Closing Down the Oconomo Plant Essay Example for Free

Closing Down the Oconomo Plant Essay This plant is important to the society because it has created employment opportunities to local residents. However, the plant is in the verge of shut down. Jack Ripon , Chief Executive officer of Lamprey Inc. is concerned about higher cost of operation which has decreased profit for the company. The plan is to close down the Oconomo plant and establish a new plant in Mexico. Jack wants Jim Malesckowski, President of Wisconsin Speciality Products Division of Lamprey Inc. o find out about the operational costs of establishing a new plant in Mexico and submit the report to him. Jim thinks that the action to shut down the Oconomo plant might be wrong as long as there were chances to lower the costs. But he also thinks that Jack is right because all the avenues for decreasing costs at the plant have been closed. Besides money, there are other underlying factors that have led the management to bring some changes in the company. We will look at some of the forces that drive Oconomo plant to anticipate for change,changes that are required to be made, and the reasons why union leaders are reluctant to change. . What forces for change are evident at the Oconomo plant? The greatest force that drives the company to look for change is its high operational cost. The plant has so high operational costs that the company has been incurring losses instead of making profits. The management is anticipating changes so that the company will make profits in the future. In order for a company to run successfully, it should realize some returns from the investment made at the plant. Having invested in the company, shareholders also expect return for their investment. It is important for the company to make enough money for the satisfaction of shareholders and the existence of the company in the market. By any means, Lamprey Inc. should reduce its operational cost to withstand the fierce competition in the marketplace. For the compaby to make it in the market, it must change its working conditions so that they fit with the current market situations, (Daft Marcic,2010). Another force that is evident for the change at the Oconomo plant is the uncooperative labor union. Workers have been consistently refusing to cooperate with the management. The company is planning to reduce the amount of pay it’s going to provide to workers. In order to decrease the labor cost, the company is proposing changes but the union leaders have turned a deaf ear to the management’s plan . It’s a great problem when workers are unwilling to listen to the management for possible solution. The situation will get even worse when the workers are not ready to accept the desired change of the company. Competition in the marketplace is also prominent force that is evident for change in this case. Lately, competitors have threatened Lamprey Inc. from the services and products that they are providing to the society. It has been a challenge for the company to manufacture the quality products and beat the competitor’s price. While the competiton is being fierce in the marketplace, Lamprey Inc. has been struggling to sustain the operations. If the same situation persists, the company would not have a way to exist in the market. 2. What is the primary type of change needed—changing â€Å"things† or changing the â€Å"people and culture? Can the Wisconsin plant be saved by changing things alone, by changing people and culture, or must both be changed? Explain your answer. Primary type of change required in this case is changing people and their culture. If people and their attitudes can be changed, work environment will be comfortable and other changes are easy to implement. The attitude of employees especially that of union leaders is not right in the given case. They are disobedient to the management. As long as employees don’t have respect for management, it is hard to bring any other changes. People’s culture is of great significance in the way the company operates because if the culture or people fit in the objectives of the company, rest of things will work accordingly. In changing anything with respect to company, people and culture should be considered at first. If the people working in the company are unhappy with the change, the objectives of change might not be fulfilled. In this particular case, employees are scared of change and in fact don’t let management bring any changes. Such culture is detrimental to the company. Culture should be established in such a way that people are ready to accept the change and welcome the efforts of the management with open heart. Although changing people and their culture is a primary thing, changing things is also important and should be considered for quality and workable plans of the company. Lamprey Inc. needs to bring some change in the products to save its position in the market. If the products are of low quality, the market share of Lamprey Inc. will be directed towards the competitors. In this case, the company has not put enough effort to upgrade the quality of the products. If the same situation persists, it will not be able to face the competition in the industry because competitors are developing quality products at affordable price. A company can’t operate on just a single type of change. It’s important to put into consideration both changes when designing any type of change in the company. In order to change the products, the entire team of the company should be ready and thus change is required in people of the company. To meet the objectives of the desired strategy, the company should take consideration on both types of changes.

