommodate mass customization.Orders are processes operating on a just- in- time (JIT) basis in minimum lot sizes. It also changes in the manufacturing flow process lead to shorter cycle times, meaning improved responsiveness and efficiency of demand to customers. Physical distribution This concerns movements of a finished products or service to customers. In physical distribution, the customer is the final destination of a marketing channel, and the availability of the product or service i s a vital part of each channel participant's marketing effort.It is also through the physical distribution process that the time and space of customer service become an integral part of marketing, thus it will link a marketing channel with its customers. For example, links manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. Outsourcing/ partnerships This is not just outsourcing the procurement of materials and components, but it also outsourcing of services that traditionally have been provided in- house. Manage and control partners and suppliers require a blend of both central and local involvement. Hence, strategic decisions need to be taken entrally with the monitoring and control of supplier performance and day- to- day liaison with logistics partners being best managed at local level. Performance measurement Experts found a strong relationship from the largest arcs of supplier and customer integration to market share and profitability. By taking advantage of supplier capabilities and emp hasizing a long- term supply chain perspective in customer relationships can be both correlated with firm performance. Supply Chain Supply chain is one of the critical factors for the smooth functioning of any business.Supply chains most- often show where different product components are sourced. There are two key components to the fast food industry supply chain. On the one hand, raw materials are essential to the ultimate product. More importantly, though, the value- added component of the supply chain comes primarily from the services provided by quick, convenient, and quality establishments. The value- added from the supplier to producer right through to the retailer and the final customer. The most important aspect of the industry supply chain is that it is driven by the consumer.The consumer has what seems to be an endless amount of fast food chains to choose from every day. The best example is Burger King and McDonald's they all have excellent marketing departments and that i s why they are all on the rise in today's market. The main goal of their marketing is to make the consumer drive that extra two blocks past the competitor to eat at their chain. McDonald's Supply Chain McDonald's was aware that supply chain management was undoubtedly the most important factor for funning its restaurants successfully.McDonald's supply chain is extensive and complex. It's very efficient, which is why McDonald's are able to consistently offer their customers safe and quality food at an affordable price. But there's more to the equation. McDonald's supply chain contributes positively to the safety, quality, and availability of their final products. They also want their product ingredients to be produced in ways that can contribute positively to the development of sustainable agricultural and food manufacturing practices. McDonald's have a large umber of direct suppliers- companies that make or deliver final products for their restaurants- even McDonald's have larger num ber of indirect suppliers- companies and farms that grow or process the ingredients that are eventually delivered to their direct suppliers. (Figure1. 1) Figure1. 1 Supplier performance index Import Breath of supply process control equipment No direct control over issues, positive influence by raising questions, bring people to the table and encouraging improvement the McDonald's supply chain.A supply chain driven by point- of- sale date needs a consensus forecast for all stakeholders in the chain- including suppliers, distribution centers and restaurants. Indirect suppliers are primary processing; direct suppliers belong to distribution centers. The distribution centers are the second stage (second echelon, thus making more than one echelon, hence the name, multi- echelon) where safety stock is held. Distribution centers have optimized inventories, and increased product availability and freshness. For example, Quaker, Kraft, Keebler, Carnation, Keystone Foods, J. R.Simplot Co, Coca Cola and Tyson Foods all these suppliers will ship to a distribution centers. These distribution centers include everything from food products to cleaning supplies to replacement parts. Individual stores only make one phone call to re- stock the entire store. When all these suppliers ship to distribution centers and the final step is ship these items to McDonald's restaurants. (Figure 1. 2) Figure 1. 