Interpretation of koan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Interpretation of koan - Essay Example We must realize that every being that exists has come to be, because the Universal Power willed it to. So every living being is unique and important. The power that created it will also provide for it and nurture it. Therefore, there is no need to be overly anxious about the future, and our sustenance. Our Creator will provide for us. There are many among us who are overanxious about unimportant things like how we should clothe ourselves, in order perhaps to create a favorable impression on others. We forget that being natural and simple has a greater appeal to the esthetic sense than being ostentatious. The flowers in nature in their natural simplicity are as attractive-or even more-than a king decked out in all his finery. If we are mindful of our own true natures, and remain as close to them as our Creator willed us to be, then we need no embellishment. All we need is trust and faith in the Lord that we shall be provided for. If we seek the Lord with sincerity we shall find him. Think of this-if we seek anything in life and seek it with single mindedness and in humility, we shall have what we seek. And remember the virtue of sharing. What we have is to be shared with others. We need not be greedy and crave more than our due. And if we share, so will others share with us, and our needs will be met. In Buddhism the value of poverty should not be underesti

Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 18

Communication - Essay Example ficant percentage of the sexist language entails depiction of women: a good example is of the words ‘a blonde’ –such words used in a statement act as a representation of women hence belittle their lives and place an extra level of personal judgment on them. This makes it very hard for people of the female gender to communicate or even open up especially to the people who use the sexist language; moreover, it creates hatred leading to lack of respect especially between the youth and their elders. Over the years, language has played a significant role in race relations with some words being used offensively and others honorably; shockingly, it is through this that up to date that people still argue as to whether the ’N word’, popularly used to describe people of the African American background should be used. Most people are of the idea that using inoffensive language is all about political correctness whereas it’s not; it’s about valuing others and creating strong relationships with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds which automatically enhances communication (Kareem 1). Racist language is all about language and culture which is why different words have dissimilar meanings to some people from diverse ethnic backgrounds i.e. the word ‘loaded’ doesn’t have the same meaning to Native Americans and Africans. Apparently, racist language is one of the core barriers of communication; for instance, the ‘N word’ has created rivalry and mystification between the African Americans and the white people in the American society, making it hard for the two address each other especially in public. This might be due to some people finding the word offensive hence loathing those that use it to refer to them or possibly because some people use it deliberately to offend and humiliate the African Americans. Typically, homophobic language is used as a form of insult against the gay and most people find it difficult and time consuming to campaign against;

Unethical And Immoral Behaviors In Chinas Modern Market Economy Business Essay

Unethical And Immoral Behaviors In Chinas Modern Market Economy Business Essay With China stepping in the transform from traditional planned economy to modern market economy, a lot of unethical and immoral behaviors exist in its economic area during the process of economic system conversion and social transformation. It may cause by immature education level and economics growth too quickly. Sanlu Milk Incident, which has attracted great attention from all Chinese people, especially that from the Party Central Committee, is attributed to many aspects. Although it may be a serious incident of Chinese enterprise toward global market, but it may wake up the attention of Chinese government and management toward ethical business on the responsibility on customer. description on the milk scandal The toxic milk scandal became public in August 2008 with the disclosure that the baby formula produced by Sanlu was contaminated with melamine, which caused kidney failure among the babies who consumed it. However, until the Chinese Health Ministry confirmed on Sep 12, 2008, that the milk powder produced by Sanlu was contaminated by melamine, neither the government nor the company took any actions to warn the public. Later, government inspections reported that the products of 21 other dairy firms were also contaminated with melamine. Even as the milk scandal unfolded, many countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, and Indonesia rushed to ban Chinese dairy products. Foreign companies which sold China made products or products which used Chinese ingredients had to recall their products. overview of food industry business ethics Significance of business ethics Nowadays, the issue of business ethics comes to peoples mind more frequently especially in the food industry since food are the essential items for human and it will affect our health directly. In 2004, the use of hair in the production of soya sauce was exposed and made headlines in the press. Moreover, there is many more news about China how they use very cheap material like industrial acid and oil to mix into their food products in order to minimize the introduction costs. As a developing country, business in China is developing very rapidly. It is now playing a more decisive role in social life and almost all people would be involved in business activities. As a result, unethical business behavior would have negative influence towards society. Hence, society is now more concerned with the issue of business ethics. Since the Chinese foods are now exported all over the world, ethical practice of Chinese enterprise issues are the key factors to be success. General perception on business ethics in food industry There is much news recently that related to food safety in world wide. Therefore, consumers have three types of ethical concerns toward food industry. Methods of Production and Distribution The production of food raises a number of issues that need to be considered. The packaged food industry essentially consists of manufacturing using farm produce. Clearly hygiene, quality control, health and safety considerations are of great importance. The following are among the issues that should be considered as per my knowledge: 1. Animal welfare in the meat products industry. 