Operationalize Sustainability Essay Example for Free

Operationalize Sustainability Essay â€Å"We must strive to become systems thinkers if we are to benefit from the interrelationships of the triple bottom line of sustainability: mission, environment, and community† (sustainability. army. mil). Welcome to the Army strategy for the environment. As one of the largest organizations in America, the Army has joined the movement towards sustainability. With 4 available resources, 5 functional areas and 7 programs and implementation tools, the Army is surging forward with applying sustainability practices. The purpose of this work is to divulge into the Army’s P2, or Pollution Prevention program, as well as giving alternate suggestions on preventing waste. Pollution Prevention (P2) is defined as the systematic effort to minimize, or eliminate altogether, process waste and other pollutants before that are generated (army. mil). P2 is a program that is just one tool to help achieve sustainability. This program can be applied to almost every aspect from field training, housing, family life, installation operations and munitions productions. To operationalize the P2 program, the Army has applied the basic principles of pollution prevention as well as developed the P2 hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle and dispose in an environmentally safe manner. The first priority in the hierarchy is reduction. The Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) defines this as â€Å"Any practice which 1) reduces the amount of any hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment (including fugitive emissions) prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal; and 2) reduces the hazards to public ealth and the environment associated with the release of such substances, pollutants, or contaminants. The term includes equipment or technology modifications, process or procedure modifications, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials, and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance, training, or inventory control† (army. mil) In the P2 program, this definition is applied to the broad goal of reducing or eliminating the environmental impacts of consuming resources and the waste that is generated from it. This waste can come from Army vehicle maintenance such as oil changes or leaving computers and lights on at the end of the work day. Reuse and recycle in hierarchy are meant for pollution that cannot be prevented. In this case, pollution should be treated in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible. â€Å"The resources of a nation must be constantly managed: expanded then gathered, gathered then distributed each person or group sometimes gaining, sometimes losing, but always treated fairly and with respect. (O’Toole, 1993, p. 108) For example, Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina has built an entire village out of materials recycled or diverted from the Fort Bragg landfill. This recycled â€Å"trash† village is used in training and preparing troops for deployment. If the first three actions cannot be taken, the last step in the P2 hierarchy is to disposal, removal and discharge of pollution into the environment should be employed only as a last resort and should be conducted in an environmentally safe manner. We will look at how these problems have arisen, and how they are all symptoms of a way of living that we have taken for granted, which has produced great progress but also growing side effects† (Senge, 2008, p. 10) While this program and many others are giving the Army advances in the right direction toward sustainability, there are other efforts that can be made to help prevent waste. In sustainability, waste is not reserved to trash alone. Waste can be the unnecessary use of, or degradation, of resources. For the Army, a suggestion for prevention can be monitoring the use of electronics. Each office in the military has several computers since the military communicates largely with emails, share drives and electronic training and personnel records. These computers are continuously on throughout the day, even after personnel go home. â€Å"U. S. organizations squander $2. 8 billion a year to power unused machines, emitting about 20 million tons of carbon dioxide†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Swartz, 2009) In some cases, such as hospitals with shift workers, there may be a need for active computers. In other cases, the Army can implement a timer, programmed for the end of a shift, to turn off all computers. The exception may be to leave one on for additional use of people working late, but the others would automatically shut off, saving the energy use instead of having computers in sleep mode throughout the night. â€Å"Simply shutting down PCs at night can save a company with 10,000 PCs over $260,000 a year and 1,871 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the report says. (Swartz, 2009) The same goes for radios, printers, faxes, unnecessary machinery and all other excessive electronics. Another suggestion would be to create self-sustaining gyms. Exercise and the military go hand in hand. Exercise is directed and required to have a successful military career. Many people go to the gym, not just active duty but also dependent spouses, veterans, civil service workers and civilians with base access. The treadmill, elliptical, bikes and stair climbers are the most used equipment in the gym due to the diversity of patrons. Eco-friendly gyms have been popping up worldwide. † (Huey, 2008) This can be used to the Army’s advantage by using the energy output from the machines in use to generate the electricity for the lighting in the gym and operation of TVs. Instead of having TVs on and available at all times, have TVs operational only on the machine while it is in use, being powered by the operator. â€Å"A unique and key feature of green gyms is that they can actually use the energy generated from people exercising and use that to power their facilities. (Huey, 2008) Obviously this may not sustain an entire gym, considering air conditioning, heating and the size of the gym to include playing courts, but this can help to drastically lower energy usage. The Army also wastes equipment, which can produce pollution upon