nathaniel :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice. All apprentices live in their masters’ homes and their masters teach them magic, how to summon demons, and provide schooling for their apprentices. The also pick a name for them. The name is so that a magician or demon doesn’t find out what a person’s birth name because knowing someone’s birth name is a source of power to an enemy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now to the story. The story starts when Nathaniel is selected to be an apprentice to Mr. Arthur Underwood. He trains Nathaniel, only he doesn’t realize that Nathaniel is brighter than he looks. When Nathaniel is ten, he finishes all the books that his master said would keep him until he was twelve. At the age of ten, Nathaniel meets the villain of the story, Simon Lovelace. His master takes the liberty of showing him off to the other magicians. Simon questions Nathaniel’s smarts, and proves that Nathaniel is smart. Nathaniel answers all the questions correctly, but that ticks Simon off. Then, Simon puts a spell on Nathaniel, and embarrasses himself and his master. Since then, Nathaniel has been focused on revenge.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When he turns twelve, he summons a demon called Bartimaeus. Nathaniel charges him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand. Little does Nathaniel know that Simon was planning to use it to overthrow Mr. Rupert Devereaux, the Prime Minister, and the rest of the government. One day, Nathaniel charged Bartimaeus to spy on his master in the study, but Nathaniel is called down to the study to talk to his master, exactly where Bartimaeus is. Mrs. Underwood uses â€Å"Nathaniel† because that’s his name, but it’s also his birth name. Bartimaeus hears it and thinks it’s his second name, but in the study, Mr. Underwood schedules a day for his official Naming. Bartimaeus is thrilled to hear this because whatever punishment Nathaniel uses, he can just direct it back at Nathaniel. Nathaniel threatens with a spell that confides Bartimaeus in a tin and Bartimaeus eventually backs down.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A couple of days after Nathaniel was Named, Mr. Underwood, family, Named apprentices, and other ministers are invited to Parliament for a gathering. Now Nathaniel is officially name John Mandrake. At the gathering, an attack is carried out by a group of people that call themselves the Resistance. The Head of Internal Affairs, Mr. Underwood, is really upset about this attack because he is supposed to be in charge of the finding and stopping the Resistance.

Business Analysis Project Essay

Notwithstanding the bleak global economic climate with the Eurozone crisis, the Singapore operators are constantly introducing value-added services. The introduction of premium next-generation mobile services, namely LTE-based, should give ARPU a boost even though the take-up rate might be weak. [pic] Source: BMI Figure 1. 6 shows that the operating revenue has decreased for consecutive years since 2008. This could be attributed largely due to the global economic crisis. Summary of Singapore Telecommunication Industry Singapore government’s strong commitment to deregulation of the industry has assisted the growth of the telecommunication | |sector and built a competitive telecoms market, aided by its geographical location and excellent infrastructure. Singapore | |is one of the first countries in the world to have a fully digital telephone network and continues to maintain a strong | |positive outlook in this sector. In 1997, MobileOne Ltd forayed into Singapore’s telecommunications industry and demolished the previous monopoly held by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. It was subsequently listed on the Singapore Exchange on 4 December 2002. Since its establishment, M1 has gained repute as an integrated communications service provider in Singapore. Rightly emphasizing on the importance of customers, M1 carries on business with the mission of being â€Å"an efficient and totally customer-focused company, achieving the highest satisfaction for our [their] customers, people and shareholders†. M1 has 2 wholly owned subsidiaries, M1 Net Ltd. and M1 Connect Pte. Ltd. M1 and its subsidiaries carry out its main operations in Singapore. In light of the interdependence of devices, networks, application services and content, M1 recognizes that it needs to diversify from being a pure mobile operator and hence transformed itself in 2007 to a dynamic full-service operator . Operating as a full-service operator ever since, M1 offers a full suite of broadband products, services and managed solutions. With its high-speed fiber network solutions, businesses benefit from faster speeds to improve productivity and reduce costs. This could have invariably contributed to the price reduction of handsets and increase in promotional activities to attract customers. Investors prefer a firm with a higher GPM, which indicates stronger efficiency. Noteworthy is M1’s NPM being consistently higher than StarHub. SingTel maintained its position at 23%. The ability to sustain the highest profit margin and also maintain a consistent revenue growth clearly places SingTel as the market leader in the telecommunications industry. However, it maintaind its stead state despite the Euro crisis. Therefore it is expected that M1 would increase its debt-to-equity ratio, with the economic recovery. Risk declines as the ratio increases as the company’s ability to cover its interest increases. On the other hand, Singtel is the lowest with 8. 8, and it is unclear if it can still afford to leverage upwards without affecting its credit rating. EPS is net profit per share. It reflects the company’s ability to add value to shares and is the most important metric in determining profitability. It is also a major component of another important metric, price per earnings ratio (P/E). The higher the ratio, the more money the company is making.

