Operations Management - Kulim Hi-Tech - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1646 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? We chose Kulim Hi-Tech as a location to do our operation because this location offers an expanding and existing facility instead of having to move, maintaining current sites while adding another facility elsewhere and closing the existing facility and moving to another location. Kulim hi-tech park, also known as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Science City of The Futureà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ High-tech Industrial Park is the first in Malaysia. Hi-Tech Industrial Park Kulim is located in North-South and East West in Kulim District, in the south of the State of Kedah Darul Aman. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Operations Management Kulim Hi-Tech" essay for you Create order Hi-Tech Industrial Park is connected to the port of Penang which is approximately 25 km further east. This location is also connected to the Penang International Airport which is located next to the island about 40 km away. Labor Productivity When deciding on a location, management may be tempted by an areaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s low wage rates. Management must also consider productivity. Toplicious Sdn Bhd has a few options of low wages rates place to operate. There are few places that offer low wages rates like Shah Alam, Selangor and Seberang Prai, Penang. We had 3 potential placed which are Kulim Hi-Tech, Shah Alam and Seberang Prai. We expect the all three places can produce same unit production per day (1000 unit) but that differentiate these three areas are labor costs per days. Labor cost per day is RM 40 for Kulim Hi-Tech, RM 60 for Shah Alam and RM 50 for Seberang Prai. Kulim Hi-Tech Shah Alam Seberang Perai RM 40 = RM 0.04 1000 RM 60 = RM 0.06 1000 RM 50 = RM 0.05 1000 After doing the calculation, Kulim Hi-Tech is the most economical placed to produce chocolate compare with Shah Alam and Seberang Perai. So, Kedah is the site that Toplicious Sdn Bhd can build the factory. Besides, tax imposed by the government of this country is low compared to the two other states. The Factor-Rating Method Factor-rating method is a location method that instills objectivity into the process of identifying hard-to evaluate costing. The factor-rating method is popular because a wide variety of factors, from education to reaction to labor skills, can be objectivity included. The factor-rating method has six steps: Develop a list of relevant factors called key success factors. Assign a weight to each factor to reflect its relative importance in the companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s objective. Develop a scale for each factor. Have management score each location for each factor, using the scale in step 3. Multiply the score by the weights for each factor and total the score for each location. Make a recommendation based on the maximum point score, considering the results of quantitative approaches as well. Key Success Factor Weight Scores (out of 100) Weighted Score Kulim Hi-Tech Shah Alam Seberang Perai Kulim Hi-Tech Shah Alam Seberang Perai Technology 0.20 90 80 75 18 16 15 Labor availability and attitude 0.15 75 80 75 11.25 12 11.25 Political and legal aspects 0.15 80 75 75 12 11.25 11.25 Social and culture aspects 0.20 75 65 75 15 13 15 Environmental factors 0.30 85 70 75 25.5 21 22.5 Total 1.00 81.75 73.25 75.00 We can conclude that the highest score earned by Kulim Hi-Tech rather than Shah Alam and Seberang Perai. These factor ratings give strong reason why the organization decided to make their factory at Kulim Hi-Tech. Layout Decisions Layout decisions will determine the long run efficiency of operation. Managers make layout decisions to achieve a fully utilization of space, equipment and people, improved information flow, improved employee and customer interaction and flexibility. There are three types of layouts which are the office layout, warehouse layout and workcell layout. The office layout is essential for every company, because it is the canter of the movement of information, grouping of workers and their equipment and spaces to provide comfort and safety. First, examine electronic and conventional communication patterns, needed for separation and other conditions influencing employee effectiveness before making a decision regarding the layout strategy. Toplicious Sdn Bhd needs to have an office that considers three physical and social aspects which are proximity, privacy and permission. Proximity is the fact that the spaces should naturally bring people together. People can control admittance to t heir conservation including the privacy aspect and the culture should signal, that non-work interactions are encouraged. The staff of Toplicious Sdn Bhd that should be in the office is the CEO, COO and CFO, the secretary and all departments needed, such as a production department, accounting department, marketing department, sales department and so on. Moreover, central files, copy centre, pantry and all necessities need to be in the office building. The layout of the office is designed with taking consideration of the hierarchy of the company. The CEO and all chief departments are in one place but with different rooms. Moreover, the chief department is placed near the other staff in the department. Also we took consideration of the necessities of the department like e.g. the accounting department needs to be near the central file and copy centre and the secretary office and sales area. Examples of office layouts