disposal. This equipment is the boots, jackets, uniforms, camel packs, Gerber tools, etc. that is issued to troops. When a troop completes basic training, or boot camp, the required initial equipment items are issued. When a troop deploys to an overseas location, new equipment is issued, even if the troop recently completed boot camp. This results in a double issue of equipment to the same troops, with no requirement to turn in unused or unneeded equipment. â€Å"While Soldiers have embraced the RFI process, they recently identified one noteworthy problem area in the RFI process: Their clothing records having duplicate items that were previously issued. † (Maj. Wright, 2009) Military members are also issued a clothing allowance every year for new uniforms. This results in money lost and equipment waste and abuse. Troops can throw away unused equipment without properly recycling the materials. To help put a check on equipment, the Army can implement a â€Å"turn in, tag out† system. This means troops will have to turn in old, worn out equipment, such as boots, to be issued new pairs. A â€Å"tag out† on issued items will be kept electronically in a database to ensure individuals are not being issued double items. Supply personnel can look up by name and determine if the troop has already received an item. With old equipment being turned into supply, the right people can properly and environmentally safely dispose or recycle used equipment. Also, by documenting equipment that is issued out and what equipment is being turned in, supply personnel will be better equipped in ordering new items efficiently rather than ordering excessive products and wasting money. Although the Army has taken many positive steps toward operationalizing sustainability, there are many more that can be taken. The Army may never be fully sustainable due to numerous training missions that use fuel, energy and natural resources, but every effort counts toward reducing, recycling and disposing of pollution properly. These advances can be applied toward other military branches as well. For instance, the Navy dumps thousands of gallons of fuel into our atmosphere to make the planes lighter and able to land on carriers at sea. While this maneuver is done for safety, the amount of gas put into the plane initially is known to be too much upon landing. This is an obvious area to improve on. Sustainability can be operationalized by every business, organization and company in the world. â€Å"What weve discovered on our journey is that implementing sustainability is a lot like implementing any other corporate change initiative. (Hitchcock, 2006, p. 167) The military is always changing and always adapting. In conclusion, the Army has many programs and tools that are operationalizing sustainability practices. The P2 program is a great start to handling systems that produce waste and pollution. The hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle and dispose of in an environmentally safe manner is the right mindset for sustainability. The Army also has areas that can be improved upon, as with any company. The Army is making progress towards sustainability, which is progress in the right direction for a better future. Bibliography http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Gyms-Get-Sustainable.html www.gdrc.org/sustdev/concepts/19-n-step.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-03-25-pc-power-company-costs_N.htm http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/pdf/sustainability_Report_2009.pdf

Advocates for a New Social Order: Dickens, Marx, and the Trade Union i

Advocates for a New Social Order: Dickens, Marx, and the Trade Union in Hard Times For over a century, Charles Dickens has been praised as being the working man's advocate, and the lower classes have played a major role in peopling his vast world of characters. Always, the reader is left with a sense of sympathy and pity for these characters as Dickens' journalistic descriptions of their plight are often dramatic, stirring, and pathetic. Although he renders the living conditions of the poor in such a way that no reader can escape feeling sympathy for such characters, Dickens never once offers a solution to such distress. In Hard Times we find a man who suffers not only the degradations of the industrial city, but also the ostracism of his own kind when he refuses to join the ranks of a budding trade union. Dickens has often been deemed a reformer by many modern critics. However, if he truly sought reform for the treatment of the lower classes in Victorian England, why, then, does he refuse Stephen Blackpool a chance to take a part in that reform? Like Karl Marx an d Friedrich Engels, Dickens realized and reported upon the conditions of the working classes, but he chose to offer a more spiritual form of aid rather than to suggest a complete political reformation. Dickens published his views on labor issues in several of his journals, and he spoke on the subject frequently as well. Although he was moved by the plight of the workers, he could not understand why they would become violent at times. Peter Ackroyd cites a letter to Angela Burdett-Coutts, describing Dickens’ views on trade union violence. The reason for such violence, Dickens contends in the letter, is that the lower classes were being brainwashed and swindle... ... both a charitable and noble soul. He could not have joined the union as he did not believe it would help matters any, and he maintains his dignity even though he pays the ultimate penalty for it in the end. Works Consulted The Oxford History of Britain. Ed. Kenneth O. Morgan. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984. Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Bowditch, John and Clement Ramsland. Voices of the Industrial Revolution. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1961. Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Ed. George Ford and Sylvere Monod. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1990. ---. "Locked Out.† Household Words 8 (1854): 345-8. Faber, Richard. Proper Stations. London: Faber and Faber, 1971. Marx, Karl. The Grundrisse. Ed. and trans. David McLellan. New York: Harper, 1971. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society: 1780-1950. New York: Harper, 1958.

