Causes of an unfavorable labor efficiency variance
1. The materials usage variance is always the responsibility of the production supervisor. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
2. The labor rate variance is never controllable. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
3. Suggest some possible causes of an unfavorable labor efficiency variance.
4. What is kaizen costing? On which part of the value chain does kaizen costing focus?
Main challenges to global financial management
What are the main challenges of global financial management?
What is foreign exchange risk management? Is it important for companies going international? Why?
Discuss progress with establishing exposure limits
Article Critique
One significant industrial hygiene related situation that occurred in the not too distant past involved workers at a microwave popcorn facility who were diagnosed with a debilitating lung disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans. The industrial hygiene and public health community was somewhat taken off guard when a number of workers suffered severe, irreparable lung dysfunction at a Missouri popcorn plant. After all, these folks didn’t work with what had traditionally been identified as highly hazardous substances. They worked with food products and butter flavorings.
In the early 2000s this was considered an emerging issue. A lot has been learned about butter flavorings over the years. However, the substance identified as Diacetyl and similar products used as food flavorings continue to be a significant issue and are identified as primary culprits behind several clusters of bronchiolitis obliterans tied to workers at food processing facilities that use butter flavoring.
Please read the following article, Schroth, L. (2012). Diacetyl exposures & controls. Professional Safety, 57(6), 72-76. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1020127434
In order for the link to function properly, you must first log into the myCSU Student Portal and access the ABI/Inform Complete database within the CSU Online Library. Next, search for “Schroth, Diacetyl exposures & controls.” Select the first result that is produced.
Assignment:
Using APA format, please provide a minimum of a 2 page article review in which you will:
How do behavioral competencies impact the organization
From your perspective with your current employer, how do behavioral competencies impact the organization? What are two or three positions that exist in the organization and what are the behavioral competencies that people need in order to be successful in those positions?
Explain how cmv are key to effective information operability
Describe the strategic planning process of forecasting technical and information needs of an organization by linking resources to business needs and measuring performance against organizational goals.
Prepare and deliver business communications relevant to health informatics.
Conduct a needs analysis from the identification of the problem or opportunity through the steps associated with the implementation of the selected solution.
Summarize the process necessary for an RFI/RFP from the start of the process through long-term support needed for the selection.
As you start to conduct research on the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) in your organization, you begin to read about the importance of controlled medical vocabulary (CMV). You recognize that without a CMV in place, the EHR may be impossible to establish.
Discuss the following:
Explain how CMVs are key to effective information operability and achieving modern health care goals.
Discuss some of the complexities that may be involved to create a CMV.
Explain difference in cash cow business-cash hog business
1. What are the benefits and advantages of using an industry attractive-business strength (9-cell) matrix to evaluate a diversified company’s lineup of businesses?
2. Explain the difference between a cash cow business and a cash hog business. Tell how you can use financial statements to verify this.
3. Under what circumstances might a diversified firm choose to divest one of its businesses?
Build and describe a prototype model
Individual Assignment
Approach this as if it were a piece of commercial work (e.g. internal and external consulting) rather than an academic submission. The deliverable is a report addressed to Bob Manchester at International Coal. To approach the writing of the report and presentation of your accompanying model(s), try to put yourself in Bob Manchester’s shoes.
Bob Manchester is a busy, bright middle-manager, with an engineering background. He does not have a knowledge of or great interest in the details of linear programming or the academic literature.
The focus is solving the problem as presented, and potentially providing International Coal with a methodology for continuing this approach. Academic/theoretical material or research into the context and regulatory background is not required. If you regard some as strictly necessary, try to confine it to the technical appendices and remember to use the MBS ‘house style’ for referencing (the Harvard system: there should be examples in the Programme Handbook).
A high standard will also be expected in presentation, English, grammar, formatting etc.
The report should cover:
International Coal
Coal-fired Power Generation
Compared with other fossil fuels, burning coal produces comparatively large amounts of atmospheric pollutants: carbon dioxide (CO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulates. Thus over recent decades there has been a decline in the use of coal for power generation. Thus, as supplies of other easily-accessible fossil fuels dwindle there remain vast deposits of coal, and the International Energy Agency estimates that coal may still be used to generate 38% of the world’s electricity in 2020.
Within the European Union, environmental concerns have led to limits on emission of pollutants. A market has been established for trading CO2Â emissions. A generator has to pay for CO2Â emissions at the market rate, so they will be treated as an additional fuel cost. This can be extended to SO2, but presently generators are allocated a limit (a ‘sulphur bubble’) for a year running from October to October (the ‘sulphur year’).
Flue-gas desulpherisation (FGD) and ‘scrubber’ technology will reduce emission levels of SO2Â and NOxrespectively from the exhaust gases.
Coals from different regions of the world have different composition, with different calorific values and pollutant content. Combinations of coals are usually used so that trade-offs can be made between costs, energy and the various emissions produced.
Currently some coal-fired plants have started to ‘co-fire’, blending coal with biomass. Biomass includes waste products from forestry (e.g. wood chips), from paper production, and from agriculture. In the UK the Department of Industry and Trade (DTI) has set the target that by 2010 renewable sources should contribute 10 percent of the UK electricity supply, and generators are paid a supplement for each MWh of power generated this way (this is known as the Renewables Obligation Certificate, ROC). The DTI foresees the combustion of biomass, both domestic and imported, as being the fastest growing component of the renewable energy.