2 McDonald's so successful and their supply chain so efficient is that they then take that technology and share it with the rest of their suppliers so that they can all grow together and create better products.McDonald's Supply Chain in Indian McDonald' initiative to set up an efficient supply chain and deploy state-of-art technology changed the entire Indian fast food industry and raised the standards of performance to international levels such McDonald's has worked in the supply chain, their first to open the joint first in McDonalds, brand overseas, which are trying to make, inroads in India's development partners in a manner that will be with companies from the beginning of the success of McDonald's India successfully by providing all he necessary products from domestic to ensure this McDonald's develop local business that can provide the product quality now. McDonald's has a dedicated supply chain in India and the success of McDonalds India was achieved by sourcing all its required products from within the country. McDonald's success in India had been built on four pillars: limited menu, fresh food, fast service and affordable price. Intense competition and demands for a wider menu, drive- through and sit- down meals- encouraged the fast food giant to customize product variety without hampering the efficacy of its supply chain.Today, McDonald's India works with 38 different suppliers based on a long term and several multiple other stand alone restaurants for the needs of many McDonald's distribution centers in India comes in the following order Noida and Kal amboli (Mumbai) in 1996, Bangalore in 2004 and the last one in Kolkata (2007) McDonald's entering the first distribution cooperation agreement in food- related service business. Between 1992 and 1996, when McDonald's opened its first outlet in India, it worked frenetically to put the perfect supply chain in place.McDonald's spent a few years setting up a unique Cold Chain and it was one of the unique concepts of McDonald's supply chain in India, on which it has spent over six years to get systems into place. It trained the local farmers to produce lettuces or potatoes to specifications and worked with a vendor to get the perfect cold chain in place. This system brought about a veritable revolution, immensely benefiting the farmers at one end and enabling customers at retail counters get the highest quality food products, absolutely fresh and at great value.The adoption of clod chain in India could increase the integrity of processed food value chains and reverse post harvest deterio ration, which currently sees 40% raw material wastage on an annual basis. McDonald's expands in India, gives the provider the opportunity to expand its business, access to the latest food technology, exposure to advanced agricultural practices and have the ability to grow or export. The Cold Chain is necessary to maintain the integrity of food products and retain their freshness and nutritional value.McDonald's Supply Chain Challenges and its Potential impacts Even stronger focus on freshness and quality To make sure the materials' fresh and quality is the biggest challenge for fast food industry. Especially for McDonald's this famous brand that customers will have higher expectation than others. If you get any mistakes on the freshness and quality that will make customers sensitive to take the doubts and do not want to purchase. It will lead our sales and stocks get one big shock. Hence, we are facing the stress that to ensure our products keep freshness and good quality in sustain able.As the potato contingency above suggests in France, the supply chain is one of the most difficult areas to monitor. McDonald's exerts 80-90 percent of its impact on the world from a social responsibility standpoint through its supply chain that they innovative the sustainable supply chain model and use it in the business. When McDonald's purchases beef, for example, it doesn't buy it from a cattle rancher. Typically it is purchased from a supplier—one who takes in raw beef and forms it into beef patties.However, some of suppliers for minimize the costs that try to use the frozen storage of beef to do the beef patties. McDonald's always want try to solve this problem, but it isn't so easy. The company doesn't have any direct business dealings with the rancher. It has to exert influence through intermediaries. On-going product innovations As we know McDonald's has its R&D department for research the new product menu and provide to the customers. The innovation at McDon ald's it is extremely unique, while it may be spurred by one of our suppliers, is always shared information with the other suppliers.However, McDonald's has to polling the risk on reveal supply chain management information by these suppliers. However, it is one part of the makeup of our relationship based on trust and mutual respect. There is a lot of pride that goes with being the creator of any particular innovation. Another part reason is for the fast food innovation is very important it not only needs to match the features of the fast food industry and also should use the special characters and tastes to attractive consumers. However, it needs the long lead time and high costs.It will make McDonalds' sales goes down and take the fluctuation on the profitability. This is one big challenge in the supply chain that is how to minimize the period of the new emerges out of the old. Strong customer demand fluctuations based on promotions At the above we can find these three pictures sh ow the promotion's effects on the sales and indirect to reflect the correlation between demand fluctuations with McDonalds' promotion. McDonalds uses the McToys as a sales promotional tool to drive interest and Sales.In their product of Happy Meal among the young children the primary