Sainsbury Operations

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provides a view on operations of SAINSBURY’S , the third largest supermarket chain across United Kingdom. SAINSBURY’S , in spite of being the longest standing retail chain has been facing stiff competition from rivals like TESCO , MORRISONS. The competitors seemed to have developed at a faster pace since SAINSBURY’S has been through a difficult time in recent years and TESCO is now twice the size in terms of turnover. Matter of analysis in terms of SAINSBURY’s supermarket is the operational strategies that have been implemented to cope up given the current downturn. The operations management concepts incorporated in SAINSBURY’s operational routine can play a vital role to achieve its main performance objectives like customer satisfaction, fast operations , achieving flexibility for the customers needs and retaining loyal customers. There is also a scope for SAINSBURY’S to meet its target growth and regain its position if it is ready to make a few changes in its operations in terms of a better inventory management , Robust technological advancements and creating a better customer base. The report discusses the various successful implementations and certain flaws that can be wiped in order to attain smoother operations at SAINSBURY’ OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT INTRODUCTION: An operation is a process transforming a set of resources into services and goods. The input resources may be raw materials, information, or even the customer. These resources are transformed into final goods or services by facilities and staff of the operation( Fig 1). Operations Management is very important in business operations since it forms the heart of the organisation by controlling the system of operation. Operations management plays a vital role because any operation requires a combination of merchandising, logistics, coordination and cost control skills to move products from production facilities to the consumer(2). [pic] Fig1 Input output transformation model for operations. [pic] Sainsbury's Supermarkets is the UK's longest standing and third largest major food retailing chain, having opened its first store in 1869. The Sainsbury's brand is built upon a heritage of providing customers with healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food. The stores serve over 18 million customers a week and offer around 30,000 products, having a market share of around 16 per cent(3). An internet-based home delivery shopping service is also available to 88 per cent of UK households. PROCESS LAYOUT: Fig. 2 Layout design of Sainsbury’s The supermarket is positioned as a process layout. Wherein the physical components are arranged or grouped according to the general function they perform (Fig. 2). It operates in a manner that is designed to move the customer through the store until they end up at the cash register. First thing that a customer encounters is the customer services in case of any initial enquiries by the customers. Along the first aisle are aligned the fresh food items for everyday requirements. The dry goods and breads are placed in the middle aisles. The frozen food section is placed near the checkouts to keep them from defrosting while the shopper is moving around the aisles. What makes the layout of the store so coherent is the fact that essentials are lined along the walls and corners and items that are appealing right in the eyesight. PROCESS FLOW OF THE OPERATION: [pic] Fig. 3 Process flow of Sainsbury’s operations. Sainsbury’s process flow illuminates various stages between stocking and delivering the product that a customer chooses to buy from the supermarket (Fig. 3). Initially the inventory stores the goods and materials that are held available in stock for the business. To manage the stock there is an effective solution in place named â€Å"Wesupply† which has been implemented at Sainsbury by IBM (5) . It allows monitoring the status of orders all across the Sainsbury’s network. It regulates the item supply at the shelves, and helps delivery system coordinate with the inventory replenishment. The manager regulates and changes the item price according to the demand . The customer has access to the price rates and various schemes and offers, this is the display stage, once the products are chosen the billing takes place at the cashier, leading to the packaging stage where the customer is handed over the product which was formerly stocked at the inventory. IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE TO THE OPERATION: THE QUALITY OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s customers give most credit to the company’s passion for healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food . Despite the present economic conditions the company stands by its quality related objectives. Good food at fair prices, providing a satisfying shopping experience, spreading and reaching out to customers by opening new stores at various locations. Hygiene anh heath and safety issues given utmost importance . THE SPEED OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s tries best to synchronize supply with demands. Goods are made immediately available to the customers. According to the industry speed checks a customer spends an average of eight minutes, from joining a queue to receiving the receipt. Sainsbury’s is recruiting an extra and of 10,000 all across the chains to cut down the checkout queues. The extra staff will mainly be the part-time positions (6). THE DEPENDABILITY OBJECTIVE: Specifying the supermarket timings , providing product related information and schemes in form of shelf toppers , discounts , posters ,makes the supermarket a reliable place to visit every time . There is a constant availability of parking ,and special slots are reserved for the disabled and ‘parent and child’ parking at all times . Making shopping at the supermarket a hassle free experience. THE FLEXIBILITY OBJECTIVE: Sainsbury’s creates brand ranges for various needs, inclusion of healthier and value dishes in addition to the irresistible and authentic dishes, incorporating organic ranges of food if one suffers from allergies and health related issues, defines the level of flexibility Sainsbury caters to for its customers. Extra tills are opened at peak hours and more staff is recruited to adjust to the number of customers that are served at Sainsbury’s. THE COST OBJECTIVE: The cost at the supermarket is incurred at maintaining the inventory, implementing various technologies and facility cost, staff cost. The facility cost can be reduced by getting rid of the aging equipment, and using renewable forms of energy. Sainsbury’s initiative to switch to Enercon E40 KW ( wind turbine) has lead to enormous cost saving. VOLUME VARIETY VARIATION AND VISIBILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SAINSBURY’S: Volume and variety: A relationship between volume and variety are as shown: the general position of operations is along the diagonal, when the volume is high, variety is high and vice versa. [pic] Supermarkets offer a high variety of products and yet sell in high volume.. But in this case, the process is standardized for all the customers . All the customers receive similar kind of services, the process is not customised or tailored keeping each individuals needs in mind. Therefore, considering a supermarket process, the variety would still be considered low and the rule still stands. Hence in a supermarket scenario there are high levels of capital investments, systemizations, routinized workflow which leads to low unit costs. Variations: Sainsbury is in the high levels of demand variation and has changing capacity . The company has to stay in touch with the variations in customer demand constantly which would lead to high unit cost. With various sections at the supermarket ranging from electronics to household items the stacks have to be replenished on the regular bases. Visibility: A new solution named â€Å"Wesupply† has been implemented at Sainsbury by IBM which allows monitoring the status of orders all across the Sainsbury’s network, this leads to visibility within operations which amplifies stock availability for the customers. The supermarket uses various communication tools like discount vouchers, shelf toppers, posters at the entrance and various displays in the aisles to equip the customer with information on product availability and offers. A supermarket website displaying the product promo sections is also available. (11). INFERRED OPERATIONS STRATEGY OF THE ORGANISATION: The supermarket aims to meet the â€Å"Making Sainsbury great again â€Å"target, which would involve generating sales growth of ? 2. 