Who Is the Most Influential Swiss Architect

Le Corbusier (born October 6, 1887 in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland) pioneered European modernism in architecture and laid the foundation for what became the Bauhaus Movement in Germany and the International Style in the US. He was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris but adopted his mothers maiden name,   Le Corbusier, in 1922 when he set up a partnership with his cousin, engineer Pierre Jeanneret. His writings and theories helped define a new modernism in materials and design. The young pioneer of modern architecture first studied art education at La Chaux de Fonds in Switzerland. Le Corbusier was never formally trained as an architect, yet he went to Paris and studied modern building construction with Auguste Perret and  later worked with Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann. While in Paris, the future Le Corbusier met the French artist Amà ©dà ©e Ozenfant and together they published Aprà ¨s le Cubisme [After Cubism] in 1918. Coming into their own as artists, the pair rejected the Cubists fragmented aesthetic for a more stripped-down, machine-driven style they called Purism. Le Corbusier continued his exploration of purity and color in his Polychromie Architecturale, color charts that are still used today. The earlier buildings by Le Corbusier were smooth, white concrete and glass structures elevated above the ground. He called these works pure prisms. In the late 1940s, Le Corbusier turned to a style known as New Brutalism, which used rough, heavy forms of stone, concrete, stucco, and glass. The same modernist ideas found in Le Corbusiers architecture were also expressed in his designs for simple, streamlined furniture. Imitations of Le Corbusiers chrome-plated tubular steel chairs are still made today. Le Corbusier is perhaps best known for his innovations in urban planning and his solutions for low income housing. Le Corbusier believed that the stark, unornamented buildings he designed would contribute to clean, bright, healthy cities. Le Corbusiers urban ideals were realized in the Unità © dHabitation, or the Radiant City, in Marseilles, France. The Unite incorporated shops, meeting rooms, and living quarters for 1,600 people in a 17-story structure. Today, visitors can stay at the Unite in the historic Hotel Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier died August 27, 1965 in Cap Martin, France. Writings 1923: Vers une architecture [Towards a new Architecture]1925: Urbanisme1931 and 1959: Polychromie architecturale1942: La Maison des Hommes [The Home of Man] with Franà §ois de Pierrefeu1947: Quand les cathà ©drales à ©taient blanches [When the Cathedrals Were White]1948 and 1955: Le Modulor I and II Theories In his 1923 book Vers une architecture, Le Corbusier described 5 points of architecture that became the guiding principles for many of his designs, most especially Villa Savoye. Freestanding support pillarsOpen floor plan independent from the supportsVertical facade that is free from the supportsLong horizontal sliding windowsRoof gardens An innovative urban planner, Corbusier anticipated the role of the automobile and envisioned cities with big apartment buildings in park-like settings. Selected Buildings Designed by Le Corbusier During his long life, Le Corbusier designed buildings in Europe, India, and Russia. Le Corbusier also designed one building in the United States and one in South America. 1922: Ozenfant House and Studio, Paris1927-1928: Palace for the League of Nations, Geneva1928-1931: Villa Savoye in Poissy, France1931-1932: Swiss Building, Cità © Universitaire, Paris1946-1952: Unità © dHabitation, Marseilles, France1953-1957: Museum at Ahmedabad, India1950-1963: High Court Buildings, Chandigarh, India1950-1955: Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France1952: The Secretariat at the United Nations Headquarters, New York1954-1956: Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris1957-1960: Convent of La Tourette, Lyon France1958: Philips Pavilion, Brussels1961-1964: Carpenter Center, Cambridge, MA1963-1967: Centre Le Corbusier, Zà ¼rich, Switzerland Quotes by Le Corbusier The house is a machine for living in. (Vers une architecture, 1923)By law, all buildings should be white. Source Photo of Villa Savoye by Esther Westerveld, westher on flickr.com, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic