King Leopolds Ghost Essay -- Essays Papers

King Leopolds Ghost King Leopold's Ghost tells a story of the Belgian King Leopold II and his misrule of an African colony, named (at the time) the Congo Free State. It is a wild and unpleasant story of a man's capacity for evil and the peculiar manifestation of it. In telling this story, Hochschild does a wonderful job of giving detailed descriptions, especially of the colorful individuals involved, both good and bad. His analysis of the situation is very solid, starting with the movement when the Congolese hero (Morel) finds out a very terrible fact and moving on through his (Morel) analysis and actions, all the while telling the story of a treacherous monster. Set in the palaces and boardrooms of Europe and in the villages of central Africa, it tells the story of the tragedy that took place during Leopold's so called rule, a tragedy that is so familiar to African-Americans, being told of our African brothers residing in the homeland. This "horror" story is just in fact that, a horror story, giving and revealing the utter most secrets of the respected King Leopold. Allow me to take you on a journey, pointing out the King's determination and, reasoning for what he'd done and the scars he left deep within the heart of the Congo. In the introduction I stated that Morel was the character that I considered to be the hero of this story, now the main question behind that would be, why? Along with, Who is Morel? His complete name was Edmund Dene Morel; he was a young clerk who worked for a Liverpool based firm where his duties were to supervise the unloading and reloading of the ships arriving in Antwerp, Belgium. As Morel watched the shipments arrive he noticed something, a great amount of ivory and rubber were being transported into Belgium but nothing was being taken out, as the book states: "There is no trade going on here. Little or nothing is being exchanged for the rubber and ivory†¦with almost no goods being sent to Africa to pay for them, he realizes that there can be only one explanation for their source: slave labor." (p.2) With his newfound revelation at hand Morel does not sit still. Demonstrating that he refused to turn a blind eye to what fortune had allowed him to see, he soon becomes active with his newfound knowledge. Soon afterward Morel devoted his life to stopping slavery in the Congo. From the early 1900's until afte... ... their own, getting educated, and even going to the lengths of forming Greek organizations, that their fellow brother in Africa were being brutally mutilated and stripped of their humanity. Hochschild has done an exemplary job of writing this book by gathering details and evidence not to mention the wonderful writing skills that he's displayed throughout the entire book. In my opinion, the account of shocking and brutal nature of Belgian colonial rule, is worth reading on it's own, if only to remind us of the horror of the colonialism from which the US has recently escaped. And anyone with an interest in the way we car for or mistreat other humanbeings may find a great deal of food for thought here as well. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hochschild, a renowned journalist has taken on Stalin and Russian psyche in previous books. He has been criticized the almost exclusive focus of the CRA movement on Belgium, citing comparable brutality by the US in the Philippines, the British in Australia, the Germans in what is now Namibia. Bibliography: Hochschild, Adam "King Leopold's Ghost:a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa. First Mariner Books 1998. New York

meditech surgical case Essay

Introduction Meditech is a leader in the endoscopic surgical instrument market. The company manufactures and market low cost endoscopy surgical equipment to hospitals and independent surgeons. The company’s distribution operation is arranged and managed from a central storage warehouse that ships its products to domestic and international affiliates. The organization have been experiencing a good customer service experience in the past, however, lately customers have expressed concerns with the time products are being delivered to them. Due to the nature of the industry, the delivery of surgical equipment on time is extremely important. The on time delivery of products to its customers has become the main problem for the firm. Currently, Meditech’s customers are waiting over six weeks for products to be delivered to them. This current practice is not acceptable and must be addressed by management immediately if Meditech wants to stay competitive and keep its current market share. Statement and Causes of the problem Meditech’s main problem is that a bullwhip effect was produced due to organizational and supply chain problems. The method used by Meditech to balance customer demands with planned production is not effectively serving  its purpose. The catalogue of products being offered by Meditech continues to grow and replacing current items, making obsolete old products that are in their catalogue and current customer orders. Poor customer demands forecasting, long assembly lead times, and changing products are the main reason why inventory levels are not enough to satisfy customer’s demands. While the assembly lines try to keep with demand and company’s resources are getting exhausted trying to launch a new product, the distributors then will increase their product demand, which causes a bottle neck effect as it moves up the supply chain process. As the initial demand slows down there are still backup of high demand of inventory being produced. This cycle would repeat again as new products are being released to the market. Due to these problems, Meditech supply chain and management has created a poor customer service. Another problem of Meditech is communication. There is not enough communication between main operations departments in the company; this is causing information to become distorted as it makes its way through the supply chain line. The lack of communication and information increases the firm’s lead to demand variation as orders or demand is being process through the supply chain systems and departments. In consequence, distributors are feeling the effect by long waiting periods of time, thus this also causes them to place larger orders in an effort to help them compensate the waiting time. Panic ordering by distributors is caused by lack of communication and in turn leads into the problem of the bullwhip effect. Meditech’s current distribution system is inefficient and obviously is causing an inflated demand of products. There is not enough information being shared among distributors and Meditech’s operations. Each distributor receives orders from different regional warehouse, which makes it hard to see the bullwhip effect. The organization’s forecasting system is also confronting serious problems. The current organization’s forecast system is determined by marketing and finance departments on an annual basis. The annual forecast is then broken down into monthly and weekly forecasts and is frequently adjusted by Central Planners according to market trends. Meditech has realized that leads to forecasting problems when they try to introduce new  products. The organization realizes that they are unable to effectively predict demand for new products, which causes large demand fluctuations and backorders. Decision Criteria & Alternative solutions + Recommended Solution, Implementation and Justification Meditech can try few alternatives process to reduce demand variation and the possibility of panic ordering. The company should improve how customer ordering is processed, they should more effectively share demand information, and increase lead times on new products. The forecast methods needs to be upgraded to reflect current needs, the company should also introduce vendor managed inventory and an e-commerce web site to share information with its customers. All of these functions should be centralized and shared among all of the supply chain channels that are involved. With improvements in forecasting it would be much cheaper and more efficient with the introduction of new products to stock finished goods inventory based on projected forecasts. By pushing is anticipating the fluctuations in demands that may be caused with the introduction of a new product. Meditech will now have products available exactly when the customer needs them, and will no longer be forced into back order. A push strategy will also allow Meditech to be more confident in their inventory policies and should allow them to lower their current inventory policy to a level that is more economical and feasible. Q1) Meditech’s problem in introducing new products. In manufacturing ALL products. Meditech introduces 1 new product per month on an average. Most of the new products are only upgrades of old products. This considerably reduces the life-cycle of the products. Majority of Meditech customers are Material Managers whose primary focus is on cost and delivery schedules but not on innovative product features. Though no major problems arise  products int  from assembly line perspective, signs of cognitive dissonance may arise in customers. No attempt is made by Meditech to understand the Demand Dynamics along the product lifecycle. Qualitative factors that have been identified as critical success drivers for a new product launch are time-to-market relative to competition or product diffusion. But Meditech does not launch new products relative to competition and by constantly pushing new innovations into the market it does not allow its products to diffuse effectively into the market. Every new product launch requires a lead time of around 5-19 weeks (excluding design phase lead time) which is very high. With every product launch, pushing the product into the market becomes the primary consideration of the sales force thereby neglecting customer service for older products. These constant launches have led to: †¢Ã‚  Supply side shortages †¢Ã‚  Delayed deliveries (6 weeks) †¢Ã‚  Low customer service †¢Ã‚  Low customer satisfaction †¢Ã‚  Inaccurate forecasts †¢Ã‚  High FG inventory levels The product portfolio of Meditech comprises about 200 separate end-products and the number is increasing. These wide ranges of products make Meditech rely heavily on suppliers wherein the lead time is 2-16 weeks. So practising JIT, which would be very effective for Meditech, becomes impossible in this case. Meditech organizational structure has a long scalar chain. Information dissemination becomes difficult here if there are too many products in the portfolio. Q2) Cause of the problems, systematically and organizationally ISHIKAWA FISH-BONE DIAGRAM WAS USED TO DISSECT THE CAUSE AND EFFECT Q3) Why is customer service manager the first person to recognize the major issues? The scalar chain from Customer Service Manager to the Customer Service Representative is only of two steps. The representatives work in direct contact with dealers and affiliates and are often in direct contact with hospital personnel i.e. their consumers. A general rule of thumb is â€Å"If you want the best feedback, ask your consumers†. This network would have proved effective for feedback-information flow. Mr. Dan Franklin himself held many meetings with hospital material managers. This brought forth the level of dissatisfaction amongst his customers, Meditech’s poor service levels and improper delivery schedules. Q4) How would you fix these problems? The foremost thing we would do is implement an ERP System costing around $100,000. This would help in better data storage & warehousing, analysis and forecasting. We would reduce the frequency of new product launches. We would prefer a leaner product portfolio. We would lay emphasis on better forecasts with a shorter horizon of 1-2 months. We would maintain a safety stock so as to provide a service level of 95%. We would work to reduce the assembly cycle time from the current level of 2 weeks. We would look for new and better supplier relations to reduce the supplier lead time from the current level of 2-16 weeks. References 1. (Bass 1969, Krishnan 2000) 2. (Porter 1985, Kailash and Lilien 1986)

Choices And Change An Accidental Pregnancy - 1535 Words

Choices And Change Imagine finding out you are pregnant. Imagine that you are in between jobs and worried about paying this months rent. Women should not have to worry about an accidental pregnancy because they lack the funding necessary for birth control. While women still fight to get birth control covered by insurance, men’s Viagra is covered under most health insurance companies since 1998. Opposers of birth control will always be there, but the facts of this matter out weigh any claim they have. Birth control can be used not only to help prevent unexpected pregnancies, treat serious illness, treat acne, reduce the risk of cancer, and also to help women who could be at risk for heart problems or even death if they became pregnant. By†¦show more content†¦Birth control such as the pill can be used to regulate menstrual cycles and balancing hormones. There are many other benefits for women taking birth control. It has been known to reduce the risk of cancer, help w omen who could be at risk of heart problems if they became pregnant. Many woman use birth control to become financially and emotionally ready or organized before conceiving a child. Birth control such as the pill can reduce and control outbreaks of acne in teenage girls. One of the most common uses, regulates regulates the acne of women going through puberty. The issues that women struggle with can be difficult for many men to completely grasp, with the gender pay gap. Meaning that not only do women have to pay for birth control, but they have less funds to pay for it than the men in their field. Making an informed decision based upon facts that the male population has no knowledge of could negatively affect the female population drastically. One of the main problems with having such a large and powerful male dominated society, for women at least, is that men do not always align there thoughts or influence with the problems that only women face. For example most men do not think abo ut the complications of having to navigate around a worldShow MoreRelatedControversy of Abortions Essay example547 Words   |  3 Pagesopinion are long and sometimes even brutal. Both sides have strong supporting arguments: pro-lifers base on moral principals, which is life before birth, while pro-choicers defend political and social rights, such as right to privacy and right of choice. Neither side can be absolutely right or wrong; basically it is a matter of personal opinion. Mine is that although the abortion is originally wrong, in many cases it must be a legal option. Abortion is immoral. The statement a woman has aRead MoreAbortion: Pro-Life or Pro-Choice Essay1130 Words   |  5 Pagesbe seen. 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