2. Use of child or bonded labour, or employment of illegal immigrants. 3. The International Labor Organization (ILO) standards provide useful benchmarks in this area. 4. Improper use of the pesticides, antibiotics, and other chemicals. 5. Misuse of water resources and the consequent impact on local farmers 6. Good quality control of the food supply 7. Ensure the material supply and healthy to human 8. Use environmental friendly packaging as much as possible for the packaging 9. Inform the actual gradients of the food contented 10. Inform the public immediately once unhealthy food was produced and distribute to market According to our observation toward Chinese business, their objective of the business is only generating profits as much as possible. The ethical senses are not significance within the society. Reason behinds the widespread sufferings of the infants According to the case content, there is several factors lead to this hazard. On Sanlu In fact, Sanlu acknowledged the problem far beyond the serious ha affects hazard explored in 2008. From the case content, there were several customer complained the problem to Sanlu about the ill effect of taking the milk by infants. However, Sanlu chose not to launch this news to alarm general public due to they do not wanted to affect its sales and image. In addition, they were not willing to import the sophisticated milk test machine from overseas. On Government First, we believed that Chinese government has too much confidence on the self governance by the enterprise especially on Sanlu these big companies. One of the regulations implemented was the inspection-free policy. A company would not be required to undergo inspection for a period of 3 years if it can meet the following three requirements: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Product with stable quality à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ High market share à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ passed the inspection for more than 3 consecutive times However, past performance did not reflect that there will be not problems in future. Since, the demand of Chinese milk increased significantly and the milk supply source has been polluted, the problem got serious in 2008. If Chinese government inspected the quality of Sanlu continuously, the situation will be under controlled. Moreover, the respond of the milk incident was too slow to control the situation. The Shijiazhang government and the Communist Party of China did not report about the said issue to the provincial and state level authorities till 9 Sep, 2008. At that time, about 53000 infants were already affected. On the steadily growth market and growth strategy of Sanlu Since there is high demand in milk industry and there is not strict control over the milk supply, more and more farmer and agent joined the supply market for making money. The situation got worse after the Mengniu and Yili enter into the Hebei market because the supply of milk was tight in this fast growth market. Since the milk demand from Sanlu and other company increased steadily, the market collection station cannot get enough milk for production. Since it is a profitable market to sell milk to these producers, many middlemen aroused and sell the milk to Sanlu directly. They were not ethical enough since they had diluted the milk to increase the supply volume for more profit and they added this melamine into the milk which was harmful to infants. Since not quality inspection from milk station, this toxic milk was finally gone into the market and lead to the milk scandal finally. Sanlu also needed to responsible on this issue since its growth strategy in market share made they ign ore the quality control by milk station and make this incident. Finally, the covered error of the milk scandal did not made the problem dismissed. Reversely, it generated a serious problem not only about the image destroyed of Sanlu its own but also the image of Chinese milk products, hundred thousand of farmer made not income and needed to kill all of their cows as well as thousands of infant were suffered from Kidney stone. If proper action has been done, the situation will be better. Sanlu and Government actions toward the milk scandal On September 17, 2008, the Chinese Health Minister, announced that melamine contaminated milk had led to more than 6,200 children falling ill in the country and over 150 children suffered acute kidney failure. Six days later it was announced that four children had died and the number of children falling ill had increased to 54,000. On Sanlus production and management actions On September 12, 2008, the Hebei provincial government ordered Sanlu to stop production after preliminary investigation confirmed that melamine contaminated baby formula was the reason for kidney stones among children. The company was also ordered to stop sales of all brands of its baby formula, recall its products, and destroy all the products that were unsold and recalled. Also Sanlu set up a fund of 800,000,000 yuan, which 700,000,000 yuan was estimated to be the compensation amount that the compensation amount that the company needed to pay to its customer such as refund, hospital expenses and compensation on sick or death of the infants. On