ICT implementation report

1. Range of data This is my data, which offers all the different cars and the details about them. The table is set out in and sorted by the specifications of the cars and also includes their prices. 2. Creating order sheet 3. Customer details of order sheet This is the top part of my order sheet, which are the customer's details and the company logo on the top right hand side of the page. 4. Setting up combo boxes I have created combo boxes so that customers can choose what they wish from my data of cars. Each combo-box category has 5 cars and an empty space left encase the customer chooses not to choose a car from a certain category. This selection is linked to the cell next to it as each car has a preset number and the number is what makes the cell named â€Å"cars† change to what is selected in the combo box. 5. Spinners The quantity is done using spinners. As the customer selects the type of car they prefer the price automatically comes up in the â€Å"price cell† and they can change the quantity up to 6 cars for each which is highly unlikely. As the quantity number changes the price is multiplied by the number in the â€Å"quantity† cell. 6. Totals After these processes are done the total price is calculated by multiplying the quantity chosen with the price of the car. 7. Lookups Column F uses a ‘VLOOKUP' in order to find what car has been chosen by the customer. This is done by linking it with ‘Column C' and this column shows a number which is the number of the car chosen on the combo-box and the number in the combo-box is the number which the cars are set as in the Data sheet. Hence displaying the selected car. There is also a VLOOKUPS done for the price which also works in the same way. 8. Tick box and IF statement for Online Discount This is the online discount tick box which is linked to the cell next to it as you can see above. As the box is ticked and un-ticked the cell next to it will change to TRUE or FALSE this enable me to create an IF statement formula that links to this cell in order to give discount or not. This IF statement is designed to give a 15% discount if B25 displays TRUE and if not then 0 will be shown. 9. Delivery YES, NO buttons and IF statement As shown in step 8 the Buttons are linked to the cell next to them. However this time the cell C28 will display either 1 or 2 which represent YES or NO. From this the IF statement in I24 can be done. If cell C28 is displaying 1 then a à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6.99 charge will be put on the totals if number 2 is being displayed then cell I24 will come up as blank as there is no Delivery charge. 10. Tick box and IF statement Claims Bonus Discount This is the Claims Bonus discount tick box which is linked to the cell next to it as you can see above. As the box is ticked and un-ticked the cell next to it will change to TRUE or FALSE this enable me to create an IF statement formula that links to this cell in order to give discount or not. 11. Sub-Total This is a sum formula which adds all the prices which are displayed in the selected columns. 12. Working out VAT% Simply input the percentage I wanted as my VAT into cell H26. In the cell next to it a multiplication formula is used to multiply the percentage by the sub-total which leaves the VAT in cell I26. 13. Working out discount price. Simply input the percentage I wanted to discount into cell H25. In the cell next to it a multiplication formula is used to multiply the percentage by the sub-total which leaves the discount in cell I25. 14. Working out Claims bonus Discount price Simply input the percentage I wanted to discount into cell H27. In the cell next to it a multiplication formula is used to multiply the percentage by the sub-total which leaves the discount in cell I27. 15. Grand-Total This is a sum formula however is more complex because it is subtracting discounts and adding different prices. This formula automatically alters and changes according to what is displayed in the cells above it. 16. Add Macros These macros are recorded to copy the details of the chosen car from each row and insert them on to the invoice sheet. They are also set to change the font option and insert a new row so that cars which are chosen do not replace each other so that the user can select more then one car or extra. 17. Go to Invoice & Go to Order These macros have been set up so that the user can toggle between the two sheets without any hassle. They are both very simple macros designed so that the user can change or add anything they want to their receipt. 18. Print Macro This has been created in order to present the user with a print menu once it is selected or print as soon as it is pressed, so that they can select their print option or directly print the receipt. 19. Logos, company details and picture This print scheme shows the company logo and the colour scheme which is matching throughout the project and the picture in order to make the project more attractive. Part of the logo is the company details that are merged with it. 20. Invoice number and date. Located below the logo, this is one of the essentials for the receipt, however there is no formula or calendar option used so the date has to be manually changed every day and the invoice number every time the invoice is being saved and printed. 21. Order details These details are automatically pasted from the order sheet using the Add Macros. Therefore the titles are set in that order according to the data sheet and the font has been set to be changed as part of the processes of the add macro. 22. Customer details on the invoice. These formulas simply display the information/details which the end-user would fill out at the top of the order sheet. 23. Calculation formulas on invoice The print screen above shows all the formulas used I order to calculate the grand total. These are the same formulas used as the order sheet which I have explained in detail, however these have different cell references and copy the if statements from the order sheet so that the customers order is transferred correctly and so I do not have to repeat the process again.

Kindergarten-Full Day Versus Half Day Essay

The sky is the limit for children. The benefits of children attending full day kindergarten are far greater than those children that attend half day. Some parents and educators disagree; they say that children should not be forced into their educational career so young. Whether for or against full-day kindergarten, the common goal for all parents is the well being for each individual child. Every child has different needs and capabilities. Parents have to make an informed decision on full day or half day kindergarten. That decision can be a difficult one. Ultimately that decision is the starting point for the next twelve or more years of education for these young children. Connecticut does not have a law mandating all towns have full day kindergarten. The budget process has to make full day kindergarten a priority. The curriculum for kindergarten is limited during half day sessions for children. Because of the time limitations during half day, these children are getting significant amounts of homework to bring home. Before and aftercare is needed due to the short school day for the half day kindergartners, causing parents to pay for childcare. The most important point is that children’s cognitive learning is so crucial at age five. They can absorb so much information at a kindergarten level. Taking advantage of that will give them the best opportunities for the educational career and give them a head start. Kindergarten was originated in 1837 (Burkam 3). Children develop their mental, social, and emotional faculties through play, music, movement, interaction with the outdoors, and opportunities to engage in independent and creative pursuits (Burkam 3). The goal of kindergarten is to prepare children for first grade academics (Burkam 5). Children show great resilience so can therefore adapt to any formal routine, especially education. We must constructively use this critical stage in their lives to have them absorb all the information they can. Most towns in eastern Connecticut have full day kindergarten except Montville. There is no set standard in Connecticut law for all towns to have at least one full-day kindergarten. East Lyme, Niantic, Norwich, Waterford, Ledyard, and Groton have already established a full day program for kindergarten. Montville being the only town in the surrounding area that does not have a full day option available makes it very difficult to those parents in that town to make arrangements for care of their children. Planning a town budget for full day kindergarten is not as complicated as it may seem. Child care is financed primarily by families, who are estimated to be paying between $40 and $50 billion annually (Mitchell 8). Only a small percentage of those funds being spent could be used for funding all schools with full day kindergarten programs. Demonstrating better ways to increase and combine local, state, public and private sources to finance all types of programs so that they can meet higher standards and that all families can afford kindergarten and preschool education (Mitchell 12). Some educators say the biggest obstacle is hiring teachers. They would need twice the amount already staffed. Splitting up the groups of half day classes and teachers could be a solution to that issue. There would not need to be any additional teachers hired in that case. There is so much for children to learn at the age of five. A full day of learning, social interaction, and play is so beneficial. Research comparing half-day and full-day kindergarten shows those children benefit from a developmentally appropriate, full-day program, most notably in terms of early academic achievement—a foundation for school and life success (Villegas 1). Full-day kindergarten can afford children the academic learning time needed to prepare for mastery of primary-grade reading and math skills (Villegas 1) In particular, the weight of evidence shows that full-day kindergarten benefits children in these ways: contributes to increased school readiness, children that are adapted to full day kindergarten are already prepared for the transition into regular grade level schooling, most importantly, they understand rules and behavior, which leads to a higher academic achievement. Standardized tests and classroom grades find that full day students achieve higher and improve student attendance. There is better attendance in full-day kindergarten due to the parents understanding that there is so much more information and teaching provided during a longer day and does not want their child to miss, supporting a childs literacy and language development has long lasting effects that are greater in children that attend full day kindergarten (Villegas 2). One study showed higher reading achievement persisting through third grade and in some cases even seventh grade (Villegas 1). Enrolling a child in full-day kindergarten benefits them socially and emotionally. Full day gives children a balance of structured play and self play. Being with classmates for more hours in a classroom forces them to build positive relationships. Those relationships last sometimes all the way through twelfth grade. Decreases costs by reducing retention and remediation rates (Villegas 1, 2). One study, which found full day students to be more than twice as likely to remain on grade through third grade, showed that this academic benefit helped to offset 19 percent of the first year’s cost of extending the kindergarten day (Villegas 2). For those children in half-day kindergarten, they need to have before and after care in some families, especially when both parents work full time. If there were full day kindergarten, it would eliminate some of that cost of after care. Due to these children needing to go to multiple places throughout the day for care and schooling becomes the issue of transportation. During a parents work day, that child could be bused to as much as three different locations just for child care. Parents prefer longer kindergarten programs because children have to make fewer transitions within a day and they believe their children will be better prepared for first grade (Mitchell 5). Day care programs are valuable, but do not have the curriculum and equal age structure that kindergarten does. Proponents of full-day kindergarten believe that children, as a result of their various childcare and preschool experiences, are ready for more demanding and cognitively oriented educational programs (Burkam 6). Having group play with children ages 0-5 is not beneficial educationally. Children at age five are at an important learning stage in their lives. The more education they can receive in kindergarten the better prepared for school they will be. Full-day advocates suggest several advantages for the longer kindergarten day: it allows teachers more opportunity to assess children’s educational needs and individualize instruction, it makes small-group learning experiences more feasible, it engages children in a broader range of learning experiences, it provides opportunities for in-depth exploration of curriculum, it provides opportunities for closer teacher-parent relationships, it benefits working parents who may need a longer school day (Burkam 6). Reading, math, science are subjects that are the beginning fundamentals in learning Researchers found that children who attended full-day kindergarten scored higher on reading comprehension and mathematics concepts and applications (Burkam 9). Having more hours in a school day allows teachers to take a more one on one approach for the children to really delve deep into counting, the alphabet, writing, speaking, and so forth. The foundation of learning stems from kindergarten. Cognitive development is the most important issue with having children in a full-day kindergarten program. Kindergarten is more than play and social interaction with peers, this time must be used to take full advantage of a child’s potential in learning. Education should be the first priority and focus in a child’s life. The bigger picture is laying the groundwork for children’s educational experience. The younger the child the more prepared they will be for the future and the most successful in life.