are below (taken from Cubicle.com): Secondly, warehouse and storage layout decision which places that store the good before going to other phases. The objective is to find the optimum tradeoffs between handling costs and costs associated with warehouse space. Our warehouse is used to receive the ingredients like cocoa beans, milk, sugar (raw materials) and chocolates (finish goods). Items stored in the warehouse are the following: Cocoa bean Milk, cocoa butter and sugar Popcorn Jelly Finish good Toplicious Sdn Bhd uses cross docking warehouse and storage layout. That means that were avoiding the placement of materials or supplies in the storage by processing them as soon as possible. The benefits of this approach are reduced product handling, inventory and factory costs. Toplicious can pursue a low cost strategy besides a differentiation strategy alone. This requires tight schedules and accurate inbound product identification. Activities involved in this warehouse are receiving cocoa beans from the supplier and send them directly to the bean processing place. Then, milk, cocoa butter and sugar from a supplier, readily stored in the warehouse is used to produce the chocolate when needed. Popcorn and jelly are also stored in the warehouse and are used in the packaging process where the chocolate is filled with the jelly. For the raw materials from the supplier, Toplicious Sdn. Bhd. is using a JIT system so that we will receive the materials from supplier only when we need it. The received material is then directly sent to the assembly line, as a reason the storage space will be reduced. Therefore, a tight schedule is required to handle the movement of this material and to ensure that it will run smoothly with no errors or delays. The last items in the warehouse are the finished goods after the packaging process is finished. The labelled chocolate will directly go to the distribution channel. Formal receiving, storing and order selection activities are avoided. Lastly, the layout decision is the need to think about enhancing business operations with the work cell layout. Work cell layout reorganizes people and machines that would usually be distributed in various departments, into groups. Our company Toplicious Sdn Bhd chooses this layout in the production because of the advantage of reduced work in process inventory, decreased requirement of floor space, lower direct labour costs, increased employee participation and increased equipment and ma chinery utilization. Toplicious Sdn Bhd products are popcorn with milk chocolate in a glass jar, popcorn with white chocolate in a glass jar and milk chocolate with jelly in a bar. We only focused on these three types of products so work cell is the best method to be applied in the operation. Different from Berylà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s factory that deem to be implemented process oriented layout because there are over 70 different types of chocolates under Berylà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s brand and they include flavours such as Almond, Butterscotch, Peanut Butter, Raisin, Dark Chocolate, Mint, Tiramisu, Strawberry, and a lot more. In bean processing operations there are three activities such as husk separating, roasting nibs and grounding to liquid cocoa. These three activities are put together in a U shape layout. Due to that, workers have a better access to the operation. For the chocolate operation activities we are refining the cocoa to waferthin layers and conche the chocolate. These operations are also put in U shape layout. Same goes to other phases of operations and this U shape layout is shown below: In conclusion, layout decision is subject to substantial research effort thus it depends on what the company thinks is best for the company. For Toplicious Sdn Bhds layout decision we are designing an office layout, warehouse and storage layout, using cross docking and work cell layout. Conclusion Recommendations In a nutshell, strategies such as Product Design, Process Design, Location Decisions and Layout Decisions in Operations Management are applied in the operations of chocolates by understanding the operations to make strategic operations management decisions. Products are differentiated to have a competitive advantage. However by constructing a house of quality we could detect a weakness which is the productsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ distribution. We recommend increase space in retailers and more contracts in hypermarkets. The process design is highly automated which means that repetitive process of producing those three types of chocolates. A flowchart is further used to help understand, analyze and communicate the process. Our location decision is in Kulim Hi Tech as it was the most suitable and efficient place to manufacture based on calculation of labor productivity and factor-rating method that we applied. Certain key success factors that we found best fit and relevant to the operation s are used in factor-rating method. Toplicious Sdn Bhds layout decisions are by designing an office layout, warehouse and storage layout, using cross docking and work cell layout. We found that the layout that we used fully utilizes space, equipment and people, improved information flow, improved employee and customer interaction and flexibility. All these four operation management strategies that we learned are applied in order to make the best of the operationsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ efficiency and effectiveness. We found these techniques valuable in turning inputs into outputs in the best way they could.