September 15, 2008, Sanlu had issued a public apology of its role in the milk scandal. Zhang Zhenling (Zhenling), Vice President of Sanlu, read out a letter of apology at a news conference in Shijiazhuang, The serious safety accident of the Sanlu formula milk powder for infants has caused severe harm to many sickened babies and their families. We feel really sad about this. Sanlu Group expresses its most sincere apology to you. We solemnly declare we will recall all the infant milk powder produced prior to August 6. And for those produced after that date, we will also make a recall if consumers have doubts and worries.15 Later, Sanlu also sacked Wenhua. On Government actions The Health Ministry informed the World Health Organization, Hong Kong, and Macaus health departments, the New Zealand Embassy in China, and the press about the melamine contamination in baby formula. The Ministry also announced that a free medical checkup would be given to affected children. It sent medical specialists to hospitals across China to help treat the affected children. Started from September 2008, the Chinese government started a nationwide inspection of baby milk powder. It announced that liquid milk products including packaged milk and yoghurt would be checked for melamine contamination. On September 16, 2008, GAQSIQ announced an inspection of all Chinese baby milk powder makers and found traces of melamine in 69 batches of baby formula produced by 22 companies including brands like Mengniu,12 Yili,13 and Bright Dairy.14 After the inspection, these dairy firms were ordered to stop new production and sale of dairy products. As the milk scandal escalated, steps were also taken against some government officials. While some of them were sacked, some of them resigned owning moral responsibility. On September 17, 2008, Ji Chuntang, Vice-Secretary of the Shijiazhuang Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Mayor of Shijiazhuang, was removed from his job. Earlier, four officials including the Vice Mayor in charge of agricultural production, the Director of Shijiazhuang Municipal Animal Husbandry and Fishery Bureau, the Director of Shijiazhuang Municipal Food and Drug Administration, and the Director of Shijiazhuang Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision were dismissed. On September 22, 2008, Li Changjiang, the Director of GAQSIQ, resigned. On September 26, 2008, four executives of Sanlu including Wenhua were arrested for producing and selling sub-standard products. Milk dealers and suppliers were also arrested for selling contaminated milk to dairy companies. Jiabao, the then Premier of the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China, said, The government will put more efforts into food security, taking the incident as a warning. What we are trying to do is to ensure no such event happens in future, by punishing those responsible leaders as well as enterprises. None of those companies lacking professional ethics or social morals will be let off.16 In an effort to restore confidence among domestic and international consumers, the Chinese government introduced a new set of quality control standards which included strict limits for melamine in dairy products. In the case of infant formula, the limit was set at one milligram of melamine per kilogram and the limit for liquid milk at 2.5 milligrams per kilogram. On October 09, 2008, in an effort to stimulate the dairy industry of China, the Chinese government announced an emergency rescue plan for the affected dairy farmers. The government planned to give 300 million Yuan in subsidy. In addition, the interest rate for loans granted to dairy producers to buy raw milk was also reduced by 3 percent for the period between October and December in 2008. Some local governments in China had also promised to give a subsidy to the dairy farmers. For example, the Hebei province had allocated 316 million Yuan (US$46.4 million) as subsidies to dairy farmers. The dairy companies in China had to recall several thousand tons of melamine contaminated milk products. Sanlu was ordered to recall its products immediately after the Hebei provincial government found melamine contamination in its baby formula. After GAQSIQ had found melamine contamination in the products of 22 Chinese dairy companies, they were also asked to recall their products. On October 15, 2008, GAQSIQ ordered recall of all dairy products made before September 14, 2008. According to a notice issued by the agency, All supermarkets, shops, and all city, town, and village-level vendors will urgently remove and seal up all milk powder and liquid milk made before September, pending further testing. On December 27, 2008, it was announced by the Chinas Dairy Industry Association that the affected children and their families would get compensation from the 22 companies found guilty of producing and selling contaminated milk powder. According to the statement issued by the Association, The enterprises offered to shoulder the compensation liability. By doing so, they hope to earn understanding and forgiveness of the families of the sickened children. The money for compensation is in place now and will soon be handed to the people who have custody of the sickened children through various channels. If the babies suffer from relative after-effects, all medical fees will be covered by the fund. In a letter sent to the victims and their families by these 22 companies, the compensation amount was specifically mentioned for sick children, for those who were suffering from kidney failure, and for families whose kids had died because of the tainted milk powder. It was also mentioned in the l etter that dairy producers would set up a fund to pay the medical costs of the children who were ill, until they reached the age of 18. On January 22, 2009, two people were sentenced to death for their involvement in the Chinese milk scandal. Wenhua was given a life imprisonment and three other executives were given imprisonment from five to fifteen years In my personal opinion, the government failed to supervise product