What are for oil production classification

In Europe and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, in the early 19th century, the united States, palm oil placental and South America and Australia region of California began to grow. Due to its high economic value, has been extended to 30 countries around the world. According to the united Nations food and agriculture organization (FAA), the world seed of olive tree growing area, an annual output of 140 tons of olive 011 Is more than 140. N china since the 1964 introduction of olive tree, is mainly distributed in chuan, Huber, Shania, angle, Axing, Yuan, ghoul and other provinces (area), the planting area Is still growing, but some areas in planting, processing management still has some problems-stable due to the high ILEC acid content of olive oil, grease, together with its special processing technology, especially the nutritional properties of virgin olive OLL Is good, the price Is quite expensive. So It Is of woody fuel In the economic benefits of higher special oil.Foreign system of olive oil method mainly has the following three types: traditional hydraulic oil olive OLL refining method, two phase and three- hash olive oil refining centrifuge separation and skimmed with olive bread organic solvent leaching method. Now, respectively to the traditional system of olives oil and centrifugal separation law method. Oil obtained in the first few steps have olive fruit pulp, the dispersed point together. By squeezing the oil separated from olive fruit pulp of solid materials.Press law take olive 011 Is the traditional system of olives oil. Principle is to squeeze out the olive oil, with olive olive fruit pulp material volume compression, material mechanical deformation occurred. The solid part of the slurry liquid through resistance will be squeezed out. When the hydraulic fluid oil through the oil cylinder piston and push 011 into the OLL cylinder piston drive tray to squeeze the olive fruit pulp moving up,bucket elevator olive fruit pulp by compression after sque eze olive oil with water. Live fruit pulp volume shrink until the remaining olive pomade, unload oil olive pomade on bread, to complete a crushing process. Hydraulic OLL press frame type hydraulic press and screw press two, fruit pulp for 20 – 22 0 C temperature, squeezing time is 50 -? 70 min. The squeeze mode for intermittent olive fruit pulp squeezing process. Salary Intermittent squeezing process, as well as mechanical screw instead of hydraulic piston moves up and down, to achieve the purpose of compression olive fruit pulp extraction of olive oil.Olive oil refining equipment oil press legal process is the most widely used in a wide variety of olive oil production of a kind. About 80% – 90% of olive oil in the world are using this screw press press. Continuous spiral squeezing method This oil pressing machine is often used in other plants, although there are many scientists in the world for many try to Improve this kind of machine Is used to extract oil, because t his kind of press is continuous work and can obtain the characteristics of high pressure, however the olive pulp urological properties for this type of press function does not work. s actually the olive fruit pulp properties is very strong, the material In squeezing squeeze pressure build up In the cage, pressure can only be 1 OFF olive oils and pomade olive oil, not squeeze from olive oil. Therefore, this kind of machine with little or cannot use at all. Belt type squeezing This kind of oil olive oil mill will olive fruit pulp coating metal mesh, similar to that of the caterpillar drawing machine rotation is compressed between the roller (filter), roller is made of metal belt drive.Although a large number of solid material to get a better control, to achieve the purpose of preparing a certain amount of olive oil. But this process on the olive fruit pulp produced by the pressure is low, production is low, there is no mass production. Olive oil press squeeze out the olive oil contain s a rage number of moisture, usually adopts the analysis method of separation.The use of oil and water separation relative density is different in nature, its simple equipment, without power, low cost, the disadvantage is that long separation, mainly as early separation device;Len order to improve the production efficiency, using the method of centrifugal separation, it is using high speed rotary to rapid relative density of different oil and water separation. The separation effect is good, pure oil, can make oil water cut 0. 2%, or less impurity 0. 1% or less,Rice bran oil decaying has been widely used.

Emergency Care Practitionera Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Emergency Care Practitionera - Essay Example From 1999 till 2004 reform in areas of Ambulance services and emergency services were beginning to sprinkle upon and NHS as part of its focus on these new services NHS has decided to introduce in the year 2004 new type of Practitioner called as Emergency Care Practitioner (ECP). An ECP is usually picked up from Paramedics, people with nursing background and other healthcare professions like physiotherapy etc. An ECP is usually given training or they even take up courses at university level so as to get the required proficiency and in process enhance their role and its scope. Flexibility and adaptability is considered as key requisite in performing the roles and in obtaining success as a practitioner. Some of the other skills which an ECP should be able to perform are minor surgical procedures in the field, System based assessment & otoscopy/ opthalmoscopy and prescription of medicines like antibiotics. It is a requirement as apart of job role that they give immediate response to injuries in different environments like minor injury units, out of house services ands A& E departments (Accidents and Emergency departments). I feel that I would be able to contribute to this ever changing environment of Emergency Care Practitioner as I have gained a c

Geology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Geology - Essay Example Communities concerns about cause of continuous coastline erosion, oceanographic hazards, coastline modification, mining of aggregates in islands and vulnerability of shores to coastal erosion and other oceanographic hazards. Beaches in the UK area are not excepted from these threats. In the crown of Britains Bournemouth, premier tourist resorts are located. Today, there are about 5.2 million European, global and UK visitors who arrive in the town annually to enjoy the magnificent sweep of Poole Bay. In UK, no other beach draws so many visitors as these premier resorts. The seafront is extremely important leisure and recreational amenity particularly among local residents in the the areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch Poole Conurbation and outlying Hinterland (Bournemouth Borough Council, 2006; p 3). The Bournemouth Borough Council serves as the steward of the several works ranging from commercial, public and voluntary stakeholders who find seafront as a significant economic driver for their town. The public is challenged to sustain their seafront both as a public amenity and a visitor attraction; at the same time preserving the fragile qualities of its environment. The Bournemouth Seafront has a local and global reputation which is family and customer-centered. The project envisioned to manage the project within the context of long term sustainability so the future generations can be provided with important public recreational amenity. The project is viewed as one with economic relevance of the seafront; comprises of volume attraction that can be achieved in a most environmentally effective and cost efficient manner (p 6). Bournemouth seafront can be seen with large infrastructure and diverse range of buildings that supported the use of beaches with 7 miles length set in a very harsh, natural yet changing environment. The management of this tourist spot is in partnership private and public

Giving evidence from your own analysis, evaluate the potential and Essay

Giving evidence from your own analysis, evaluate the potential and limitations of TWO of the below sources for researching ONE o - Essay Example No one can quantify with accuracy how much these activities contribute positively to economies of various countries. However, one thing that cannot be dispensed is that sporting activities have limitless accrued benefits to individuals, as well to the economies of many countries. For the case of Britain, games that have been outstanding include the Cambridge and Oxford race boat sporting activities often conducted in match each year on the Thames and the the horse-day derby race at Epsom conducted in April and the championship of Lawn Tennis that are commonly played in July. The interesting popular premier league that often run year round also part of sporting activities that are worth appreciating. With the technological advancements, popularity of such sporting activities has been guaranteed following the wide spread flat screen television set (Jonhnson, 2007). Certainly, during this twentieth century, there has been a three-sixty degrees turn from the tradition of the gentleman am ateur, which had covered the entire Victorian sport into professionalism that is quite evident everywhere. However, it should be noted that there are variations in the way different sporting activities are appreciated. ... How these discrepancies are dealt with is beyond the scope of this discussion. One thing to content with is that there should be a way that provides a clear understanding of how the sporting activities in London are conducted. This, thus, implies that in order to find amicable solutions to the emerging issues in sports, there is need to study the operations of the sporting activities in London. It is worth noting that there are varied qualitative and quantitative approaches that could be used in highlighting the aspects of sports in London (Mandell, 2010). With a focus on London, this paper assesses two different sources which could be of use in researching sports in London that perhaps might give a glimpse of qualitative and quantitative approaches that could be used in highlighting the aspects of sports in London. The paper evaluates the ability and limitations of the two sources in so far as researching sports in London is concerned. London Metro newspaper is one search source. Th is newspaper was chosen basing on importance of its content that closely correlates with the subject of the discussion. The content of the Newspaper gives the general map of sports in London. This source is just but a collection of articles majorly centred on sport and sporting activities in London. One outstanding thing about this source is that it contains not only the latest stories on the ongoing premier league by also the latest updates on the London Olympics. This newspaper clearly reflects upon the significant London’s diversity through memories, opinions, and voices of the Londoners. The Museum of London on London and the Olympics is another source that is of significant use to the subject

Has the internet shifted power to consumers Discuss Essay

Has the internet shifted power to consumers Discuss - Essay Example Many technological products such as laptops and cell phones can be bought online. Other types of products are furniture shopping that allows consumers to conveniently make their purchases online without the hassle of actually going to the outlet and placing the orders. Online shopping is a highly easy and convenient option for consumers. Also some organisations have the facility of money back guarantee if any customer is not satisfied with the actual product and service that has been received by the consumer once the order was placed online. Also online shopping allows the consumers to choose their preference and customize the product options according to likeness. Dell computers for example allow consumers to customise their laptop details and accordingly the products for the consumers are formed. 2. Knowledge about Market With the advent of internet, consumers now have a lot of awareness and knowledge about the different varieties and ranges of any certain product. The quality, com position and all other details of the product can be known. The companies that are providing a typical type of product can be known through the internet. This increases the options from which the customers have to make a choice. Market knowledge is known by the consumers and the decisions of the consumers are based upon the knowledge of the market. Before as there was no internet, consumers had to travel physically and then gain the knowledge about the market and that too only few markets could be studies but now having the complete knowledge about the market is not at all a difficult process. As we know that knowledge is power, and consumers are empowered highly with the knowledge that they receive through the browsing of the internet. 3. Marketing Intelligence Organisations usually develop strong marketing intelligence tools for catering their customers. This aspect again has empowered consumers strongly via the internet. Consumers, if they get attracted towards an advertisement o nline may click it and then develop interests for buying the product or not. This shows that organisations need to compete in their marketing intelligence areas so that they can target the consumers and attract them towards their products and services. Consumers usually base their decisions on advertisements that catch their attention and prove its worth in a single glance rather than probing deep down in their details. The more attractive tools used by the organisations; the more they can impact the decision making of the consumers. Internet allows consumers to view all online advertisements clearly with all the details and product features. 4. Comparison of prices Internet as we all know is an open portal for all the businesses and all the consumers to conduct their business transactions or other personal transactions. Internet has increased the competition amongst the organisations as consumers are empowered with the ability of conducting price comparisons of the different produc t ranges while they make their purchasing decisions. Gas prices can be compared by consumers online and they may make decisions of where to buy the gas. Prices of products and services can be compared with the international market as well. If consumers feel that international markets are providing better offers then through the online portals they can order things from the international

How A Bill Becomes A law Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

How A Bill Becomes A law - Term Paper Example This information can be used to better the nation, local community, career, and life as it moves forward. All Roads Lead to Congress is a case study of the proposal and passage of H.R. 3: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA - LU) from the 109th Congress 2005 - 2006. This case study is presented from two different authors’ perspectives. One author is a political scientist, Costas Panagopoulos, and the other is an urban planner, Joshua Schank, who has been involved in transportation his entire career. Schank was Senator Hillary Clinton’s transportation fellow being brought in from Columbia University specifically to help work on this bill specifically. The book is organized by chapters telling the reader simply, â€Å"How a bill becomes law; bill introduction and markup; floor fight; conference; back to the drawing board; passage and politics; and the aftermath. In Chapter one, The four P’s are discussed including power, proc ess, policy, pots of money (price). Members of congress are most concerned about getting re-elected and use position taking, credit claiming, and advertising to get ahead. The suggestion is made that politicians worry more and do more about advertising their pork barrel projects than they do about passing solid pieces of legislation. Since their primary concern from day one in office is with getting re-elected, every move they make centers on that issue, the entire time they are in office. Public opinion of Congress as a whole is typically low, but constituent approval of some individual members of Congress is high. Transportation is a popular place to include pork barrel projects. There is a lot of detail provided in each chapter about what happens behind the scenes in the Congressional process, regarding deadlines, extensions of deadlines, â€Å"constituent meeting†, â€Å"surrogate meeting†, stall tactics, additional conversations, and so on, all in an effort to get a working piece of legislation that a bi-partisan group will be comfortable passing (p. 31). This bill was introduced in the house May 14, 2003 and was signed into law August 10, 2005 by President Bush. The final act was passed before the bridge collapse in Minnnesota on August 1, 2007, on I-35W at the height of rush hour. The bridge, as well as fifty vehicles, fell into the Mississippi River. Five people were killed. The investigation showed that popular, new roads and projects were funded, while the mundane, routine and maintenance projects were neglected. This was not the direct cause of the accident, but transportation has been bankrolling many other projects than the maintenance and safety of the existing roadways for years. The path taken by the highway funding bill followed the schematic in Figure 1.1 on page 6 of Panagopoulos and Schank. The bill is draft and proposed to both the House and the Senate. The Senate and House have committees that the bill goes to. In the commit tees the bill is marked up and reported out back to the Senate or the House with recommended changes. The bill then goes to the House rules committee. The bill post revisions makes its’ way back to the Senate and House floor for discussion, which if proceeding forward, follows with conference meetings to reconcile the differences between the Senate and the House. The

Rousseau's Idea of Amour-Propre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Rousseau's Idea of Amour-Propre - Essay Example This theoretical research on defining amour-propre would highlight on the causes and consequences of 'self-love' in the light of political philosophy. We would analyse the claim that why amour-propre has been a complex ontological process that negatively undermines community and civic harmony and why it is perceived in quest for honor to be superior to others, particularly in liberal societies. 'Amour propre' and 'amour de soi-meme' are two different works of Rousseau which differ in their nature in which they are presented and their effects and must not be perceived alike (Bertram, 2003, p. 22). Amour-propre is an evil effect of amour de soi-meme (self love) which in itself holds a natural innocence for it is close to nature and inclines every living being to be attracted towards its self-preservation. Self-love in contrast to amour-propre respects humanity and does not consider worldly or materialistic ambitions, thereby producing virtue. Amour propre is the ultimate production of society, ruled by the society, and deceived by the society which governs a set of principles to be established for acquiring the genuine source of honor. On contrary 'self-love' is close to nature, ruled by the nature and appreciated by God and is responsible for bringing the true contentment of the human being. Rousseau's innovative social ontology revolves around the ongoing competition for self-esteem which suggests various dimensions central to understand amour-propre. The first dimension presents before us the reason for social survival that is unalterable to the extent which pressurises the individuals to come together to construct lives with shared understandings and institutions. The cause for social survival has itself causes and consequences, as social existence possess meaning for others in society which in turn reveal important truths about themselves. Truth reveals about the development of self-conscious life which in turn cause the individuals to seek their own identities in the light of worldly materialism which by becoming part of a group compare themselves with other members of the society. Causes for social survival to name a few includes sharing commonalities with other members, competition for self-esteem, motivation by honor and so on. Though Rousseau succeeded in naming the categories of 'self-love' but where he failed to acknowledge the application of 'self-love' was the area of 'self-exploration'. With 'self-exploration' comes 'self-knowledge' and awareness for which Rousseau never denied that he used self-examination as a means to generate universal knowledge, however he portrayed that self-exploration is something deeply related with self-knowledge. One can consider self-knowledge to be one of the major consequence for social existence, where Rousseau often portrayed himself as unable to inspect the true source of knowledge, since when he considered that knowledge is from the self, he never meant to exactly oppose

Stress Management to Human Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Stress Management to Human Relations - Essay Example Arnold, Cooper & Robertson (1995) stated that a stress can be defines as a person's response to a disturbance and is any force that pushes a psychological or physical factor beyond its range if stability, producing a strain with the individual. It is likely to occur constitute a threat to the individual and a threat can cause a strain because of what it signifies to the person. Selye (1979) stated that job stress refers to the non-specific response of the body to any demands made upon it.. It is regarded to be an inner state or response to anything we consciously or unconsciously comprehend as a threat, either actual or reckoned (Clarke & Watson, 1991). While Robbins (2001) defines stress as an active condition in which the individual is faced with a chance, restraint, or demand linked to what he/she wants and for which the effect is apparent to be both tentative and vital. Stress at work is a comparatively new experience of modern lifestyles. With change, be it in working environment or change of cadre etc, comes stress and most certainly Professional stress or job stress presents a risk to physical health. Work linked stress in the life of controlled workers, subsequently, strikes the health of organizations. Actually Job stress is a chronic disease as a result of conditions in the workplace that adversely affect an individual's performance and/or on the whole well-being of his body and mind. A host of physical and mental illnesses attests job stress. Sometimes job stress can be crippling. In chronic cases a consultation with a psychiatric becomes necessaryt to validate the reason and degree of work related stress. According to Dr Bernard Lim, president of the Singapore Psychological Society (SPS), "Stress is part and parcel of life. In fact, without some stress at the workplace, we would not strive to meet deadlines or archieve production targets. Instead, one should look for alternatives to handle it. Resignation is only a last resort."On the reverse, there must be control in stress degrees since too much of it can be negative to one's physical as well as mental well-being. Dr. Lim also warned that "Excessive stress at the workplace can lead to increased blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, migraines, gastrointestinal disorders and emotional upheavals like anger, anxiety, depression and low esteem." Stress at Singapore: Similar to other industrialised countries, Singapore has to deal with a lot of major labour related challenges. The strong globalisation and fast technological development which is increasing day by day in the knowledge society has resulted in fast alteration in the Singapore economy and the labour market (A Turning Point, 2003). In reality, the entire employment landscape of the Republic is changing. Ho (2004) argued that Singapore's employment landscape is increasingly characterised by greater instability and more frequent job displacements. Furthermore, the fierce competition from overseas and an unstable domestic job market have brought in new challenges and demands on the workers of Singapore. These workers are required to realign attitudes and expectations by taking on latest attitudes of flexibility when searching for job opportunities (Ho, 2004; Aggarwal & Seet, 2005). Thus, retraining and lifelong learning have become a

Women’s Influence on the Development of David Lurie’s Character (Coetzee, 1999) Essay Example for Free

Women’s Influence on the Development of David Lurie’s Character (Coetzee, 1999) Essay Lurie’s own conclusion motivated this examination of the influence of women on his character: â€Å"The truth is, he had never had much of an eye for rural life, despite all his reading of Wordsworth.   Not much of an eye for anything except pretty girls, and where has that got him?† (p. 218). Of course, the question of â€Å"where† is rhetorical, but the question of why the persona of the scholar no longer allowed him to indulge his â€Å"eye forpretty girls† was the central question in a novel focusing   on changes in South Africa since 1994, when Apartheid ended. The â€Å"scholar† with an Eye for Pretty Girls As the only boy in a house of loving women, whom he, in turn, loved, Lurie recognized that becoming a handsome young man made it easy for him to find responsive women (p. 7).   Based on his age in 1999, 52 years, his age for choosing a career was in the late 1960s, when South African white society was similar to societies in the United States and Western European democracies at an earlier time. Consider the kind of career which would not only permit an obviously well-educated and intelligent young man to pursue his main interest in pretty girls,† but also would enhance his ability to do so.   Lurie probably would not have been consciously aware of such a goal.   However, there are decisions that are influenced by unconscious motives (Hunt Ellis, 2004). In South Africa, when Lurie chose a career, the persona of a â€Å"scholar† at universities and colleges was esteemed and brought a life of privilege.   In a satire on academia that unintentionally mirrored Lurie’s approach, anthropologist Ashley Montagu (1959) advised young academics in the United States to â€Å"remember that your progress in Academe will depend not so much on your intellectual abilities than upon your skill as a personality that is, in the skill of displaying few assets in a convincing manner† (p. 10), where â€Å"a want of original ideas constitutes not the least impediment to productive publication† (p. 23). Lurie, after â€Å"a career stretching back a quarter of a centurypublished three books† (Coetzee, 1999, p. 4) he knew were uninspired and recognized he had â€Å"never been much of a teacher† (p. 4).   However, until Apartheid ended in 1994, the persona of a â€Å"scholar† was perfect for one who actually had only an interest in â€Å"pretty girls† (p. 218).   As an attractive man in an esteemed profession, â€Å"for decades the backbone of his life† was a result of a â€Å"magnetism [where looking] at a woman in a certain way, with a certain intent, she would return his look† (p. 7). The Women in Lurie’s Life The little we know of Lurie’s first wife was revealed only in response to a question about her, a brief response that she was Dutch and returned to Holland after her divorce.   We don’t know how he felt when he married her, but what seemed a genuine indifference and lack of interest suggested she was not an important influence on the development of his character. We know that he and his second wife, Rosalind, experienced passion: â€Å"His best memories [were of] Rosalind’s long, pale body thrashing this way and that in the throes of a pleasure that was hard to tell from pain† (p. 187).   He believed that â€Å"what held them together [was only that they were] two sensualists† (p. 187). However, regardless of her sensuality and of how old she might have been, she clearly would not have been described as a â€Å"pretty girl† but as a confident and independent woman who both had a mind and did not hesitate to express her thoughts.   Her influence on David’s character might have been in his developing the ability to have non-sexual relationships with adult women, as evidenced by his post-divorce relationship with her. Regarding Lurie’s own belief about the influence of women on his character, he concluded that he was â€Å"enriched† by each of the hundreds of women in a life consisting of sex with â€Å"women he has known on two continents, some from far away in time that he barely recognizes them† (p. 192).   Readers cannot know how each or any of the women â€Å"enriched† his life, but his choices were varied.   Before Apartheid, â€Å"pretty girls† who were his students were easily seduced because â€Å"scholars† still were held in awe. When black African students gained access to college educations, their experiences had not led them to idolize any white males, an attitude that spread to other students. When the demand for courses that could be applied in jobs after college was met, Lurie’s institution, Cape Town University College, became â€Å"Cape Technical University,† and instead of being â€Å"a professor of modern languages,† he became â€Å"a professor of communications† (p. 7).   With less access to young students, his â€Å"women† ranged from prostitutes to the unattractive, middle-aged country woman Bev, he described as â€Å"almost waistless, like a squat little tub† (p. 149). If one uses imagery in reading this novel, such scenes take on a comic tone.   Another example of visualization resulting in a scene turning comic occurred while Lurie actually was demonstrating a passion in creating a work of art as he wrote an opera about Teresa, the beautiful young countess who had been in love with Lord Byron. In the opera, he depicted Teresa years after Byron’s death when she had become unattractive, looking â€Å"more like a peasant . . . than an aristocrat† (p. 181), relentlessly singing â€Å"mio Byron† (p. 183), resulting in comic imagery.   The comic element was enhanced because While Lurie did know that Byron did not feel about Teresa as she thought he did, Coetzee did not write what he must have known Byron wrote to a friend about his embarrassment when Teresa called â€Å"out to me ‘mio Byron’ in an audible key† (1819/2009).   Sadly, Lurie himself came to realize that the opera was â€Å"going nowhere. There is no action, no development [and he] has not the musical resources, the resources of energy to raise [the opera] off the monotonous track on which it has been running since the start† (p. 214). Despite the comic imagery elicited when Lurie had sex with Bev, his relationship with her did influence his character.   In working with Bev (at first to satisfy his daughter) at the clinic where there was no choice but to kill pathetic, unwanted animals, he became able to form unselfish relationships with the animals. Earlier in his life, one event clearly did influence the development of Lurie’s character, the event of becoming a father.   The first interactions in the novel between Lurie and his daughter, Lucy, made one conclude that the one unselfish relationship he had as a young man was the father/daughter one that began with Lucy’s birth.   (It was not possible to find a reason for Coetzee’s obviously non-coincidental decision to have Lurie choose the name used in a series of rustic, romantic poems by the poet of Lurie’s academic specialty, Wordsworth, 1798-1801/2009.) Her brutal rape by black men (representing not racism, but Coetzee’s depiction of the after-effects of ending Apartheid) most certainly shook him out of his lassitude, but did not influence his character in the sense that his obviously unselfish concern for her well-being and his efforts to protect her after the rape were not unexpected. In general, however, Lurie’s character did not seem to change very much since the time he was a young man.   Toward the end of the novel, after he was not permitted to watch Melanie in a performance, his behavior demonstrated the character he had from the beginning.   After having sex with a young prostitute, he feels â€Å"contented†:   â€Å"So this is all it takes, he thinks.   How could I ever have forgotten it?† (p. 194).   Perhaps the most interesting question about the novel was how Coetzee was able to make an essentially superficial man into a complex, absorbing, and sympathetic anti-hero. References Byron, G. G. (1819).   Lord Byron’s letters and journals.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jeffrey D. Hoeper (Ed.).   Retrieved March 17, 2009,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   from www.engphil.astate.edu/gallery/byron.html. Coetzee, J. M. (1999).   Disgrace.   New York: Penguin. Hunt, R. R., Reed, H. C. (2004).   Fundamentals of   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   cognitive psychology.   New York: McGraw-Hill. Montagu, A. (1959).   Up the ivy.   New York: Hawthorn. Wordsworth, W. (1798-1801).   Lucy.   Retrieved March 17,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2009, from www.poetry.archive.com/w/lucy/html.