5 billion putting it in a strong position during the latter months of the year(7). The supermarket wants to concentrate on sales-led recovery that makes availability of items its top priority. Introduction of 250 new ranges of products and retaining emphasis on healthier food in the new range â€Å"Taste the Difference† advertised by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been paying off for the supermarkets growth. With the re-launch of non-food items Sainsbury’s offers to drive sales momentum (3). Sainsbury’s another operational strategy pertaining to its employees is to move the HR function to a more centralised, paperless system. It would be a gradual process to turn off the current labour intensive system. The new software system will free up personnel managers from their admin duties to focus more time on training and coaching staff and managers(10). SUGGESTIONS: SAINSBURY’S uses â€Å"Wesupply† solutions to monitor the status of orders across its entire network and manage the availability of products. This improves the visibility of supply chain performance of the supermarket(5) , but in recent times a new solution named Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is used for the further improvement of inventory accuracy (8). It allows a far more scope of cost cutting and flexibility via wireless mobility. Retail chains like ASDA, TESCO, MARKS n SPENCERS have already incorporated this system into their operations. CONCLUSION: Behind the largest companies to the minor stores, there needs to be a system that makes it run. Sainsbury’s being the third largest retail chain organisation too dwells on the operations management concepts to be able to manage all the goods and services that they distribute at a global level. The various performance objectives that are important to an organisation like maintaining speed in operations, bringing flexibility to the customers, maintaining the dependability from customers perspective, saving operational cost and enhancing profitability become realizable when operations management focuses on subtle routines and activities of the various processes. Seeing 1. 3 billion additional sales and a wide focus on quality values (Introduction of â€Å"Try something new today â€Å") which was branded incredibly successful and encouraged people to adapt better eating habits proves that Sainsbury is well on the path of achieving the target â€Å"Making Sainsbury’s great again† (9). REFERENCES [pic]1) Danny Samson and Mile Terziovski (1999), The relationship between total quality Management Practices and operational performance, Journal of Operations Management, Volume 17 Issue 4: 393-409. Department of [pic]Management,[pic] University of Melbourne, Australia b Department of Business [pic]Management,[pic] Monash University, Australia Received 11 September 1997; accepted 8 July 1998. Available online 10 May 1999. Abstract Total quality [pic]management[pic] (TQM) has been a widely applied process for improving competitiveness around the world, but with mixed success. A review of the literature revealed gaps in research in this area of quality/operations [pic]management,[pic] particularly in the area of empirical testing of the effectiveness of TQM implementation. The aim of this study was to examine the total quality [pic]management[pic] practices and [pic]operational[pic] performance of a large number of manufacturing companies in order to determine the relationships between these practices, individually and collectively, and firm performance. We used a large data base of 1200 Australian and New Zealand manufacturing organisations. The reliability and validity (construct, content, criterion) of the practice and performance measures were evaluated. Our study showed that the relationship between TQM practice and organisational performance is significant in a cross-sectional sense, in that TQM practice intensity explains a significant proportion of variance in performance. Some but not all of the categories of TQM practice were particularly strong predictors of performance. The categories of leadership, [pic]management[pic] of people and customer focus were the strongest significant predictors of [pic]operational[pic] performance. This is consistent with literature findings that behavioural factors such as executive commitment, employee empowerment and an open culture can produce competitive advantage more strongly than TQM tools and techniques such as process improvement, benchmarking, and information and analysis. Author Keywords: Quality; Operations [pic]management[pic]; Performance; Human resource/OM interface; Empirical research Article Outline A. Introduction 2. Literature review and research problem background 2. 1. Purpose of the literature review 2. 2. The development of TQM 3. Theoretical framework and research hypotheses 3. 1. TQM elements 3. 1. 1. Leadership 3. 1. 2. People management 3. 1. 3. Customer focus 3. 1. 4. Strategic planning 3. 1. 5. Information and analysis 3. 1. 6. Process management 3. 1. 7. Performance 3. 2. Research hypotheses 3. 2. 