quality responsible. The effectiveness of the regulatory environment in China is slow in disclosure the hazard as well as makes prompt action to stop it. According to some research in the internet, there were many government departments to monitor food safety in China. As there was no single agency to look after all product safety regulations and enforcement in the country and there was no clear hierarchy of agencies, the duties of different departments often overlapped. Recommendations to Sanlu to recover its goodwill as well as Chinese milk industry toward global Investors who had already invested in the Chinese dairy industry were worried about regaining consumers confidence. In this respect it means consumers are now thinking twice before purchasing such products, so the key challenge now is to regain the consumers trust. As you can recall the case from Hong Kong, Vitasoy milk and Lemon tea also suffer from big hazard of the pollution in production line and made the milk turns sour in around ten years old. We believed as a well known organization with market leadership role, they can recover their goodwill step by step like Vita Corporation in order to gain the customer confidence again as below. However, the situation in Hong Kong is much easier to turnover since the government and the legislation control is much strict and clear to follow. If Sanlu would like to gain back the image, both Sanlu and Government needed to do something to ensure the quality of their products is healthy and safe to customer usage. We believe that ethical business environment is the key issue to recover the confidence from general public on the Chinese milk production On Government Regulations To avoid similar incident happen again, implementing of new issues and regulations are necessary. For example, AQSIQ should have regular and sudden inspection on the quality of products. The food industry inspection should be in random and strictly follow the international standard norm. Laws and ethics Nonetheless, only depends on laws, it is not sufficient to ensure the problem would not exist in future. It is more difficult to depend on enterprise to follow the law in PRC such the corruption and education level is not high. There are many acts that are legal but unethical. And there are also many people use money to change illegal to legal by cover the problem or override the checking from government. As in the milk scandal, the use of small amount of melamine was legal because it is not harmful to adult; there was no regulation on it. It is clear that laws cannot fully control human behavior; as law is only norm to control people behave. However, for business ethics, the standard is much higher than that of laws. It is because as a highly ethical company, their goals are not only profit but also care of the public as well as their customer. Ethics is not concerned only with peoples behavior. It is a standard for our core values. As an individual or a company, in addition to bein g legal, being ethical is the key which shows that their values are of higher standard rather than meeting the minimum requirement only. As a ethical corporation, Sanlu should use the concept that customers babies are their babies, they will not give some harmful materials or potential harmful ingredient towards their own babies. They should care the health of all babies although add melamine and dilute milk can be acceptable to increase production. Education on general public Peoples behavior is actually influenced by norm, attitude and values from the society and most likely are from their own family. Changes in norm, attitude and values are very important for improving business ethics. We believed that it is the value of Chinese enterprise was too famous on profit and do not know clearly what ethical standard they needed. Hence, on top of implementation of measures and regulations, education on both top management and employees would be the most fundamental way to do so. For example, government can improve more foreign consultant and special to teach ethic and made speech in university to raise the concern of general public and know they can do it profitability like coca cola, nestle as well as PG etc. On Sanlu itself Ethic knowledge training Unethical issues cannot be done by only one level. If the ethical standards are enough in the company, they will carry out a mutual inspection on other actions toward ethic enterprise. For example, before employees go to their working positions, the company should provide ethics training, covering ethical issues and addressing the rules, compliance requirement and the corporate values to their employees. Let employees realize the importance of business ethics for the company as well as their own. During training, discussions on cases of ethical dilemma and analysis with employees are valuable in developing employees awareness of business ethics and ethical competency. Furthermore, the company should communicate information about the reporting mechanisms with all employees. When there is any unethical behavior, employees can report to the company immediately. This would be the most efficient way to discover any problems and take prompt actions to solve them. Quality control process and crisis management Since Sanlus image was totally damaged in this incident, we recommend that Sanlu can import the modern of art testing machine for strict quality control and the production chain should be more transparent toward general public. They can set up a additional inspection team which contains outsiders from other milk industrys expert and also foreign country representative to investigate the production channel, sourcing as well as the healthy and safety level on its our products. Therefore, the general public may slowly regain its confidence on Sanlus milk products. Also, the management team should have a knowledge sharing about the investors New Zealand industry on how they manufacture the milk and ensure the required process and ethical norm can be implemented in Sanlu to regain the image from global market. Once the