The Natural And Physical Aspects Of The World We Live

Physical –Chemical Oceanography I Science is the study of the natural and physical aspects of the world we live in. Science is the way humans try to understand why the environment acts in the way it does. Science has set of rules and guidelines that must be followed. The most important step in science is observation, the point of observation is so that the experiment can be measured and or the experiment can be repeated with similar or the same results. Hypotheses are then developed to disprove the observation as many scientists believe hypothesis can never be proven. Opinions are not facts and are based on subjective influences. Opinions cannot be measured or disproven because it is personal. Science cannot address all the issues and concerns due to the limit and restrictions it has. The fact that not everything can be proven shows how science cannot address all the issues. Even though everyday mankind is creating new technology to help humans better understand nature, there will always be some elements that are bey ond human capabilities. â€Å"Water is unique in that it is the only natural substance that is found in all three states liquid, solid (ice) and gas (steam) at the temperatures normally found on earth†. (http://aquarius.umaine.edu/activities/prop_fresh_sea.pdf) In order to understand why water has such a high boiling point, high freezing point, and high capacity of heat the molecule itself has to be examined. The water molecule is made up off a special type of bondShow MoreRelatedEssay on Physical Anthropology: The Link between Human Nature914 Words   |  4 Pages Physical anthropology â€Å"is in large part, human biology seen from an evolutionary perspective† (Jurmaln, Kilgore Trevathan, 2011). 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The FAO-organised World Food Conference in 1974 Free Essays

Introduction The acceptance of the term at the FAO-organised World Food Conference in 1974 has led to a growing literature on the subject, most of which grab ‘food security’ as an unproblematic starting point from which to address the persistence of so-called ‘food insecurity’ (Gilmore Huddleston, 1983; Maxwell, 1990; 1991; Devereux Maxwell, 2001). A common activity followed by academics specialising in food security is to debate the suitable definition of the term; a study undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) cites over 200 competing definitions (Smith et al., 1992). We will write a custom essay sample on The FAO-organised World Food Conference in 1974 or any similar topic only for you Order Now Simon Maxwell, who has produced work commonly referenced as foundational to food security studies (Shaw, 2005), distinguishes three paradigm shifts in its meaning: ‘from the global/national to the household/individual; from a food first perspective to a livelihood perspective; and from objective indicators to subjective perceptions’ (Maxell, 1996; Devereux Maxwell, 2001). A primary focus on food supplies as the major cause of food insecurity was given credence at the 1974 World Food Conference (McCaston et al., 1998). But the limitations of this supply focus came to light during the food crisis that plagued Africa in the mid-1980’s and the paradigm shifted to explore individual and household food security as opposed to food security from a national perspective (Argenal, no date) and the household food security approach emphasized both availability and stable access to food. Research work carried out in the late 1980s and early 1990s also focused on food and nutritional security (Frankenberger, 1992). It showed that food is only one factor in the malnutrition equation, and that, in addition to dietary intake and diversity, health and disease and maternal and child care are also important determinants (UNICEF, 1990). Thus, the evolution of the concepts and issues related to household food and nutritional security led to the development of the con cept of household livelihood security (McCaston et al., 1998). Until the late 1980s, most practitioners and theorists were focusing on a 2,100 calories a day standard, which was assumed to be the amount needed for any individual on a daily basis to avoid hunger. More recently, the ethical and human rights dimension of food security has come to the fore. In 1996, the formal adoption of a new definition by World Food Summit delegates reinforces the multidimensional nature of food security; it includes food access, availability, food use and stability (FAO, 2006). This has enabled policy responses focused on the promotion and recovery of livelihood options and included the concepts of vulnerability, risk coping and risk management (FAO, 2006). In short, as the link between food security, starvation and crop failure becomes a thing of the past, the study of food insecurity as a social and political construct has emerged (Devereux et al., 2001). The Rome Declaration of 1996, primarily laid the foundations for diverse paths to a common objective of food security at all levels: ‘food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’. This widely accepted definition points to the following dimensions of food security (FAO, 1996): Food availability: The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid). Food access: Access by individuals to adequate resources for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Utilization: Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physiological needs are met. This brings out the importance of non-food inputs in food security. Stability: To be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times. The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security. Although