target market of McDonalds gets a sales and demand. Even take the out of stock situation in some periods. The desired marketing effect of offering these toys is to renew interest in the Happy Meal product among young children. The toy serves as a special ;amp;quot;surprise;amp;quot; for this market upon consumption of the primary contents – the food. However, after these periods the customers especial for the young children will feel boring about our products.Because of the younger always like the fresh things, hence, sometimes it will lead the McDonalds' demand take a fluctuations. It not only affects McDonalds' sales and also will take the big challenge on the holding costs or loss profits by t he out of stock. Order- and inventory management restaurant – DC – supplier – raw material supplier McDonald's has one big order and inventory system and supply chain. If want make them in a high efficiency and properly operation, that it needs McDonalds have one correct managerial models and strategies.For example, they need based on the per 100 item sales data to forecast the demand. McDonalds is facing a real stress on the system revolution to make it comes with is very useful farmers at one end and the customer over the counter products sold to the highest quality fresh and value complete. And how to use the laser cooling identity, to make the operation run properly to maintain the freshness and nutritional value of raw materials and processed foods. This involves the purchase of inventory, transportation and food retailers all died under temperature control.And they also should know how to calculate the orders accurate. Hence, is one core challenge in the s upply chain management? Bull Whip effect Bullwhip is the Key challenge in McDonalds' supply chain. The Bullwhip Effect is a main reason for higher costs and problems in supply chains. It describe how small fluctuations in demand at the client level are augmented as orders pass up the supply chain through distributors, manufacturers, and suppliers. In great variety supply chains, the upstream activities react to forecasts, while somewhere on the downstream part the chain waits for orders to be ade. Think about these two former fast food mottos: ;amp;quot;We Do it all for you;amp;quot; proposed by McDonalds and ;amp;quot;Have it Your Way;amp;quot; by Burger King. McDonald's makes finished hamburgers "to forecast" – McDonalds doesn't know when people would come in for consumption, but they make burgers in anticipation. Burger King prefers to wait until customers actually place (customizable) orders before the burgers are made.This is more frequently known as th e ;amp;quot;Build-to-Order;amp;quot; (BTO) model, while McDonalds' strategy up to now is called "Build to Stock" (BTS). Hence, how to utilize this model solve the fluctuation is the real challenge of they need to consider. Change Management in a de- centralized structure McDonald's supply chain system is so simple system that McDonald's supply chain is based on the three-legged stool concept Company – Franchisees – Suppliers. Hence, sometimes it leads the react on the problems more slowly compare with other fast food competitors.Hence, Jack Greenberg, the former accountant who last year was named chief executive of McDonald's Corp orchestrated a management realignment that broke up some of the company's internal cliques and divided the organization into five more autonomous regions, which theoretically will be able to react more quickly to local market conditions. It not benefit for them to expand their global market and react in one short time. The r ealignment also led to the company's first layoffs ever, which reduced some of the bloat that had built up during the chain's aggressive domestic expansion.In mid-1990s the American had taken the things like this. Hence, how to realign the structure and solve the problems taken by this decentralized activity are the key points we need to facing in this part. Methods for Solve Problems Build the quality supervised system Quality has always meant ensuring that our customers receive food products that are the result of the best ingredients, strict standards, and proven preparation procedures to guarantee a safe, great tasting product. Currently, McDonald is facing the challenge on sustainable development on he products' freshness and quality. Even they have a well down on this part work; however they still cannot ignore the problems always taken in their working process. Hence, we think McDonald can make one supervised system (as in most areas around the world), McDonald's restaurants always use the network of independently owned distribution centers that buy products from ‘direct' suppliers – those suppliers who are involved in the final stage of the food supply chain and provide McDonald's restaurants with finished food products like hamburger patties and buns.These direct suppliers buy the raw ingredients they use to produce our food products from a far more dispersed network of suppliers. Hence, we need to make the three-stage supervised system. Firstly, we can build the department to supervise the original materials that came from our indirect suppliers and set up the direct connect style to keep communicate with them. Secondly, we can set up the supervisor in the logistic department to make them give us feedback about our direct