incident happened again, Sanlu should know how to reduce the negative effect toward customer like stop production immediately, message general public timely and recall all affected products from retailer and dealers in order to show their sophisticated experience in crisis management. Like Vita group, we believe that the market will accept their products again. In conclusion, we believe that the critical factor on this incident and regain image of Sanlu in the case is all about ethics. We believed that the technology and expertise in China are enough to produce healthy and safety products. However, their action has been affected by the norm to earn as much money as possible in short period of time by legal but no ethical actions. In order to reduce the negative image toward Chinese product such as foods, drinks, electronic and toy. Chinese government should pay more effort on improve the ethical standard by education and control of the government officials. If they cannot to do so, the short-term goal of Chinese enterprise toward profits without concern on general public would affect the development of the economy of whole Chinese market.

Child Abuse and Neglect Essay -- Violence Against Children

Child abuse consists of any act or failure to act that endangers a child’s physical or emotional health and development. A person caring for a child is abusive if he or she fails to nurture the child, physically injures the child, or relates sexually to the child (Robins). Child abuse is broken down into four major categories: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Aside from the abuse itself, the cost of the tragic events costs the United States billions of dollars each year. Every day, approximately 4 children in the United States die resulting from child abuse and the majority are under 5-years-old (Fromm). There are many organizations that promote preventative measures in reducing child abuse. If nothing is done, child abuse will continue to rise with many consequences in the future.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Child abuse falls into four main classifications: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Physical abuse is defined as any non-accidental physical injury to a child (Robins). This can result from beating, whipping, paddling, punching, pushing, shaking, burning with cigarettes, scalding with hot water, or other hot objects. Unfortunately, sexual abuse is rising today. This is any sexual act between an adult and a child, which includes: fondling, touching, or kissing genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, penetration, or oral sex, exposing child to adult sexuality, and child pornography (Robins). Emotional abuse is the most common abuse due to how easily it can be hidden. Emotional abuse is any attitude, behavior, or failure to act on the part of the caregiver that interferes with a child’s mental health or social development (Robins). Many parents who continually yell or scream at his or her child in a way of threatening or showing no signs of affection turn to this so it will not be picked up on as quick as physical abuse. Unfortunately, this type can be the most harmful because it can cause serious emotional and mental problems later on in life. Lastly, neglect is a form of abuse and is defined as the failure to provide a child with basic needs (Robins). This is seen when parents fail to provide children with food, shelter and clothing. Also, caregivers who leave children unattended, fail to provide education, and fail to give children psychological needs are all types of emotional abuse.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is estimated that child abuse co... ...ss to hotlines, family resources, self-help groups, publications on abuse prevention, an volunteer opportunities (Mulryan 54). National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information gives information on prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect (54). There are many other organizations that help children and families prevent and help cope with child abuse. With these specialized organizations there is hope that child abuse will decrease and more information will be delivered to the society.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Works Cited Adams, Caren, and Jennifer Fay. Helping Your Child Recover from Sexual Abuse. Seattle: Washington UP, 1992. Crosson-Tower, Cynthia. When Children are Abused. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Fromm, Suzette. â€Å"Total Estimated Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States.† Statistical Evidence. Web. 14 Feb. 2015. Mulryan, Kathleen., et al. â€Å"How to Recognize and Respond to Child Abuse.† Nursing 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. Ramamoorthy, Saraswathy., et al. â€Å"Talking to a Child Who Has Been Abused.† Purdue University. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Robins, P. â€Å"Recognizing Signs of Child Abuse.† KidsHealth. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Common Inventory System Problems & Solution Essay

Symptoms: Preoccupation with the forecast within the execution time frame. Typically, companies begin altering their forecast management processes when addressing supply chain performance. But this is unwise without understanding the nature of your demand and the root causes of forecast errors. When forecast accuracy is overemphasized, fill rates and inventory turns don’t improve, even when forecast accuracy does. No measure of customer service or inventory turns. Customers must be satisfied on an ongoing basis for a company to achieve long-term sustainability. Yet, inventory managers often have no idea how well customers’ needs are being met. Similarly, without knowing how quickly inventory moves through the value-creation-and-delivery system, a company won’t be able to manage inventory levels. Daily planning is based on a back order report. This is an entirely reactive model. Today’s fast-paced marketplace requires proactive inventory planning to meet current demand. Customers will switch to a competitor if their needs are consistently unmet in the time frame they dictate. Solutions: Mandatory tracking of fill rate and inventory turns for all product lines. Product managers should know these measures at all times. Fill rate should be measured daily, while inventory-turn measures will vary based on sales and production cycles. The important thing is that managers are both tracking and working to improve these rates. Develop realistic forecast-error measures. Developing realistic measures for how much forecast error you can tolerate without a SKU stock-out is essential. Typically, companies estimate plus or minus 10 for this measure, which equals about two days worth of inventory-a miniscule amount considering that companies often have weeks or months worth of inventory. Effective forecast management and inventory planning require accurate data, so accurate forecast error measures are a must. Mistake No. 2: Having unqualified employees manage inventory Symptoms: A sentiment that â€Å"our business is different because (fill in the blank).† Every company has inventory planning challenges, such as variable demand. No business is so different that it would not benefit from strategic  inventory management. Decentralized inventory management. If warehouse managers, office clerks, and other employees without specific inventory-management training are making inventory-management decisions, then it is certain that wasteful inventory is piling up throughout the system. Usually, this model reflects a company with no clear goals or strategy for inventory planning. Lack of formal training program or professional peer interaction. Inventory management is a professional skill that requires upfront and ongoing education. Emphasizing â€Å"buying† over planning. Buyers make purchases, but planners make strategic decisions to meet goals. Thinking of inventory planning from a purely â€Å"buying† point of view means opportunities for improvement and financial benefits will be overlooked—daily. Solutions: Recognize that inventory management requires professional job skills, and hire and train accordingly. Just as a company with hundreds of thousands of free dollars on its balance sheet would hire professional investment advisers, a company with hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory should have professional inventory managers. Assign accountability for inventory management. Often, companies can’t answer the question, â€Å"Who is in charge of making sure inventory levels support strategic goals?† If no one is, then these inventory planning goals will never be met. TOP 5 SOLUTIONS: 1. Use reorder points on inventory items to keep purchasing streamlined and inventory manageable. Reorder points (otherwise known as min. and max. levels) are the best method for making sure you have the right amount of inventory in your warehouse at all times. If you have too little inventory you could lose out on sales, but if you have too much your cash is tied up in inventory that will not be sold. One of the biggest problems many companies have is managing their cash. A quick way to solve that from an inventory standpoint is by making sure you have set the appropriate reorder points for your business. 2. Spend money on specialized training for mission-critical software. Companies with a lot of inventory spend thousands of dollars on software they need in order to manage and track their items as  they move all over the world. This software manages millions of dollars’ worth of assets. After spending so much money on software, some companies don’t want to spend a f ew thousand dollars extra to buy the specialized training they need to implement the software. This is a big mistake because this software won’t do you any good if you don’t spend a little bit more to learn how to use it. If you try to learn your software on your own you may suffer for months before you learn the basics of how it works. 3. Rearrange the warehouse to set up for picking efficiencies. Sometimes trainers see mistakes that are so obvious you would think they’d be corrected immediately, but warehouse managers may be too distracted to notice them. We often see 100,000-square-foot warehouses that are organized inefficiently. These companies could save themselves large sums of money by making a few changes to where they place their inventory. The items that you sell the most or send out the most should be right next to the shipping dock. This keeps your employees from having to walk all the way across the warehouse to pick them up every time you are going to send them out. As companies grow, sometimes they just randomly put things where there is sp ace. This works for a little while, but as you grow you need to think about efficiency because the minutes that your employees spend driving around the forklift cost you money. 4. Take time to get to know your technology so that you can use all the functionality. Rarely will a company use all of the functionality their software provides. Most of the time there is more that the software can do for you that you haven’t explored. Software companies always hear from their customers about which features they want added to the software when a lot of the time the features are already there. The more features that you use in the software the more effective you can be in managing your inventory. You should either assign someone within the company to learn the software functionality or pay someone to come in and teach it to you. 5. Stop doing yearly physical inventories and move to a more regular, smaller cycle counting and reconciling routine. Businesses used to shut down for a day to a week each year to go into their warehouse and physically count everything to make sure that it matched the information in their software. This practice is mostly outdated because of the amount of time and money it takes. Doing these checks in smaller, more regular cycles keeps a company from having to shut down. We recommend picking one section each day to check  your product levels against the information from your inventory software.

Literature Step by Step Wicked Essay

Theme In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, the theme that can be found is surviving divorce and remarriage The first challenge is getting used to complicated living arrangements. Ralph had to remember whose house to go to on different days of the week. He ended up having two different lunch boxes to remind him where to go. Another challenge is to accept a stepparent and stepsiblings. Pixie had a tough time trying to get along with her  stepsisters, Hetty and Sophie. She was annoyed when she had to share a room with Hetty The last challenge is loyalty. Claudia was not friendly to Stella at first because she did not want to hurt her  mother. She was worried that being nice to Stella would mean that she is disloyal to her mother It is not easy to cope with divorce and remarriage. It takes a lot of patience, tolerance and acceptance Most Interesting Character In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, the most interesting character is Pixie Pixie is interesting because she is smart. She was the first to realize what the five pupils had in common Besides that, Pixie is very imaginative. She is able to create ghost stories to scare Hetty from staying in the same room with her Pixie is outspoken and honest. She tells Lucy exactly what she thought of  her daughters. She also told Lucy that she hated pretending that everything is all right Pixie is interesting because she is smart, imaginative, outspoken and honest One Moral Value In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, a moral value that can be found is love and devotion The first character who showed love and devotion is Richard’s mother. She spent a lot of money seeking for  Richard although she had to suffer  Reverend Coldstone’s anger and disapproval. Another character who demonstrated love and devotion is Charlotte. She continued her mother’s search for her  brother, Richard. Since she did not have any money, she married a rich man she did not love at 16. Colin showed love and devotion too. He kept his Dad’s tobacco tin and hummed their favorite song. He does three paper rounds to earn money to search for his Dad when he is old enough These characters have greatly showed their love and devotion. They proved that people will do anything for the ones they love A Memorable Incident In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, a memorable incident is the death of  Richard’s father The first change that Richard had to face is his mother’s marriage to Reverend Coldstone. Richard hated his stepfather  because he enforced strict rules and made Richard feels that his house was like a prison. He also sent Richard away to Mordanger School for four years Another change is betrayal. Richard felt that his mother had betrayed him when she allowed Reverend Coldstone to treat him  badly. He also felt betrayed when Charlotte persuaded him not to hate his stepfather Finally, Richard decided to run away and vanish. His departure caused financial ruin and heartbreak to his mother and sister. His mother spent a lot of money to search for  him. Charlotte married a man she did not love to continue the search after their  mother died The death of Richard’s father brought about a lot of changes to Richard’s family. Most of them are sorrowful. From this incident, we must remember that we should be courageous in difficult times and not let others suffer from our bad decisions Problems Faced By A Character In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine. Colin had a few problems and had his own ways of overcoming them The first problem that Colin had is when his mother suddenly decided to move away without his dad’s knowledge. He was always waiting for his dad to come to see them but he never did. So, he wrote a letter to his dad, but he never received any reply Another problem is Colin missed his dad very much. Colin consoled himself by pretending his dad was around. He would put his dad’s tobacco tin under his pillow, hummed their  favorite song and finally unscrewed the lid of the tin to take in the smell of his dad Colin wants to find his dad. But he cannot do it now as he does not have enough money and is not old enough. So, he does three paper  rounds to save enough money to find his dad when he is older Problems are common in life. We must think  carefully of how we want to solve it so that the consequences of our decision will not trouble others Compare Two Characters In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, I choose two compare two characters that are similar Richard and Colin The first similarity is both Richard and Colin are missing their fathers. Richard’s father  died of an illness while Colin was missing his father after his mother decided to move away without his father’s knowledge Another similarity is their mothers ignore both of them. Richard’s mother did not defend him when Reverend Coldstone treated him badly. Colin missed his dad a lot but his mother did not seem to be aware of how Colin felt Both Richard and Colin decided to run away to make things work. Richard ran away from home as he thought that his action would make life more pleasant for everyone. Colin wants to run away to find his dad whom he misses a lot. He does three