nutrition scientists distinguish between ‘food security’ (availability of food on the global, national, local and household levels), on the one hand, and ‘nutritional security’ (satisfactory nutritional status of individuals), on the other (Oltersdorf and Weingartner, 1996), economic, social and behavioural scientists tend to consider ‘food security’ as a more comprehensive term that incorporates both concepts. In the above definitional context, the FAO (1996) stated that to achieve food security at national level, all four of its components ? availability, accessibility, utilization and stability ? must be adequate and that the opposite of food security is regarded as food insecurity. However, national food security depends on the household-level food security as a fundamental unit. Chen and Kates (1994) stated that ‘at a household level, food security tends to be equated with the sufficiency of household entitlements – that bundle of food-production resources, income available for food purchases, and gifts or assistance sufficient to meet the aggregate food requirements of all household members‘. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) concisely defines household food security as â€Å"the capacity of a household to procure a stable and sustain-able basket of adequate food† (IFAD, 1992). Adequacy may be defined in terms of quality and quantity of food, which contribute to a diet that meets the nutritional needs of all household members. Stability refers to the household’s ability to procure food across seasons and transitory shortages. Sustainability is the most complex of the terms, encompassing issues of resou rce use and management, human dignity, and self-reliance, among others (IFAD, 1992). Thus, household food security is as integrated system of the four subsystems of production, exchange, delivery and consumption (Cannon, 1991). Theoretically, poverty, household vulnerability, and undernourishment may be distinct conditions. Yet, in practice, these conditions intersect and overlap: poor households are usually most vulnerable to transitory and chronic food insecurity, hence they are often undernourished (Maxwell and Frankenberger, 1992). But the individuals within food-insecure households cannot be assumed to suffer from hunger equally; there are differences in distribution and negotiating abilities of individuals (Argenal, no date). Oshaug (1985) therefore identified three kinds of households: â€Å"enduring households†, which maintain household food security on a continuous basis; â€Å"resilient households†, which suffer shocks but recover quickly; and â€Å"fragile households†, which become increasingly insecure in response to shocks. Similar approaches are found elsewhere (Benson et al., 1986). During the 1990s, authors and practitioners concerned with vulnerability to food security have engaged to define vulnerability and theorize how far people had slid towards a state of food insecurity (Dilley and Boudreau, 2001). The foundation of the concept is closely associated with poverty. But it is not the same as poverty; rather underlying poverty contributes to increased vulnerability (Young et al., 2001). In addition to income, there is a multiplicity of other factors that co-determine whether an individual will go hungry. In 1981, Sen challenged the then widely held conviction that a lack of food availability was the primary explanation for famines; instead, he posited lack of access as the key to understanding who went hungry and why. Because access issues are entrenched in social, political and economic relations, Sen’s work represented a clear shift in emphasis from natural to societal causes of famine (Blaikie et al., 1994). After Sen’s (1981) entitlement ap proach, many authors (Swift, 1989; Borton and Shoham, 1991; Maxwell and Frankenberger, 1992; Ribot, 1995; Middleton and O’Keefe, 1998) sought to operationalize Sen’s ideas by using the word â€Å"vulnerability† to refer to the complex web of socio-economic determinants. In food-related contexts, the question, â€Å"vulnerable to what?† is nearly universally answered by ‘famine’, ‘hunger’ and ‘the undesirable outcomes that vulnerable populations face’ (Dilley and Boudreau, 2001). Therefore, vulnerability denotes a negative condition that limits the abilities of individuals, households, communities and regions to resist certain debilitating processes and improve their well-being (Yaro, 2004). According to Chambers, ‘vulnerability refers to exposure to contingencies and stress, and the difficulty in coping with them. Vulnerability has thus two sides: an external side of risks, shocks, and stress to which an indivi dual or household is subject: and an internal side which is defencelessness, meaning a lack of means to cope without damaging loss’. Chambers’ definition has three basic coordinates (Watts Bohle 1993): The risk of exposure to crises, stress and shocks; The risk of inadequate capacities to cope with stress, crises and shocks; The risk of severe consequences of, and the attendant risks of slow or limited poverty (resiliency) from, crises, risk and shocks. According to this definition, the external shock or stress might be drought, market failure, conflict or forced migration and the internal aspect of vulnerability is to do with people’s capacity to cope with these external shocks (Young et al., 2001). As livelihoods are conjured of a combination of exchange entitlements, a massive change in a particularly important entitlement may be decisive in causing entitlement failures, leading to loss of livelihood and starvation. The impact of the external shock on livelihoods depends on the household’s vulnerability, which is a combination of the intensity of the external