suppliers' information and help us to supervise their materials' quality and transportation process.Finally, we can hire the professional supervisor in each of restaurants to check the finish goods and deliver goods, if or not match our standard. McDonalds' inspection program(QIP) to investigate the quality of more than 20 points the difference in the Cold Chain setting of Cold Chain to enable them to reduce the loss of operating Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is the system to focus on food safety protection in place, suppliers and restaurants rather than check on patients or checking status.Information microorganisms according HACCP, control points and control points important for all McDonald's plant food major department stores in India have been identified; Ltd. has been established for those followed by the audit record and correct the deviation. Build the detailed R&D process Consider the McDonald's situation that should pooling the risk with share the innovation information with suppliers and need one long lead time and high costs. Hence, we want advice them to centralized this system and detailed the tasks of process.First of all, McDonald can build some R;amp;D centers in some important regions. Because of McDonald only have three R;amp;D centers (Hong Kong, Indian, American). For minimize the innovative lead time and react immediate about the market demand, I think they should set up two more centers in European and South American. Secondly, I think they should protect their innovative information to reveal to suppliers. Especially that some direct suppliers have the agreement with McDonald on the innovation part. It will help McDonald less opportunity to make our competitors to capture their achievements.At the restaurant level, McDonald can focus in three areas: Energy conservation – Find further ways to increase energy efficiency in their restaurants in order to save money and reduce our environmental impacts Sustainable packaging and waste management – Continue exploring ways to reduce the environmental impacts of McDonald's consumer packaging and waste in their restaurant operations Green building design – Enhance McDon ald's strict building standards to incorporate further opportunities for environmental efficiencies and innovation in the design and construction of McDonald's restaurants If R&D centers need to collect some market information and the materials data, can find the internal employees to take responsible on intelligent information collected. Even though, it looks like the costs will be goes high. However, McDonald will less the opportunity of loss and minimizes the fluctuation lead time to ensure the profitability in one stable level. It is indirect to help McDonald decrease the costs. Improve the level of marketing promotion and forecastFor avoid the bullwhip effects and the demand fluctuation by the promotional effects. I think McDonald should improve the level of marketing promotion and forecast. They can hire the promotional designer to plan their activities and promotion. They can base on the holiday and commemoration day to setup the activities and also can design different s eries Mac toys to do the promotion to meet the customers' needs. McDonald also needs to build the technical forecast system and use the reasonable methods to prevent the fluctuation in the sales lead time. McDonald can combine the ;amp;quot;build to order;amp;quot; and ;amp;quot;build to stock;amp;quot; these to system.Make their forecast more accurate and control the bullwhip effects in one small level. Build to stock is frequently considered as an appropriate solution for high volume products where the demand is either seasonal or easily predicted, or both. This model is more nearly about the McDonalds' current situation, because of McDonalds' demand is highly in usually. And by the long history experience McDonald has the ability to do the accurate forecast; however McDonald has to consider their special service -24hours. In the midnight there is only few people choice to buy as their midnight snack. Hence, if they follow the ;amp;quot;build to stock;amp;quot; in the midnight per iod will lead in excess of demand.It will make our costs get waste and cannot provide the fresh and high quality products for the customers who order in the midnight. Some firms build all their products to order while others build them to stock. Build to Order in an automotive context as a demand driven production approach where a product is scheduled and built in response to a confirmed order received for it from a final customer. The final customer refers to a known individual owner and excludes all orders by the original equipment manufacturer OEM, national sales companies [NSC], dealers or point of sales, bulk orders or other intermediaries in the supply chain. Hence, in the McDonalds' midnight service is most closed to these conditions.Given the widespread proliferation of products, there are a number of manufacturers taking a hybrid approach, where some items are built to stock and others are built to order. Hence, I think build these to models combine in the supply chain syst em will help get one sustainable demand and minimize unnecessary loss on costs. Build the direct supply system In MacDonald, there are many direct suppliers to provide the goods and materials that purchase from the indirect suppliers. It will lead the McDonald's costs goes high and the quality of the materials cannot ensure match the standard level. Hence, McDonald can setup the internal direct suppliers.Such as purchase the land to develop the agriculture on planting and farm. They can make the R;amp;D center to take responsible in this part. Go for this way will make McDonald can have one strong control on their materials' quality and also can decrease the lead time with the high costs in the supply chain process. By another way is it will immediate to react to the fluctuation in the marketing. The McDonald's Agricultural Assurance Programme (MAAP) is the tool use to assess the agricultural production standards employed in growing the farm products used in the menu. MAAP covers ou r core agricultural products; including beef, chicken, eggs, ilk, cheese, potatoes, wheat, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber. The Flagship Farm project builds on our MAAP approach, by identifying some of the progressive farmers in our supply chain that exemplify good practice in their specific area, and are comfortable sharing those good practices. Use this tool to try and ensure the source more products from farms that work to higher standards. Build this direct supply system will contribute to McDonald to monitor and control the quality, safety and sustainability of the raw materials entering the supply chain. Build the decentralized structure By the reason of global integration that McDonalds' market is keeping expand.Build decentralized structure, and the variability of environmental issues across regions, there is no "one size fits all" approach. It will provide the breadth and scope of McDonald's supply chain operations at the same time. Compare with their curre nt business scale, the structure system especial for the supply chain part is more centralize. Hence, it will affect the working efficiency and increase the lead time. Hence, to build the decentralized structure in the supply chain system is necessarily. Firstly, they can build the supply chain information system to take responsible on collect the any feedbacks and intelligent information that stay in the supply chain.Secondly, build the network control system in different regions. Can immediate react on the problems taken in the supply chain. Thirdly, setup the communication center to ensure each hierarchy of supply chain can keep the communication just in time. Moreover, setup the transportation system and emergency center. If taken any problems on the supply chain allocate can change the original plan immediately. Finally, build the supervised network to make sure the safety and quality of the process and materials. Recommendation As far as we are concerned the manager should hav e a clear business philosophy. Supply chain is one very important part especially for the multinational company.The supply chain will decide what products or services of they can offered and which level of sales they can achieve. McDonalds is the famous brand in the fast food industry. Hence, the customers have the high expectation and demand on this brand. Hence, for the future McDonalds it is better to build the global supply chain network. McDonalds can use the advanced electronic tools such as the internet to make all the restaurants share the supply chain information. For different regions it can setup the department to take responsible to manage the problems taken in the supply chain. Normally, the McDonalds' products will have the fluctuation period from the promotion start to finish. And it also effect by the local market and economic environment.Hence, this department can control the market information at any time and do the logistic job to the point. Another way McDonald c an complete the direct suppliers' relation to take the direct controlling on them, less the outsourcing from the external suppliers. It will ensure the materials' quality and also will decrease some costs on transportation and materials' waste. Moreover we think MacDonald can ask the R;amp;D center to research and develop the supply chain, that take care on how to do the right forecast to minimize the fluctuation and how to improve the working effectively? We believe by McDonald's advanced management system they will have the good development on their supply chain in the future. ConclusionIn this report we are mainly talk about the McDonalds' supply chain system that also includes their management process, strategy and implementation work. From the analysis we find some problems on the supply chain work that McDonald needs to challenge. Hence, we try to provide some ideas to help McDonald to solve the related problems on the supply chain management work. Thus, under analysis supply chain part, we mainly describe how supply chain used with a business, and introduce strategy and process in McDonald's. We also have a graph to explain how McDonald's use supply chain and use the real case to analysis how McDonalds uses supply chain in Indian and the reason of why it get success in Indian.Therefore, the objective of this seminar is to make a profound qualitative and quantitative case analysis within the context of sustainable supply and demand chain management. Finally, we try to base on the analysis we have down at before and support some methods to solve them. And we also provide the recommendation for the supply chain management; we believe by McDonald's advanced management system they will have a sustainable development on the business, especially for the supply chain management. References Holweg, M. and Pil, F. (2001), ‘Successful Build-to-Order Strategies start with the Customer', MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall issue, Vol. 43, No. 1, p. 74-83 Holweg, M. and Pil, F. 2004), ‘The Second Century: Reconnecting Customer and Value Chain through Build-to-Order', Cambridge, MA and London, UK: The MIT Press. Parry, G. and Graves, A. , Eds. (2008), ‘Build to Order: The Road to the 5-Day Car', London: Springer Verlag. Beamon, B. M (1996), "Performance measures in supply chain management", Proceedings of the 1996 Conference on Agile and Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, NY Christopher, M. (1994), Logistics and Supply Chain Management, New York, NY Johnson, J. B. , Randolph, S (1995), "Brief: making alliances work – using a computer-based management system to integrate the supply chain", Journal of Petroleum Technology, Vol. 47 No. , pp. 512-13 Maskell, B. H. (1991), Performance Measurement for World Class Manufacturing, Productivity Press, Portland, OR Slack, N. (1991), The Manufacturing Advantage, Mercury Books, London McDonald's Corpo ration (2008). About McDonald's/McDonald's History (online). Available at: http://www. mcdonalds. com/corp/about. html. Retrieve April 28, 2008 McDonald's Corporation UK (2008). Eat Smart/What's On/Good News (online). Available at: http://www. mcdonalds. co. uk/ Retrieve April 28, 2008 Lee, Hau L. , and V. Padmanabhan. ;amp;quot;The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains. ;amp;quot; Sloan Management Review 38, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 93-103.Docstoc;amp;quot;McDonalds-Company-Background-Products-Competitors-And-Positioning;amp;quot; (online) http://www. docstoc. com/docs/9481476/McDonalds-Company-Background-Products-Competitors-And-Positioning [accessed at 24 AUG 2010] About McDonalds (online) http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd [accessed at 25 AUG 2010] About McDonalds (online) Report ;amp;quot;sustainable_supply_chain;amp;quot; http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/csr/report/sustainable_supply_chain. html [accessed at 25 AUG 2010] SCRIBD ;amp;quot;McDonalds-INDAIN-supply-chain;amp;quot; (onl ine) http://www. scribd. com/doc/21803927/McDonalds-INDAIN-supply-chain [accessed at 23 AUG 2010] Essays Professors samples business

Aviation questionnaire Essay

This assessment consists of 30 multiple-choice questions. The questions cover aviation subjects studied for the issue of the commercial pilot’s licence and general aircraft handling. The questions are answered by pointing and clicking the required answer using the mouse. To move to the next question click on the ‘next’ button. To go back to a question click on the ‘previous’ button. To change your answer point and click at another answer. The assessment is not timed. You should expect to take about 20 minutes to answer all the questions. 1)Jet airliners like the 737 or A320 have swept wings. The reason for this sweep back is? To reduce drag at the design cruise mach number.†/> To enable these aricraft to use less space when parking at airport gates.†/> To counter the aerodynamic pitch down effect at high mach numbers.†/> 2)Airbrakes are most effective†/> On the runway immediately after touchdown†/> In the landing configuration [Wheels down / full flap]†/> In a rapid descent from high altitude†/> 3)Some modern airliners are fitted with slotted flaps. The purpose of these slots is to†/ Enable the flaps to be curved into an aerofoil section†/> Re-energise the upper surface airflow to prevent flow separation at high angles of attack†/> Increase the wing area and reduce the wing loading on takeoff and landing†/> 4)Dutch roll at high altitude is prevented in modern airliners by? Fitting full time yaw dampers†/> Automatically decreasing the rudder authority above 250kts IAS†/> Fitting swept up winglets at the wing tips†/> 5)If an airliner is flown faster than its MMo.? The handling characteristics may change above Mmo†/> The drag rise due to compressibility will slow the aircraft down†/> The aircraft must be slowed immediately as any speed in excess of Mmo will overstress the airframe†/> 6)When calculating takeoff performance speeds†/> Vmcg should be greater than V1†³/> Vmcg should be less than or equal to V1†³/> Vmcg must be greater than V1 by 30%†/> 7)On the runway taking off in a strong crosswind from the right a swept wing jet airliner will tend to†/> Yaw (weather vane) to the right†/> Yaw (weather vane) to the left†/> Drift off the centreline downwind†/> 8)Immediately after takeoff in a swept wing airliner such as the 737 the left engine fails. The aircraft will tend to†/> Yaw and roll to the right†/> Yaw right and pitch nose up†/> Yaw left and roll left†/> 9)After landing in rain on a runway promulgated as ‘Slippery when wet’ your aircraft starts to diverge from the runway centreline. What action do you take to stop the drift?†/> Cancel reverse thrust†/> Use full opposite rudder to control the drift†/> Use differential reverse thrust until the nosewheel steering becomes effective†/> 10)After landing on a dry runway which is the most effective retardation device?