International Coal
International Coal (IC) operates a large (1,000 MW) coal-fired plant in the UK. They employ a team who purchase different fuels in order to maximise margin (profit) whilst keeping within environmental limits, particularly on sulphur. IC has been allocated a sulphur bubble of 30 kilo tonnes for the year (to the end of October). CO2 emission is taken to be 0.8 tonnes per MWh of electricity produced.
Coal is typically bought three or more months ahead of planned burn and stockpiles are kept at the plant. Stockpiled coal is stored in mixed piles, thus biomass has to be stocked independently. Transport costs are factored into the fuel prices. The plant has 35% competence, i.e. 35% of the calorific energy released in a burn is converted to MWh of electrical power.
Power is sold to the electricity markets, and fuel buying is done on the basis of future prices in these markets. Each month is divided into four price bands: categorised by weekend or weekday, and peak or off-peak. (Peak periods consist of a 12-hour block). Thus there are four future prices for each month. Power is distributed by the National Grid Company which charges IC a transmission rate of 65p per MWh.
The Problem
The fuel-buying team at IC is led by Bob Manchester. The buying decisions have been comparatively straightforward, but as the sulphur bubble has become more restrictive, pressure is increasing to show that the best fuels are being used. Bob thinks there must be a systematic way of considering the tradeoffs involved in the decisions being made.
It is now the end of May 2005. To test the feasibility of a modelling approach, Bob wants to investigate power generation to the end of October, considering the stockpile of mixed coals at the plant, three kinds of coal that can be ordered for burning in September and October, and wood-chip biomass which may be bought with short lead-times. Fuel is to be paid for now, ignore discounting of any of the cash flows.
Biomass is more difficult to handle than coal, having more variable combustion characteristics (low density, extremes of particle shape, tendency to entangle and demix plus moisture has a large effect has on their behaviour), so may not provide more than 10 percent of the mix (by calorific value) in any of the generating periods.
Bob has provided fuel characteristics (Table 1) and future-price data (Table 2). The existing coal stockpile at the plant (including coals earlier ordered and en route) is 600,000 tonnes and there is 30% of the ‘sulphur bubble’ left this sulphur year. CO2 emission is trading at 15 Euros per tonne on the European market, which IP must pay for any CO2 produced. The ROC is £45 per MWh from renewables. The currency conversion data is given in Table 3.
Bob has also mentioned a couple potential future issues. SO2Â emissions are a main concern for IC. One possibility is to invest in FGD. There is also the possibility that SO2Â emissions may become tradable (and so a direct cost) in the way CO2Â presently is. Either of these is likely to have a major impact on operations at the plant, but Bob is unsure how to start quantifying the potential benefits.
Assignment
Your charge is to
Data
Table 1: Characteristics of Fuels
| Fuel |
Pricea |
Calorific value |
SO2 |
| Â |
£/tonne |
GJoules per tonne |
%b |
| Coal: Stockpile |
42.56 |
25.81 |
1.38% |
| Coal: Columbian |
43.93 |
25.12 |
0.70% |
| Coal: Russian |
43.80 |
24.50 |
0.35% |
| Coal: Scottish |
42.00 |
26.20 |
1.72% |
| Wood chips |
73.77 |
18.00 |
0.01% |
constant fuel prices for the period June- October 2005
a coal with an SO2Â rating of 1% will produce 0.01 tonne of SO2Â for each tonne of the fuel burnt
Table 2: Future Electricity Prices
| Electricity Market
Forward Prices |
June |
July |
August |
September |
October |
| Period: | £ per MWh | £ per MWh | £ per MWh | £ per MWh | £ per MWh |
| WeekdayPeak |
36.00 |
36.35 |
37.65 |
38.35 |
43.70 |
| Weekday Off-peak |
27.00 |
27.00 |
28.20 |
28.50 |
31.70 |
| WeekendPeak |
33.50 |
34.30 |
35.65 |
35.80 |
38.70 |
| Weekend Off-peak |
26.20 |
26.30 |
27.50 |
27.65 |
30.10 |
Table 3: Currency Conversion
| British pound per US Dollar |
1.0000 |
| British pound per Euro |
0.6667 |
prominent situations affecting leadership from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.
Highlight the most prominent situations affecting leadership from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Consider how these situations affect an organization with which you are affiliated (or of which you have knowledge), and discuss what your leadership approach to change would be in response to these situations.
Explain difference in direct retailing and direct marketing
Explain the difference between direct retailing and direct marketing. Then, provide two examples of companies that sell using direct retailing and two examples of companies that sell using direct marketing. Please, use examples other than those in the book. Note: Do not tell me methods of direct retailing (email, catalog, etc.) give me examples of companies that use the method.
This chapter also mentions suggestion selling and trading up. Provide a customer-focused example of each one of these and explain why each of your examples would make sense for the customer.
Finally, do three Google searches using each of these terms separately: “shoes” – “shoe sale” – “athletic shoes.” Then, tell me about the variety of results that pop up for each term (you only need to comment on the first 12 stores listed in the results). For each of those three searches, how would you classify the first 12 retailers based on both sections 15-2e and 15-3 in the book? Where is there overlap among these three searches and where is there not? What are your thoughts based on these findings?
Distinguish between ethical-legal principles and practices
Distinguish between ethical and legal principles and practices.
Define the concept of ethical behavior as it relates to the purchasing and supply management function.
Discuss the concepts associated with managing relationships with potential or existing suppliers.
Discuss the value of sound contract management (contract administration) and the legal/moral implications of not doing so.