shock, and the household’s ability to cope (Young et al., 2001). Patterns of vulnerability have become increasingly dynamic, thereby necessitating a dynamic rather than static approach to vulnerability (Yaro, 2004). From this vantage point, the most vulnerable individuals, groups, classes and regions are those most exposed to perturbations, who possess t he most limited coping capability, who suffer the most from crisis impact and who are endowed with the most circumscribed capacity for recovery (Watts Bohle 1993). Thus, the two dimensions of vulnerability ? ‘sensitivity’ (the magnitude of the system’s response to an external event) and its ‘resilience’ (the ease and rapidity of the system’s recovery from stress) ? are crucial. The lower the resilience and the higher the sensitivity, the higher the vulnerability and vice versa (Gebrehiwot, 2001). Swift, (1989) and Davies (1996) further pointed out that most food-insecure households are characterized by a very low resilience. However, extending our understanding of the crucial links of entitlements to wider political processes, Watts Bohle (1993) argue that the mutually constituted triad of entitlements, empowerment and political economy configures vulnerability to food security (Yaro, 2004). Vulnerability will therefore be shaped by several forces that affect the three sources of provision of food and well-being of households. Watts Bohle (1993) see vulnerability as being caused by lack of entitlements, powerlessness and exploitative practices and they defined the space of vulnerability through an intersection of three causal powers: command over food (entitlement), state/civil society relations seen in political and institutional terms (enfranchisement/empowerment), and the structural-historical form of class relations within a specific political economy (surplus appropriation/crisis proneness) (Watts Bohle, 1993). In the entitlement lexicon, vulnerability can be defined as the risks associated with the threat of large-scale entitlement deprivation (Sen, 1990). These shifts are frequently posed as a function of market perturbations, with a particular emphasis on rural land, labour and commodity markets (Watts Bohle, 1993). The heart of empowerment approaches to vulnerability is politics and power. Empowerment encapsulates both freedom to make choices by people and acceptance of culpability by governments who are supposed to ensure the workings of the ‘right to food’ (Dreze et al., 1995) as part of the fundamental rights of the human personality. Vulnerability can be defined, in this view, as a political space and as a lack of rights broadly understood. Property rights ensure access to land and other assets, but political rights are also central to the process by which claims can be made over public resources as a basis for food security, and to maintain and defend entitlements (Watts Bohle, 1993). As a political space, vulnerability is inscribed in three domains: the domestic (patriarchal and generational politics), work (production politics) and the public sphere (state politics). Accordingly, vulnerability delimits those groups of society which collectively are denied critical rights within and between these political domains. Mead Cain (1983) identifies two fundamental realms of risk in rural Bangladesh; one is patriarchal, expressed through gender based differences in wage rates and access to and control over resources (within a specific notion of political ecology); the other is rooted in property rights, and specifically the difficulty for the rural peasantry to enforce and defend their property rights against rapacious local landlords and corrupt representatives of the state (Chen, 1991). Powerlessness can, therefore, be approached at a multiplicity of levels in entitlement and food security; intra-household rule-governed inequities over access to resources and property rights, village level stratification and processes of political inclusion and exclusion with respect to land or access to local credit, national level power (Harriss, 1989). On the other hand, the strength of a rigorously class-based political economy provides a class map on which historically specific processes of surplus appropriation and accumulation (Patnaik, 1991), and the corresponding configurations of crisis, conflicts and contradictions can be located. In general, these crisis tendencies arise under capitalism as a result of structural contradictions and conflicts between classes, between the relations and forces of production, and between accumulation and production conditions (Harvey 1982; O’Connor 1988). Conclusion Vulnerability is here understood not solely in terms of entitlement or empowerment (though both are implicit), but rather as an expression of capacity, specifically class capacity defined by the social relations of production in which individuals and households participate (Watts Bohle, 1993). In the class perspective, famine and hunger are poverty problems but this requires an understanding not simply of assets but of the relations by which surpluses are mobilized and appropriated. Class analyses of hunger and famine are similar, in many respects, to marginalization theories and to â€Å"political ecology† (Blaikie 1985; Blaikie and Brooldield 1987). Vulnerability to food security is thus a structural-historical phenomenon, which is shaped by the effects of commercialization, proletarianization and marginalization (Watts Bohle, 1993). Therefore, dynamic on-going political economic processes of extraction, accumulation, social differentiation, marginalization, and physical p rocesses all affect vulnerability (Yaro, 2004). How to cite The FAO-organised World Food Conference in 1974, Essay examples