1. Hypothesis H1 3. 2. 2. Hypothesis H2 4. Methodology 4. 1. Background 4. 2. Sample 4. 3. Survey instrument 4. 4. Data preparation 4. 4. 1. Selection of questions 4. 4. 2. Screening of outliers 4. 4. 3. Treatment of incomplete responses 4. . Analysis procedures 5. Results 6. Discussion of results and findings 6. 1. Tests of hypothesis H1 6. 1. 1. Validity 6. 1. 1. 1. Content validity 6. 1. 1. 2. Construct validity 6. 1. 1. 3. Criterion validity 6. 1. 2. Reliability 6. 2. Test for hypothesis H2 6. 3. Findings 7. Conclusions, limitations and further research Appendix A. 1. Survey questions A. 1. 1. Leadership A. 1. 2. People management A. 1. 3. Customer focus A. 1. 4. Planning A. 1. 5. Process management A. 1. 6. Information and analysis A. 1. 7. Organisational performance References 2) Rodolfo Vazquez , Ignacio A. Rodriguez-Del Bosque, Ana Ma Diaz and Agustin V. Ruiz (2001), Service quality in supermarket retailing: identifying critical service experiences, Journal of retailing and customer services, Volume 8 Issue 1: 1-14. 3) http://www. sainsburys. co. uk 4) http://www. j- sainsbury. co. uk/index. asp? PageID=424==2000=130 5) http://www. wesupply. com/news/articles/news_090409 6) http://www. thisislondon. co. uk/news/article-4216114-sainsburys-10000-queue-cutters. do 7) http://www. kessays. com/essays/accounting/sainsburys-plc. php 8) http://fplreflib. findlay. co. uk/articles/4563/RFID%20barcodes. pdf 9. http://www. independent. co. uk/news/business/news/123-profit-rise-makes-sainsburys- great-again-424381. html 10). http://www. personneltoday. com/articles/2007/08/07/41820/jobs-in-firing-line-as-sainsburys-plans-to-centralise-its-hr. html 11) Chambers, S. , Slack, N. , Johnston, R. , & Betts, A. (2009). Operations And Process Management: Principle s and Practices for Strategic Impact. Prentice Hall. [pic]

Problems in the Revenge Tragedy William Shakespeares Hamlet

Shakespeares Hamlet presents the generic elements found in Renaissance revenge tragedies (Revenge Tragedy). However, although Hamlet is a revenge tragedy by definition, Shakespeare complicates the basic revenge plot by creating three revenge plots out of one. By adding significant innovations, Shakespeare creates three concentric rings of revenge (Frye 90), depicting an indecisive protagonist who is an intellectual rather than a physical hero, an ambiguous ghost, and several problematic aspects of the play, such as the reason for Hamlets delay, the confusion of time, and the truth behind Hamlets apparent madness. In a typical revenge tragedy, a hero is called upon by the ghost of a family member to avenge his death (Revenge†¦show more content†¦By portraying them as foils, Shakespeare helps illuminate the fact that this revenge plot has a very melancholic, contemplative, and intellectual hero as opposed to the heroes usually seen who immediately act upon request or knowledge . Heroes are often depicted as being immediate in their responses for revenge as shown in the play Oresteia when Orestes hears of his fathers death and immediately prays to the gods to let [him] avenge [his] fathers murder (LB. 21). Although Hamlet first appears eager to avenge his fathers death (1.5.35-37), his actions do not reflect the truth behind his words. However, Orestes immediately starts planning is vengeance (LB. 541-565), and when the opportunity arises he tells his mother that [she] killed and it was outrage - suffer outrage now (LB. 917). Unlike Hamlet, Orestes does not procrastinate his vengeance; instead, he plans and strikes at the most opportune moment. Likewise, in Hamlet, Young Fortinbras seeks revenge on the land that his father lost to King Hamlet and is pester[ing] [them] with message[s] importing the surrender of those lands lost by his father (1.2.23-24). When asked to stop, he agrees to attack Poland instead; however, when Hamlet witness[es] [Fortinbras] ar my of such mass and charge led by a delicate and tender prince whose spirit with divine ambition puffedShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s Hamlet - Longing For Revenge1304 Words   |  6 PagesLonging for Revenge William Shakespeare was born in England in April of 1564 and was an English poet and playwright . Shakespeare is universally known as the greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare frequently produced tragedies that are continuously acted out today, along with many plays and sonnets.. Although Shakespeare is seen today as a great writer who changed the world, his reputation did not rise to these heights until around the 19th century. 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