†/> The airbrakes / spoilers†/> Reverse thrust†/> The antiskid brakes 11) To accelerate from idle to full thrust a typical turbofan engine will take about†/> 4 seconds†/> 8 seconds†/> 12 seconds†/> 12)The use of high pressure bleed air from the compressor for anti-icing will†/> Decrease engine operating temperatures and thrust†/> Increase fuel consumption†/> Have no effect on jet engine performance†/> 13)Engine icing is most likely to occur†/> At any time when the outside air temperature is 1 degrees celsius or below†/> When flying if visible moisture such as rain or fog is present†/> When visible moisture is present and the total air temperature is 10 degrees celsius or below†/> 14)Ice Contamination of the wing upper and lower surface may cause†/ A reduction in stall margins and possible poor lateral control on takeoff†/> A loss of lift and pitch control on the ground†/> An increase in the calculated thrust setting required for takeoff†/> > 15)The symptoms of windshear may include†/> Loss of altitude, airframe buffet, a high rate of descent combined with excessive pitch attitudes†/> A significant change of airspeed, divergence from the required flight path, normal control inputs insufficient to maintain the flight path†/> Loss of airspeed, increasing rate of descent and pre-stall buffet†/> 16)An aircraft flies through the base of an active cumulonimbus cloud. The pilot might expect it to experience†/> A strong updraught only under the cloud base†/> A downdraft followed by an updraught and then another downdraft†/> An updraft followed by a downdraft and then another updraft†/> 17) In calm winter conditions in NW Europe dense fog is cleared most effectively by†/> A change of airmass†/> Solar radiation†/> An increase in wind speed†/> 18)Flying at 33000 feet the aircraft cabin rapidly depressurises. What period of useful consciousness can you expect?†/> About 25 seconds†/> About 50 seconds†/> About 120 seconds†/> 19)When making a visual landing on a runway with a 1 degree slope up you may experience A visual illusion of being high on the required glidepath†/> A visual illusion of being low on the glidepath†/> Neither of these as the visual effect of the runway slope is insignificant†/> 20)In the cruise at high altitude when flying into an area of known turbulence you would†/> Stop the cabin service and fly at the turbulence speed†/> Secure the cabin and cockpit, select turbulence speed and maintain a constant attitude†/> Secure the cabin and cockpit and descent at Mmo / Vmo†/> 21)Approximately how far will a jet airliner travel in still air when descending clean from FL370 to FL70 ?†/> 50 nm / 88 km†/> 75 nm / 132 km†/> 100 nm / 176 km†/> 22)While in a descent under radar control you receive a TCAS resolution advisory (RA). You would†/> Continue with the descent, advise ATC of the RA and look out for other aircraft†/> Continue the descent but turn 90 degrees off the assigned heading and advise ATC†/> â€Å"Manoeuvre following the RA guidance and advise ATC†/> 23)Before starting the final descent on an NDB approach you would†/> Tune the beacon and calculate the required rate of descent†/> Monitor the beacon identification and descend when on the runway heading†/> Ensure that you are within +/- 5 degrees of the inbound QDM†/> 24) At 1700 feet on an ILS approach the GPWS sounds ‘Whoop, whoop, pull up, pull up’. Would you†/> Check the ILS glideslope is within one dot and cross check altitude with the radio altimeter†/> Immediately go around following the standard missed approach procedure, inform ATC†/> Cancel the GPWS, check on the glidepath and increase thrust as a precaution†/> 25)At what distance from the stop end of the runway do the centre line lights change from red/white to red ?†/> 900m†/> 600m†/> 300m†/> 26)Taxyway lighting consists of†/> Green centre line lights with blue edge lighting†/> Green centre line lights with green edge lights on corners†/> White centre line lights with red edge lights on corners†/> 27)While in the holding pattern waiting to land you notice that the total fuel in tanks has fallen below company minimum reserves. What action would you take ?†/> Declare a ‘Fuel emergency’ and set the transponder to 7600†³/> Declare an emergency and request assistance from ATC†/> Advise ATC and your company that you are immediately diverting to your designated alternate†/> 28)In the air a loss of situational awareness is most likely to arise if†/> Both pilots are engaged in programming the FMC†/> The non-handling pilot fails to use airways charts to check the aircraft’s position†/> ATC are talking to one pilot while the other is flying the aircraft manually†/> 29) At 900 feet on a manually flown ILS approach you notice the handling pilot has let the aircraft drop below the glidepath. Would you†/> Verbally warn the handling pilot, monitor the response and look for a correction†/> Verbally warn the handling pilot and take control immediately†/> Verbally warn the handling pilot, increase thrust and lightly cover the controls†/> 30)When dealing with a complex emergency the first officer should†/> Carry out all the captain’s orders without further discussion†/> Carry out only orders that are in accordance with company standard operating procedures†/> Try to discuss with the captain any orders that are unclear or confusing†/> END OF SET 1