Marketing Techniques Are Used to Market Products Essay Example for Free

Marketing Techniques Are Used to Market Products Essay P1 describe how marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations’ Marketing is the activity and process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchange a product or service; which has values for the customers/clients. Overall it is an integrated process which builds customer relationship and creates an identity for their customers and themselves. However, marketing can be separated into submarkets – Business to Consumer marketing and Business to Business marketing. Business to Consumer Marketing: This is the process by which companies create a value for customers and build a strong customer relationship. Importance of creating a customer relationship is for the business to capture a return value from the customer; (e.g. Newsagent to Consumer). Business to Business Marketing: This is creating a value, solution, and relationship either for a short term or a long term with a business or a brand. This process generates a strategy that motivates sales techniques, business communication, and business developments; (e.g. Wholesalers to Newsagents). †¢A business with an aim is the goal the business wants to achieve (Long Term). Primary aim for all business organisations is to add value to the product or service they are providing and some businesses involve in making some profit. Some other aims include more strategic options like expansion, market leadership/increase in market share and brand building. †¢Business objective is more of step by step plan to take in order to achieve a stated aim (Short Term). To know the progress made by the business to achieve the objective, SMART plan used: Private Sector: Businesses in the private sector are owned by private individuals or groups. The main aims and objectives of a private sector business are to make profit and survive. Examples are: Ford, Nokia and Armani. Public Sector: Businesses in the public sector are owned or controlled by the government or regional authorities. Public sector businesses aims and objectives are not necessarily aiming to make a profit; most of their money comes from funds that are acquired through tax revenue. These types of business organisation for example are: NHS, Fire Services and State Schools. Voluntary Sectors: Businesses in the voluntary sector raise money to support particular cause or provide a service to those in need. Even though voluntary sector businesses do not aim to make a profit, they do aim to make a surplus after all costs have been covered. Another aim voluntary sector businesses may have is to increase service provision. Examples of this type of business are: Save The Children, Cancer Research UK, RSPCA. However, public and voluntary organisations have similar aims to the private sector; which is to run efficiently. The three sectors can plan their objectives by using SMART: Specific – making sure the objective is clear and readable. Measureable – for example, the data can be quantified. Achievable – if the objective is possible to be attained. Realistic – make sure the objective is real depending on the current stature of the business. Time Bound – making sure the objective can be achieved in an associated time period. Marketing strategies define objectives, plan and produce the way the business is going to satisfy customers in the chosen market. Using market strategy, businesses set marketing goals, define target markets and describes how the business should work to achieve the positioning to have an advantage over its competitors. The process used for marketing strategy has three steps, which are shown below: 1.Research and Planning During this period, the business/organisation first develops an understanding and gathers a clear picture of their target customers. As well as understanding the customers, the firm also analyse their market and competition. This gives them a view of what the markets are wanting and what the market needs and also they can follow the steps of the competitors. With this information they can then plan and start developing their market strategy. 2.Developing The Market Strategy This is the next step after collecting data from analysing the market and competition and also understanding the market’s needs and wants. Next steps are to refine the distribution; so what would be the best way to deliver the product or service to the target customer. The firm at this point identify their objectives and choose the right path to exploit any opportunities seen during the research stage. 3.Determining Actions and Controls Final stage is when you implement the strategy. So to implement the strategy; the organisation has to analyse the financial costs by creating a budget and evaluate the costs. After having this data calculated, the marketing strategy is then put into action and during the period of the activation of the strategy the firm will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy and either start planning for a new one or extend if there may be any faults in the recent strategy. Now looking at the two businesses given; Brodie’s Beer and Cadburys plc; they both are private sector businesses with Brodie’s Beer having aims to survive and maximising profit and Cadburys plc’s aims is to increase growth in market share and maximising profit. Cadburys Plc One of Cadburys’ products called Fuse was being developed and Cadburys had an objective set while working on their new product. Their objectives were: To grow the market for chocolate confectionary. To increase Cadburys’ share of the snacking sector. So when developing the product, the objective â€Å"increase Cadburys’ share of the snacking sector† was set to make sure that when Cadbury launched another product; it had a USP (Unique Selling Point. Fuse is a snacking and chocolate bar and was developed to bolster the position of Cadburys against the consumer trend towards snacking. Cadburys had a target market of ages from 16-34 when launching the fuse bar and had launched a ‘Fuseday’ campaign for the release of the chocolate/snacking bar Fuse. They had used Direct Marketing by having sponsorship from the Daily Mirror and Live TV and also Public Relation campaign involving national TV, radio and press coverage. The product Fuse; was the first national product launch from Cadburys in over 20 years and due to the high marketing commitment; over 40 million bars were delivered to trade in the first week of launch. Branding technique was used for all the marketing of the Fuse bar and the campaign called ‘Fuseday’ – it produces a positive image and presents an awareness of the product and company through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. There are also other marketing techniques that are used for new or existing products in a new or existing market, these techniques are: growth strategies, survival strategy and relationship marketing. Brodie’s Beer Ltd Brodie’s Beer is a private limited company in the private sector. They brewer their own beers and also sell them. One of the beers they have is: Stillwater, Premium 45, 8.5% Belgian Malt Liquor. 50% Corn and Massive dry hops of Galaxy, Citra, Kohatu Brodie’s Beer market their products by launching an event which allows the public to examine and ponder round in the brewery looking and tasting the different types of beer – free samples. This is one sort of relationship marketing and giving away free samples is an attractive way to advertise their products and the business itself to the open public. This allows customers to have a ‘test drive’ of the products that the businesses want to promote. The long term of free samples is that the customers will remember this act and will start purchasing the products. Free samples also bring in new customers and new products into the market and this gives Brodie’s Beer the opportunity to gain new loyal customers – which is the benefit of relationship marketing. The only drawback to this is the financial investment. All the money spent in brewing the alcohol and then giving most of it as tasters is a drawback as the time and money spent can go to waste if those customers are not going to purchase any beer in the future. However giving away free samples is a win-win strategy for the business as well as the consumers.

Automotive Industry Lean Model Analysis

Automotive Industry Lean Model Analysis Introduction In any organization there are essential activities which need to be run effectively: production, quality, logistic, and so on. These activities are the means for the main purpose of any company which is to make money (Goldratt, 1993:41). Today the companies are facing a fierce market place: set the production with customer demand, in variety and quantity, and pursuit superior quality. To reach this is a high goal for any company, reach that and being effective is the core of nowadays strategy plan. The financial crisis that exploded the last year led many companies analyze the way they were operating in, and seek how to be more effective and make the company sustainable in the medium and long term. Reduction of cost is important at any time but reduction in time of crisis is essential. The way to escape the pitfalls faced in the mass production requires a redefinition of the production management system which eliminates the waste and pursuit the efficiency of the company as a whole. This dissertation is a case study base in an industry of automotive  industry. This sector has the characteristic of being very influential in the development of emerging trend in management.  From Henry  Fords  and the introduction  of the  moving  assembly to Toyota Production Systems many innovations have been development in this sector. Taiichi Ohno (1988) was the first person to identify seven inefficiencies which do not contribute to the goal of any company. These inefficiencies of wastes are denominated as muda in the Toyota Production System. It was after the book The machine that changed the world?, 1990, when the term Lean began to be known all over the world. Lean thinking is the medicine for companies suffering from inefficiency, and is Lean because it provides a way to do more with less; less human resources, less equipment, less time and less space, (Womack J. et al., 1990:15). All this reduction measures could be easily translated into money hence when a company is making money it has a future to plan. Another  characteristic  of  automotive industry  is  the  low  margins. The company, in which is based the dissertation, as  many  of  others  automotive manufacturers, is struggling  with  low  or  negative  profits. Through the application of Value Stream Mapping, Cell layout, and Takt time is the intention of the research to show and encourager the company to swap from traditional production into lean manufacturing Confidentiality   The company where the case study is bases is a sensitive phase of change. Due to this reason this dissertation will not display the company name, name of persons working at the company and other pieces of information that can be derived from the research. Therefore the company is referred throughout all dissertation as the company. Aims and objectives The main objective of this dissertation is to study and understand lean model and revealing the efficiency of lean techniques by applying them in a case study. These objectives can be summarised as the following: To carry out an extensive literature review about the lean model. To study the different elements and techniques of lean Draw the potential new ways to seek the processes and process layout. Outline potential improvements in the points below which contribute to solve the problem of the current highly expensive processes. Quality Lead Time Space Inventory Workers required This study intends to show the benefits of lean approach application and be used as an internal feasibility study of the potential application of this philosophy into the company. Nevertheless, whether the company finally decides to apply these principles or not is not the purpose of this project. Methodology The methodology for the first three chapters involves and intensive literature search and review on the lean philosophy. The source of this information was from extensive range of information sources as: written literature; books, journals, and the internet resource; also detailed discussions with lecturers and colleges who had knowledge on the topics. An important part of the literature review was to understand the concept of the lean and how can be applied. Secondary data is based in review documentation provided by the company. Primary data collection is based on the observation of how the company is currently working and after the working procedure are know lean approach will be applied starting with Value Stream Mapping, and the subsequence tools and techniques, described in more detail in the next chapters. Nevertheless a deep explanation to this topic will be found in the methodology chapter. Limitations One of the most important limitations for this dissertation is time limit, driven in part for the limitations time that the research had to the company. The research will be focus to a small area, but the same steps can be applied for all areas/families. No consideration will be taken, about potential issues derived from this research concerning to material handling. Another limitation is the confidential agreement between the research and the company, for this reason relevant information data could not be publicly released. The distance to the company being researched and the researcher is clear limitation for the arrangement of appointments with the company. Nevertheless this limitation known beforehand and a planning was agreed with the company in the first meeting; both sides agreed to make three on site visit of 3 working days each and another visit for presenting the research. 13,14,15 of Aprilà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  1 toma de contacto y anÃÆ' ¡lisis de la situaciÃÆ' ³n actual 21,22,23 of Juneà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  2 Implementation de VSM, cell layout, takt time,. 13, 14, 15 of July à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  3 seguimiento de las mejoras applicadas 24 of Augustà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   4 Ajustes y presentacion del projecto a la compaÃÆ' ±ÃƒÆ' ­a. Research structure This dissertation is divided into 8 chapters, with a brief outline below; Chapter 1 Introductionà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  This chapter explains about the nature and the background of the dissertation objectives. Chapter 2 Literature reviewà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Is included here a study of the background literature on lean manufacturing. Chapter 3 Tools and techniquesà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter explains the tools and techniques used under the umbrella of lean manufacturing. Chapter 4 Methodologyà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter gives the overall view of the research design taking into account the methodology under taking to do the primary research and explain the type of research, data and tools used. Chapter 5 Company overviewà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter discuss the current situation of a second tier car company which is faced a crisis. Chapter 6 Implementation of lean Chapter 7 Data result and analysis Chapter 8 Conclusion and recommendations. This page is left blank on purpose Literature Review Origins of Lean Manufacturing Any new management approach that emerges will undoubtedly contain pieces from the knowledge from the past. Therefore we can find characteristic of lean were addressed in the past like: interchangeable parts developed by Ely Whitney (1765-18825), the work standardization made by Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), or the time and motion studies made by Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924), where he pursuit the elimination of non-value elements. But without any doubts the most influence person in the development of Lean was Henry Ford, he organized all the elements of a manufacturing system; people, machines, tooling and raw materials, in a continuous flow system, for manufacturing the famous model T by applying this methodology the factory achieve to rise the effectiveness in the assembly process and by 1920 he achieved to reduced the price of the model T at 34% of the original price in 1908. Kiichiro Toyoda travelled to EEUU (1929) in his search for learn the American Way. Fords assembly line provided the flow idea upon which Kiichiro Toyoda based his early car production, but soon he realized the need to adapt it to the market conditions and the culture in Japan. They knew that they could not compete with the giants like Ford in foreign markets. Therefore, they were producing only for internal market, and bring the raw materials from outside, for that reason Toyota could not lower cost by exploding economies of scale, thats why they build a systems upon an strategy: to make many models in small numbers (Ohno, 1988). They pursuit the cost reduction through the elimination of the inefficiencies; defined as muda, Japanese word for waste. (W. J. Hopp et al, 2000) Henry Ford vision about systematic elimination of waste, standardization and elimination of process variability, Quality at the source, and so forth was so inspirational for Ohno and the definition of TPS. In the book Toyota Production System; beyond large-scale Production, 1988, Ohno quoted the Fords book Henry Fords Today and Tomorrow in different chapter as a key to the development of lean principles. In 1945, after Toyoda Kiichiro set an ambitious goal: Catch with America in three years (Ohno, 1988). In order to achieve this goal Toyota production system was developed as a respond to the severe competition imposed by mass production and offered an alternative production system according with the restrictions of the moment. Under these conditions Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990) was brought into the company as a leader to translate the ideas of Kiichiro Toyoda into action. He was working for the company since 1932 but wasnt until 1943 when he went transfer to Toyota Motor Company, where he became Machine-shop manager in 1949. During that period the company was fighting on bankruptcy hence major investment or massive inventories werent affordable. For many years the western companies had cut the cost by increasing the production but after oil crisis, explore around 1973, rapid growth stopped and the principle if you can make it, you can sell it (Ohno, 1988, p2), most of the Japanese industries had losses, but Toyota overcame these problems. The capability of Toyota to overcome the crisis was the trigger for eyes opener to Japanese companies and implement the TPS. The Toyota Production System (TPS) was first denominated in the West as Just in Time (JIT).After the initial visits of industries from western countries to Japanese industry, the people returning with stories of factories which produced only what was needed, when needed, without any Just In Case expensive stock. Later, we realised that there was more than this, and the JIT was worked because was part of a more global management system, TPS. A system in fact useful to reduce costs and from that time the TPS became very popular. (Y. Monden 1993). But this system got popularity in the western countries after a researcher made in 1990 for Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones. This five year research about the future of the automobile makers, revealed a gap between the conventional mass production and the new trend used in Japanese industries. This book coined the term Lean as a description of the Toyota Production System. Definition of Lean As is described above, Toyota Production System was born in Toyota (1945). This system is sustained for two pillars: Just in Time and Autonomation or Jidoka. The name of Lean manufacturing was given in a research published by Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) in 1990. Ohno make three statements in his book Toyota Production System; beyond Large-Scale Production, 1988, taken together we can use as his definition: The basis of the TPS is the absolute elimination of waste. The two pillars needed to support the system are: Just in Time and Autonomation (Jidoka) (Ohno, 1988 p4) Cost reduction is the goal (Ohno, 1987 p8) After World War II, our main concern was how to produce high-quality goods. After 1955, the question became how to make the exact quantity needed (Ohno, 1987 p33). We can conclude that for Ohno the TPS consist of many techniques that are designed to reduce the cost by removing the waste and providing the right product, at the right quantity at the moment is required. Using less of everything this statement was made in the book The machine that change the world (Womack et al. 1990) as a definition of Lean production. Another important contribution of TPS was a new approach of looking at the equation formed by: Price, Cost and Profit. When TPS was developed, the western was using the following equation to obtain price of a product: Price=Cost + Profit In this formula if the cost increase, the best way to maintain the same profit is by raising the price, is based on the principle that is the company who fix the price. By offering more feature, quality or service they can raise the price. By another hand, Japan proposed the next expression: Profit=Price â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Cost In this equation is the market, the final customer who is fixed the price. The companies used the voice of the customer as a means to design the new features of a product, and the price they are willing to pay for it. With this equation the only way to obtain better profits is by reducing the cost as much as possible (fig. 3.1). This equation leads the companies to pursuit internal improvement if they want to keep or raise the profit in the current market situation. (J. Santos, et al. 2006). Figure 3â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ1 Equation price-cost benefits (adaptation of J. Santos et al 2008) Price fixed by the customer Cost Profit Summarizing we can conclude that Lean is a theory of management that consider the uses of resources for any means other than the creation of value from customer point of view is a waste (defined below); and pursuing the elimination waste as a means of achieving greater efficiency of the process. (Y. Monden, 1993) Seven types of Wastes Muda is a Japanese means waste. According to James P. Womack (2003) any activity which absorbs resources but creates no values is called waste. Lean thinking provides a way to identify the value, defined by the final customer, and analyze the value stream in the search for not added value action in order to eliminate and based in Continuous improvement, where the search for new improvements is never ending. (Womack et al., 2003) The wastes defined by Ohno include parts not right the first time, piles of products made in Just in case, processing step that no one had analyzed, to realized that they are not needed, transporting goods thought work floor, workers, machinery or material waiting to the next step in the process, and so forth. (Womack et al., 2003, p16). There are many types of waste; some are easy to discern others difficult. An important thing to remember is that to eliminate waste, you must find it first, towards eliminating it. The seven wastes (7Ws) addressed by Ohno (1988) are detailed below, with the addition of the one defined by Womack, 2003. Overproduction Manufacturing companies, sometimes produce more than they have sold, some times because they want to build an inventories, in the expectation that the market requirements arise, another times with the purpose to keep everyone busy and / or to achieve a high used of the facilities. Whatever the reason is, making products for which there is no demand is waste and can drive the company out of business. The key point to found this waste is compare what is produced versus what is sold. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Waiting This waste will include delay between the end of one activity and the start of the next activity. This waste can take many forms: operators or machineries waiting for orders, parts, materials, parts for the preceding process, equipment repairs, and so on. Contrasting with the previous waste, this one it is easy to identify. As It was explain above, some companies minimizing the waste of waiting by keeping the workers and the machines active all the times, incurring in that way in the previous waste; overproduction. Stopping the machines and allowing workers to be idle in occasion, is less costly than producing products with no orders. Another advantage of these spare times is that the workers can used it to search for improvements. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Transporting It is any kind of unnecessary transport of workers, parts, products, etc moved from one location to another. There two things that determine the transport through the factory; the layout facility and the sequence of operations. (J. Nicholas, 1988) No value is added in any items while they are moving around, therefore all time and facilities involve in that are wastes. Rearranging the layout and putting sequential equipment together allow us to minimize this waste. Too much machining; over processing. A process may itself contain steps that are ineffective or unnecessary. When company use expensive or high precision equipment where investing in smaller and more flexible equipment would be adequate. This often results in poor plant layout because The monuments are located far away from the process and making the process incur in waste such transportation, wait and in addition overproduction (in order to set high utilization, and justify the investment). Inventories Ohno in his book Toyota Production System, Beyond Large Scale Production (1988), qualify the inventory as the root of all evil because covers other kinds if wastes and inefficiencies and encourages to wasteful practices. Inventories represent items waiting for something to happen, where there are many associated and hidden costs (storage space, handling, management, insurance, lost of opportunity, and so forth). John Nicholas (1988) identifies that many companies even when they recognize the high cost of the inventory they justify them for dealing with issues such: To cover fluctuations in future demand, where more accurately forecasted are necessary. To cover the delay in lead times caused by breakdowns or delivery delays, where a Preventive maintenance plan would be necessary as well a close relationship with the suppliers. To cover long setup times, where an improvement in standardization as well as a study of the setup times made the big batch unnecessary. We can use the analogy of a ship on water (figure 2.1) to clarify the idea of hidden costs and problems incurred with high level of inventory. As inventory is reducing, problems are exposed, which can be resolved. After that, the inventory is lowered again, in order to get more problem appear and management has to resolve them in order for the system to work. Figure 3â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ2 Analogy of water and inventory Worker absenteeism Work load imbalance Downtime Quality Scrap Rework Out of spec. materials Set-up Times Process variation Inventory level is hidden all problems By reducing the inventory, production problems arise WIP The research is agreed with Ohno (1988) when he argued that people tend to build some inventory as a respond of their farming roots. Our ancestors grew rice for subsistence and stored it in preparation for times of natural disasters (Ohno, 1988) this type of accumulation is no longer practical from the moment that we can find everything that we need from the corner shop. Nevertheless, break this habit in the day to day factory habits is difficult, is requires a change of attitude. But we need to keep in mind that reduction of inventory is not an end itself; it is a mechanism for revealing problems and wasteful practices in the production system. Moving People in work often confuse being in motion with working. A worker in constant motion all day may actually be doing little work; we should consider which portion of the motion is actually added value to the product. This waste is related to ergonomics and the objective is to obtain that the 100% of the motion is work; added value. Hence pursues the elimination of wasteful motion, but not by increasing work. Motions as bending, stretching, walking, lifting, reaching, picking up, transporting, loading, and so forth take workers time and increase the cost, but not add value. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Making defective parts and products. The simplest form of waste is products that do not meet the specification. Manufacturing products right at first time requires no money. Defects in any product are a major source of waste, hold up production and increase production lead times avoidable if products were done right the first time. Quality defects result in rework or scrap and involve a remarkable cost to organizations, along with the associated costs such: re-inspecting, rescheduling quarantining inventory, and capacity loss.   The key point is attain Quality at the source or Quality Assurance where the parts are made right the first time, transforming the old idea of Quality Assurance; where the parts are inspected at the end of the line. In order to achieve this we can use tools such: Poka Yoke, Kaizen, and so forth. (Y. Monden, 1993) Underutilization of Employees In the book Lean Thinking by James P Womack and Daniel T. Jones (1996), was added another wasted, added to the seven defined by Ohno (1988); which was denominated by them as Underutilization of employees. The companies hire employees for the physical skills, and sometimes the managers forgot to take an advantage of the brainpower that they hired with those skills. Some common causes of inability to see this waste may result in mudas such high employee turnover, inadequate hiring practices, and so forth. Not Used the employees as an experts of the process in which they are working is a waste of creativity and the improvement ideas that they can generate, this waste deserved the same important than the previous seven described above. Tools and Techniques There are many definitions that refer to lean; as Toyota Production System, Just in Time, Jidoka, flexible workforce, Kanban, TQM and so forth; partly because for many years had been confusion and many practitioners; mix up the purpose with the means. Lean production may be viewed as a bunch of all this practices/tools, and all underneath subsystems give the necessary support to the main system. The main systems Ohno (1988) described as two pillars are: Just inTime Autonomation with human touch, or Jidoka The tools/techniques of lean, as supporting subsystems can be said as; Kanban Poka-yoke Visual Control, Andon Value Stream Mapping Standard Operations One Piece Flow 5S Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Levelling Production Benchmarking SMED Multifunctional Workers Kaizen Some of the most relevant for the research purpose are explained below. The two pillars of Lean: Just in Time In 1950 Toyota was near to bankrupting, as a consequence they couldnt afford major investment in new machineries or substantial inventories. In 1956 Ohno travel to America, where he got the perspective of Just-In-Time in the American supermarket. He was interested in way the supermarket were working; by providing to customer what they need, when they need and in the quantity they need. Ohno transfer this idea down to the process, and he developed a system that is working like a coordinate chain of small supermarket, where all processes are transformer in customer for the previous step and supplier for the next step and every step is only produced the quantity needed for the next step, with perfect quality and no waste. The system was denominated as pull system. TMMK (7may2010) JIT was developed in the framework of TPS and evolved due to the need of the Japanese industry to survive in the post-war global market. Soon, the value of the system was proven into the manufacturing industry and a large number of companies worldwide hastened to implement this model to their own production systems (Monden, 1993). Ohno developed a number of methodologies to support the Just in Time system; one of the best known is the Kanban system, detailed below. Pull system and Kanban The traditional mass production system is the one denominate as push production system, where every station start to assembly a part when the raw material arrive to the work station. The way to manage production system is usually based in forecasting. The parts usually are processes in batches according to a schedule for each process (fig 2.2). The materials must usually wait until the workstation complete the previous work and is performing the changeover necessary. Changes in schedules, breakdown in machinery and other incidents, make a planning inaccurate. (J Nicholas, 1988). When a problem occurs at one stage, the problem will not be notice in the rest of the system, because an inventory between the workstation are insulated the problems in each workstation, and dependency between workstation was low. Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ3 Push System Retention points Process 1 Retention points Process 2 Inspection Retention points inspection Information and material flow High variability in lead times, long lead times, large Work in Progress inventory, and a numerous quality issues are arisen in this system. Besides with the problems associated with maintaining valid scheduled, made by the forecasting office, which is far a way from the shop floor and all the problems that arise in the manufacturing process. By contrast the pull production is sometimes called stockless, because is minimized the work in progress, pursuit the one piece flow. It seeks to have every stage in a process produce and deliver materials downstream in the exact quantities and the exact times requested. (J Nicholas, 1988). Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ4 Pull System Process 2 Inspection Material Flow Process 1 Inspection Max Min Delivery point Max Min Max Min Information Flow Refer to the figure 2.3, when a customer order arrives to the delivery point, this work station sends a production order to the downstream process, in order to refill the product had been delivered. The work station 2 in the moment is used more than two parts, and let the buffer with the minimum quantity, then sends a production order to the work station 1. Just in time pursues the zero inventories; the system that is describing here is used a buffer, in that way any process shouldnt wait to have the necessary material to start producing an order. Refer to the figure 2.3 each work station begins de production as soon as the order upstream is received. (J Nicholas, 1988). In contrast with the Push production system, any problem in any work station is affected the whole system, so that all stage are working together in order to resolve the problem, increasing the chances of solving the root problem. Kanban is a subsystem to support of the JIT system and was developed by Toyota in the early stages of TPS. Kanban is a Japanese word for card, but not necessarily need to be a card, sometimes can be a signboard, container, empty space, and so forth. The broadly idea is to use the Kanban, whatever the form is takes, as a signal to produce a specific number of parts request for the next process. (N. Slack et al, 2004). The system is not used a complicated and expensive computer schedules. The theoretical operation of Kanban is no one product is manufacture until is demanded for the final customer. Therefore the signal Kanban is used as a trigger for a production. There are different types of Kanban; Conveyance Kanban, also know as a move Kanban, whose purpose is to move the goods along different production stages. The Production Kanban, work as a signal to a production process that can start producing a part to be place in the inventory. (N. Slack et al, 2004) There are two procedures of using Kanban system; dual-card (used both production and conveyance) this is the original Toyota method, and the single-card, explained below (used only the production, but acting as both move and produce authorization), is more often used the last one, for the simplicity of use. (N. Slack et al, 2004) Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ5 Kanban system. Process 2 Inspection Material Flow Process 1 Inspection Delivery point Max Min Kanban Max Min Kanban Max Min Kanban Information Flow Order to the supplier To explain the concept we can use the example in figure 2.4, where each process made two piece batches. When the delivery point sent two finished parts, the operator takes a Kanban card from the container and sends it back down to the previous workstation; process 2,where that part is assembled. When the Kanban card is received, the previous work station start to assemble new batch of 2 parts, and consequently it sends downs to the previous process the Kanban card in order to refill the parts used in the last operation. This chain or work orders is repeated until an order is sent to the supplier of raw material. This system keeps to minimum the paperwork, provides a self-manage workstation and one the more important achievements is that the inventory of Work in Progress is kept to a minimum. The parts are assembled only when a need for them and WIP is reducing by dropping the number of cards into the system. The two pillars of Lean: Jidoka Jidoka is a Japanese word meaning automation with a human touch, refers to the automatic control of defects under the supervision of an employee; or as is described by Ohno (1988) Autonomation. Is refers to a process that has incorporated mechanism to detect non conformances and not allowed the process to pass a product if there isnt a conformance with the requirements.   Sakichi Toyoda began to used Jidoka, also known as Autonomation; he invented the automatic looms that stopped immediately when any thread broke. In that way one operator was able to manage many machines with no risk of producing outside specifications. This pillar of TPS is a â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"Proactive Systematic Approach. That is means instant detection of non conformances at the root source, pursuing the prevention is chosen over correction for problems after its occurrence. Through this principle we ensure that hundred per cent of the products are free defects, and when a defect is found this is fixed directly, otherwise the worker had the authority to stop the line, in order to resolve it.(J. Nicholas,1998).No OK parts are very important in JIT, when a one short part can cause the stoppage of the whole factory, just to remember one of the quotation for define JIT The exact product in the exact moment that is required (Ohno, 1988) This authority to stop the line meets resistance in western managers, because they are afraid that this can cause a delay in the lead time. But that is only the negative side, by another hand should be viewed as improvements in the process, the root of many quality issues are discovered and as a result they are resolved. Thought Jidoka principles the employees are more aware of quality issues and the related problems, and the number of defects and rework drop at the end of the line. (Nicholas, 1988 Automotive Industry Lean Model Analysis Automotive Industry Lean Model Analysis Introduction In any organization there are essential activities which need to be run effectively: production, quality, logistic, and so on. These activities are the means for the main purpose of any company which is to make money (Goldratt, 1993:41). Today the companies are facing a fierce market place: set the production with customer demand, in variety and quantity, and pursuit superior quality. To reach this is a high goal for any company, reach that and being effective is the core of nowadays strategy plan. The financial crisis that exploded the last year led many companies analyze the way they were operating in, and seek how to be more effective and make the company sustainable in the medium and long term. Reduction of cost is important at any time but reduction in time of crisis is essential. The way to escape the pitfalls faced in the mass production requires a redefinition of the production management system which eliminates the waste and pursuit the efficiency of the company as a whole. This dissertation is a case study base in an industry of automotive  industry. This sector has the characteristic of being very influential in the development of emerging trend in management.  From Henry  Fords  and the introduction  of the  moving  assembly to Toyota Production Systems many innovations have been development in this sector. Taiichi Ohno (1988) was the first person to identify seven inefficiencies which do not contribute to the goal of any company. These inefficiencies of wastes are denominated as muda in the Toyota Production System. It was after the book The machine that changed the world?, 1990, when the term Lean began to be known all over the world. Lean thinking is the medicine for companies suffering from inefficiency, and is Lean because it provides a way to do more with less; less human resources, less equipment, less time and less space, (Womack J. et al., 1990:15). All this reduction measures could be easily translated into money hence when a company is making money it has a future to plan. Another  characteristic  of  automotive industry  is  the  low  margins. The company, in which is based the dissertation, as  many  of  others  automotive manufacturers, is struggling  with  low  or  negative  profits. Through the application of Value Stream Mapping, Cell layout, and Takt time is the intention of the research to show and encourager the company to swap from traditional production into lean manufacturing Confidentiality   The company where the case study is bases is a sensitive phase of change. Due to this reason this dissertation will not display the company name, name of persons working at the company and other pieces of information that can be derived from the research. Therefore the company is referred throughout all dissertation as the company. Aims and objectives The main objective of this dissertation is to study and understand lean model and revealing the efficiency of lean techniques by applying them in a case study. These objectives can be summarised as the following: To carry out an extensive literature review about the lean model. To study the different elements and techniques of lean Draw the potential new ways to seek the processes and process layout. Outline potential improvements in the points below which contribute to solve the problem of the current highly expensive processes. Quality Lead Time Space Inventory Workers required This study intends to show the benefits of lean approach application and be used as an internal feasibility study of the potential application of this philosophy into the company. Nevertheless, whether the company finally decides to apply these principles or not is not the purpose of this project. Methodology The methodology for the first three chapters involves and intensive literature search and review on the lean philosophy. The source of this information was from extensive range of information sources as: written literature; books, journals, and the internet resource; also detailed discussions with lecturers and colleges who had knowledge on the topics. An important part of the literature review was to understand the concept of the lean and how can be applied. Secondary data is based in review documentation provided by the company. Primary data collection is based on the observation of how the company is currently working and after the working procedure are know lean approach will be applied starting with Value Stream Mapping, and the subsequence tools and techniques, described in more detail in the next chapters. Nevertheless a deep explanation to this topic will be found in the methodology chapter. Limitations One of the most important limitations for this dissertation is time limit, driven in part for the limitations time that the research had to the company. The research will be focus to a small area, but the same steps can be applied for all areas/families. No consideration will be taken, about potential issues derived from this research concerning to material handling. Another limitation is the confidential agreement between the research and the company, for this reason relevant information data could not be publicly released. The distance to the company being researched and the researcher is clear limitation for the arrangement of appointments with the company. Nevertheless this limitation known beforehand and a planning was agreed with the company in the first meeting; both sides agreed to make three on site visit of 3 working days each and another visit for presenting the research. 13,14,15 of Aprilà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  1 toma de contacto y anÃÆ' ¡lisis de la situaciÃÆ' ³n actual 21,22,23 of Juneà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  2 Implementation de VSM, cell layout, takt time,. 13, 14, 15 of July à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  3 seguimiento de las mejoras applicadas 24 of Augustà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   4 Ajustes y presentacion del projecto a la compaÃÆ' ±ÃƒÆ' ­a. Research structure This dissertation is divided into 8 chapters, with a brief outline below; Chapter 1 Introductionà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚  This chapter explains about the nature and the background of the dissertation objectives. Chapter 2 Literature reviewà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   Is included here a study of the background literature on lean manufacturing. Chapter 3 Tools and techniquesà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter explains the tools and techniques used under the umbrella of lean manufacturing. Chapter 4 Methodologyà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter gives the overall view of the research design taking into account the methodology under taking to do the primary research and explain the type of research, data and tools used. Chapter 5 Company overviewà ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   This chapter discuss the current situation of a second tier car company which is faced a crisis. Chapter 6 Implementation of lean Chapter 7 Data result and analysis Chapter 8 Conclusion and recommendations. This page is left blank on purpose Literature Review Origins of Lean Manufacturing Any new management approach that emerges will undoubtedly contain pieces from the knowledge from the past. Therefore we can find characteristic of lean were addressed in the past like: interchangeable parts developed by Ely Whitney (1765-18825), the work standardization made by Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915), or the time and motion studies made by Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924), where he pursuit the elimination of non-value elements. But without any doubts the most influence person in the development of Lean was Henry Ford, he organized all the elements of a manufacturing system; people, machines, tooling and raw materials, in a continuous flow system, for manufacturing the famous model T by applying this methodology the factory achieve to rise the effectiveness in the assembly process and by 1920 he achieved to reduced the price of the model T at 34% of the original price in 1908. Kiichiro Toyoda travelled to EEUU (1929) in his search for learn the American Way. Fords assembly line provided the flow idea upon which Kiichiro Toyoda based his early car production, but soon he realized the need to adapt it to the market conditions and the culture in Japan. They knew that they could not compete with the giants like Ford in foreign markets. Therefore, they were producing only for internal market, and bring the raw materials from outside, for that reason Toyota could not lower cost by exploding economies of scale, thats why they build a systems upon an strategy: to make many models in small numbers (Ohno, 1988). They pursuit the cost reduction through the elimination of the inefficiencies; defined as muda, Japanese word for waste. (W. J. Hopp et al, 2000) Henry Ford vision about systematic elimination of waste, standardization and elimination of process variability, Quality at the source, and so forth was so inspirational for Ohno and the definition of TPS. In the book Toyota Production System; beyond large-scale Production, 1988, Ohno quoted the Fords book Henry Fords Today and Tomorrow in different chapter as a key to the development of lean principles. In 1945, after Toyoda Kiichiro set an ambitious goal: Catch with America in three years (Ohno, 1988). In order to achieve this goal Toyota production system was developed as a respond to the severe competition imposed by mass production and offered an alternative production system according with the restrictions of the moment. Under these conditions Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990) was brought into the company as a leader to translate the ideas of Kiichiro Toyoda into action. He was working for the company since 1932 but wasnt until 1943 when he went transfer to Toyota Motor Company, where he became Machine-shop manager in 1949. During that period the company was fighting on bankruptcy hence major investment or massive inventories werent affordable. For many years the western companies had cut the cost by increasing the production but after oil crisis, explore around 1973, rapid growth stopped and the principle if you can make it, you can sell it (Ohno, 1988, p2), most of the Japanese industries had losses, but Toyota overcame these problems. The capability of Toyota to overcome the crisis was the trigger for eyes opener to Japanese companies and implement the TPS. The Toyota Production System (TPS) was first denominated in the West as Just in Time (JIT).After the initial visits of industries from western countries to Japanese industry, the people returning with stories of factories which produced only what was needed, when needed, without any Just In Case expensive stock. Later, we realised that there was more than this, and the JIT was worked because was part of a more global management system, TPS. A system in fact useful to reduce costs and from that time the TPS became very popular. (Y. Monden 1993). But this system got popularity in the western countries after a researcher made in 1990 for Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones. This five year research about the future of the automobile makers, revealed a gap between the conventional mass production and the new trend used in Japanese industries. This book coined the term Lean as a description of the Toyota Production System. Definition of Lean As is described above, Toyota Production System was born in Toyota (1945). This system is sustained for two pillars: Just in Time and Autonomation or Jidoka. The name of Lean manufacturing was given in a research published by Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT) in 1990. Ohno make three statements in his book Toyota Production System; beyond Large-Scale Production, 1988, taken together we can use as his definition: The basis of the TPS is the absolute elimination of waste. The two pillars needed to support the system are: Just in Time and Autonomation (Jidoka) (Ohno, 1988 p4) Cost reduction is the goal (Ohno, 1987 p8) After World War II, our main concern was how to produce high-quality goods. After 1955, the question became how to make the exact quantity needed (Ohno, 1987 p33). We can conclude that for Ohno the TPS consist of many techniques that are designed to reduce the cost by removing the waste and providing the right product, at the right quantity at the moment is required. Using less of everything this statement was made in the book The machine that change the world (Womack et al. 1990) as a definition of Lean production. Another important contribution of TPS was a new approach of looking at the equation formed by: Price, Cost and Profit. When TPS was developed, the western was using the following equation to obtain price of a product: Price=Cost + Profit In this formula if the cost increase, the best way to maintain the same profit is by raising the price, is based on the principle that is the company who fix the price. By offering more feature, quality or service they can raise the price. By another hand, Japan proposed the next expression: Profit=Price â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Cost In this equation is the market, the final customer who is fixed the price. The companies used the voice of the customer as a means to design the new features of a product, and the price they are willing to pay for it. With this equation the only way to obtain better profits is by reducing the cost as much as possible (fig. 3.1). This equation leads the companies to pursuit internal improvement if they want to keep or raise the profit in the current market situation. (J. Santos, et al. 2006). Figure 3â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ1 Equation price-cost benefits (adaptation of J. Santos et al 2008) Price fixed by the customer Cost Profit Summarizing we can conclude that Lean is a theory of management that consider the uses of resources for any means other than the creation of value from customer point of view is a waste (defined below); and pursuing the elimination waste as a means of achieving greater efficiency of the process. (Y. Monden, 1993) Seven types of Wastes Muda is a Japanese means waste. According to James P. Womack (2003) any activity which absorbs resources but creates no values is called waste. Lean thinking provides a way to identify the value, defined by the final customer, and analyze the value stream in the search for not added value action in order to eliminate and based in Continuous improvement, where the search for new improvements is never ending. (Womack et al., 2003) The wastes defined by Ohno include parts not right the first time, piles of products made in Just in case, processing step that no one had analyzed, to realized that they are not needed, transporting goods thought work floor, workers, machinery or material waiting to the next step in the process, and so forth. (Womack et al., 2003, p16). There are many types of waste; some are easy to discern others difficult. An important thing to remember is that to eliminate waste, you must find it first, towards eliminating it. The seven wastes (7Ws) addressed by Ohno (1988) are detailed below, with the addition of the one defined by Womack, 2003. Overproduction Manufacturing companies, sometimes produce more than they have sold, some times because they want to build an inventories, in the expectation that the market requirements arise, another times with the purpose to keep everyone busy and / or to achieve a high used of the facilities. Whatever the reason is, making products for which there is no demand is waste and can drive the company out of business. The key point to found this waste is compare what is produced versus what is sold. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Waiting This waste will include delay between the end of one activity and the start of the next activity. This waste can take many forms: operators or machineries waiting for orders, parts, materials, parts for the preceding process, equipment repairs, and so on. Contrasting with the previous waste, this one it is easy to identify. As It was explain above, some companies minimizing the waste of waiting by keeping the workers and the machines active all the times, incurring in that way in the previous waste; overproduction. Stopping the machines and allowing workers to be idle in occasion, is less costly than producing products with no orders. Another advantage of these spare times is that the workers can used it to search for improvements. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Transporting It is any kind of unnecessary transport of workers, parts, products, etc moved from one location to another. There two things that determine the transport through the factory; the layout facility and the sequence of operations. (J. Nicholas, 1988) No value is added in any items while they are moving around, therefore all time and facilities involve in that are wastes. Rearranging the layout and putting sequential equipment together allow us to minimize this waste. Too much machining; over processing. A process may itself contain steps that are ineffective or unnecessary. When company use expensive or high precision equipment where investing in smaller and more flexible equipment would be adequate. This often results in poor plant layout because The monuments are located far away from the process and making the process incur in waste such transportation, wait and in addition overproduction (in order to set high utilization, and justify the investment). Inventories Ohno in his book Toyota Production System, Beyond Large Scale Production (1988), qualify the inventory as the root of all evil because covers other kinds if wastes and inefficiencies and encourages to wasteful practices. Inventories represent items waiting for something to happen, where there are many associated and hidden costs (storage space, handling, management, insurance, lost of opportunity, and so forth). John Nicholas (1988) identifies that many companies even when they recognize the high cost of the inventory they justify them for dealing with issues such: To cover fluctuations in future demand, where more accurately forecasted are necessary. To cover the delay in lead times caused by breakdowns or delivery delays, where a Preventive maintenance plan would be necessary as well a close relationship with the suppliers. To cover long setup times, where an improvement in standardization as well as a study of the setup times made the big batch unnecessary. We can use the analogy of a ship on water (figure 2.1) to clarify the idea of hidden costs and problems incurred with high level of inventory. As inventory is reducing, problems are exposed, which can be resolved. After that, the inventory is lowered again, in order to get more problem appear and management has to resolve them in order for the system to work. Figure 3â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ2 Analogy of water and inventory Worker absenteeism Work load imbalance Downtime Quality Scrap Rework Out of spec. materials Set-up Times Process variation Inventory level is hidden all problems By reducing the inventory, production problems arise WIP The research is agreed with Ohno (1988) when he argued that people tend to build some inventory as a respond of their farming roots. Our ancestors grew rice for subsistence and stored it in preparation for times of natural disasters (Ohno, 1988) this type of accumulation is no longer practical from the moment that we can find everything that we need from the corner shop. Nevertheless, break this habit in the day to day factory habits is difficult, is requires a change of attitude. But we need to keep in mind that reduction of inventory is not an end itself; it is a mechanism for revealing problems and wasteful practices in the production system. Moving People in work often confuse being in motion with working. A worker in constant motion all day may actually be doing little work; we should consider which portion of the motion is actually added value to the product. This waste is related to ergonomics and the objective is to obtain that the 100% of the motion is work; added value. Hence pursues the elimination of wasteful motion, but not by increasing work. Motions as bending, stretching, walking, lifting, reaching, picking up, transporting, loading, and so forth take workers time and increase the cost, but not add value. (J. Nicholas, 1988) Making defective parts and products. The simplest form of waste is products that do not meet the specification. Manufacturing products right at first time requires no money. Defects in any product are a major source of waste, hold up production and increase production lead times avoidable if products were done right the first time. Quality defects result in rework or scrap and involve a remarkable cost to organizations, along with the associated costs such: re-inspecting, rescheduling quarantining inventory, and capacity loss.   The key point is attain Quality at the source or Quality Assurance where the parts are made right the first time, transforming the old idea of Quality Assurance; where the parts are inspected at the end of the line. In order to achieve this we can use tools such: Poka Yoke, Kaizen, and so forth. (Y. Monden, 1993) Underutilization of Employees In the book Lean Thinking by James P Womack and Daniel T. Jones (1996), was added another wasted, added to the seven defined by Ohno (1988); which was denominated by them as Underutilization of employees. The companies hire employees for the physical skills, and sometimes the managers forgot to take an advantage of the brainpower that they hired with those skills. Some common causes of inability to see this waste may result in mudas such high employee turnover, inadequate hiring practices, and so forth. Not Used the employees as an experts of the process in which they are working is a waste of creativity and the improvement ideas that they can generate, this waste deserved the same important than the previous seven described above. Tools and Techniques There are many definitions that refer to lean; as Toyota Production System, Just in Time, Jidoka, flexible workforce, Kanban, TQM and so forth; partly because for many years had been confusion and many practitioners; mix up the purpose with the means. Lean production may be viewed as a bunch of all this practices/tools, and all underneath subsystems give the necessary support to the main system. The main systems Ohno (1988) described as two pillars are: Just inTime Autonomation with human touch, or Jidoka The tools/techniques of lean, as supporting subsystems can be said as; Kanban Poka-yoke Visual Control, Andon Value Stream Mapping Standard Operations One Piece Flow 5S Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Levelling Production Benchmarking SMED Multifunctional Workers Kaizen Some of the most relevant for the research purpose are explained below. The two pillars of Lean: Just in Time In 1950 Toyota was near to bankrupting, as a consequence they couldnt afford major investment in new machineries or substantial inventories. In 1956 Ohno travel to America, where he got the perspective of Just-In-Time in the American supermarket. He was interested in way the supermarket were working; by providing to customer what they need, when they need and in the quantity they need. Ohno transfer this idea down to the process, and he developed a system that is working like a coordinate chain of small supermarket, where all processes are transformer in customer for the previous step and supplier for the next step and every step is only produced the quantity needed for the next step, with perfect quality and no waste. The system was denominated as pull system. TMMK (7may2010) JIT was developed in the framework of TPS and evolved due to the need of the Japanese industry to survive in the post-war global market. Soon, the value of the system was proven into the manufacturing industry and a large number of companies worldwide hastened to implement this model to their own production systems (Monden, 1993). Ohno developed a number of methodologies to support the Just in Time system; one of the best known is the Kanban system, detailed below. Pull system and Kanban The traditional mass production system is the one denominate as push production system, where every station start to assembly a part when the raw material arrive to the work station. The way to manage production system is usually based in forecasting. The parts usually are processes in batches according to a schedule for each process (fig 2.2). The materials must usually wait until the workstation complete the previous work and is performing the changeover necessary. Changes in schedules, breakdown in machinery and other incidents, make a planning inaccurate. (J Nicholas, 1988). When a problem occurs at one stage, the problem will not be notice in the rest of the system, because an inventory between the workstation are insulated the problems in each workstation, and dependency between workstation was low. Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ3 Push System Retention points Process 1 Retention points Process 2 Inspection Retention points inspection Information and material flow High variability in lead times, long lead times, large Work in Progress inventory, and a numerous quality issues are arisen in this system. Besides with the problems associated with maintaining valid scheduled, made by the forecasting office, which is far a way from the shop floor and all the problems that arise in the manufacturing process. By contrast the pull production is sometimes called stockless, because is minimized the work in progress, pursuit the one piece flow. It seeks to have every stage in a process produce and deliver materials downstream in the exact quantities and the exact times requested. (J Nicholas, 1988). Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ4 Pull System Process 2 Inspection Material Flow Process 1 Inspection Max Min Delivery point Max Min Max Min Information Flow Refer to the figure 2.3, when a customer order arrives to the delivery point, this work station sends a production order to the downstream process, in order to refill the product had been delivered. The work station 2 in the moment is used more than two parts, and let the buffer with the minimum quantity, then sends a production order to the work station 1. Just in time pursues the zero inventories; the system that is describing here is used a buffer, in that way any process shouldnt wait to have the necessary material to start producing an order. Refer to the figure 2.3 each work station begins de production as soon as the order upstream is received. (J Nicholas, 1988). In contrast with the Push production system, any problem in any work station is affected the whole system, so that all stage are working together in order to resolve the problem, increasing the chances of solving the root problem. Kanban is a subsystem to support of the JIT system and was developed by Toyota in the early stages of TPS. Kanban is a Japanese word for card, but not necessarily need to be a card, sometimes can be a signboard, container, empty space, and so forth. The broadly idea is to use the Kanban, whatever the form is takes, as a signal to produce a specific number of parts request for the next process. (N. Slack et al, 2004). The system is not used a complicated and expensive computer schedules. The theoretical operation of Kanban is no one product is manufacture until is demanded for the final customer. Therefore the signal Kanban is used as a trigger for a production. There are different types of Kanban; Conveyance Kanban, also know as a move Kanban, whose purpose is to move the goods along different production stages. The Production Kanban, work as a signal to a production process that can start producing a part to be place in the inventory. (N. Slack et al, 2004) There are two procedures of using Kanban system; dual-card (used both production and conveyance) this is the original Toyota method, and the single-card, explained below (used only the production, but acting as both move and produce authorization), is more often used the last one, for the simplicity of use. (N. Slack et al, 2004) Figure 4â‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ5 Kanban system. Process 2 Inspection Material Flow Process 1 Inspection Delivery point Max Min Kanban Max Min Kanban Max Min Kanban Information Flow Order to the supplier To explain the concept we can use the example in figure 2.4, where each process made two piece batches. When the delivery point sent two finished parts, the operator takes a Kanban card from the container and sends it back down to the previous workstation; process 2,where that part is assembled. When the Kanban card is received, the previous work station start to assemble new batch of 2 parts, and consequently it sends downs to the previous process the Kanban card in order to refill the parts used in the last operation. This chain or work orders is repeated until an order is sent to the supplier of raw material. This system keeps to minimum the paperwork, provides a self-manage workstation and one the more important achievements is that the inventory of Work in Progress is kept to a minimum. The parts are assembled only when a need for them and WIP is reducing by dropping the number of cards into the system. The two pillars of Lean: Jidoka Jidoka is a Japanese word meaning automation with a human touch, refers to the automatic control of defects under the supervision of an employee; or as is described by Ohno (1988) Autonomation. Is refers to a process that has incorporated mechanism to detect non conformances and not allowed the process to pass a product if there isnt a conformance with the requirements.   Sakichi Toyoda began to used Jidoka, also known as Autonomation; he invented the automatic looms that stopped immediately when any thread broke. In that way one operator was able to manage many machines with no risk of producing outside specifications. This pillar of TPS is a â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"Proactive Systematic Approach. That is means instant detection of non conformances at the root source, pursuing the prevention is chosen over correction for problems after its occurrence. Through this principle we ensure that hundred per cent of the products are free defects, and when a defect is found this is fixed directly, otherwise the worker had the authority to stop the line, in order to resolve it.(J. Nicholas,1998).No OK parts are very important in JIT, when a one short part can cause the stoppage of the whole factory, just to remember one of the quotation for define JIT The exact product in the exact moment that is required (Ohno, 1988) This authority to stop the line meets resistance in western managers, because they are afraid that this can cause a delay in the lead time. But that is only the negative side, by another hand should be viewed as improvements in the process, the root of many quality issues are discovered and as a result they are resolved. Thought Jidoka principles the employees are more aware of quality issues and the related problems, and the number of defects and rework drop at the end of the line. (Nicholas, 1988