paper rounds to save money and will leave when he is old enough The two characters suffered much pain and sorrow. No one cared how they felt. Running away is not a solution. But, it may have been the best option for the both of them, as they had no one to advise them Point Of View In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, the story is mostly written in the first person point of view Richard wrote his story in his diary/album so it is in the first person point of view. We as readers learn of the events in his life through his eyes. We know from his writing that he had come home to find Charlotte’s letter, but we do not whether he decided to stay or leave Old Harwick Hall Claudia, too, told her story through her point of view. We only know her feelings and thoughts and not of her mother, father, granny and Stella. We know that Claudia sympathized Stella for the guests’ cold treatment, but we do not know how Stella truly felt Pixie also tells her story through her own point of view. We know all her thoughts as she speaks. For instance, from her point of  view, we find that the actions of the other  characters annoy her. Pixie is annoyed with most of Hetty’s actions like calling her  Priscilla, rolling the cat on the carpet like a sausage and sniffing while reading Writing the story in the first point of view helps us as readers to understand the story better. We get first-hand knowledge of the characters’ feelings, thoughts and decisions A Character That Changed After An Event In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, a character that has changed due to certain events in his life is Colin Colin changed into an unhappy and lonely boy when his mother decided to move. He had to start at another school. It was an unpleasant experience as everyone ignored him as they had their own set of friends already. Besides that, his mother was busy with work and was always too tired to listen to Colin’s problems Colin became a dreamy boy because he missed his dad. Every night, he would hold on to his dad’s tobacco tin and hum their  favorite song. He pretended his dad was around. This habit caused him to have less focus in class and do badly in school Being apart from his dad made Colin become very resourceful. He did three paper rounds to earn enough money to search for his dad when he is old enough At first, Colin responded negatively to the changes in his life. He was sad and dreamy. But at last, he decided that he must do something in order to see his dad again. This shows that he is optimistic and is determined in finding his dad Family And Relationship Portrayed In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, Richard’s family is portrayed to have a strong sense of love Richard showed that he had strongly loved his family. Although he ran away and vanished, he still came by the house twice to catch a glimpse of his mother and sister Richard’s mother, Lilith was the first to show her love and devotion. She spent a fortune seeking for Richard and suffered Reverend Coldstone’s anger as their money lessened. She died of broken heart because of her  undying love for her son, Richard Charlotte, too, showed her love and devotion. She wanted to keep searching for Richard after her mother’s death, but had no money of  her own. So, she married a rich man she did not love because he promised to help her find Richard Love leads to reunion and healing in a family. We should love our family unconditionally and be prepared to make sacrifices for them An Interesting Event In the novel Step by Wicked Step by Anne Fine, an event that I find interesting is when Robbo gave Dumpa an ice lolly This event is interesting because it showed how smart kids could be. Robbo gave the ice lolly to Dumpa because he wanted Dumpa to not be out in the cold. However, Dumpa outsmarted them by not eating it and stayed outside with Roy It is also interesting because it led Robbo, Callie and their mother talking realistically about their conflict. Robbo said that he was fed up with the whole situation and Callie confessed that she could never get along with Roy Lastly, this event is interesting because it brought a good change to Robbo’s family. Callie wanted to move to their dad’s house, so their mother helped made it more comfortable for her. In return, their dad agreed to look  after Dumpa to let their mother and Roy have a break It is important for all of us to be honest to each other. Pretending that everything is all right will not make things better. But once everyone is honest about their feelings, it is easier to make things work for everybody A Character That I Admire In the novel Step by Wicked Step, written by Anne Fine, the character that I admire is Claudia. There are many reasons why I admire her very much First of all, I admire Claudia because she is a gentle person. Listening to Richard’s sad story makes her weep. Besides, she is loyal to her mother. She tries not to sound too happy when speaking to her father because she does not want to hurt her mother’s feeling. She rejects Stella and refuses to enjoy her time with her father out of loyalty to her mother. She knows that her parent’s break-up is serious even though her mother sounded cheerful Apart from that, I really admire Claudia because she is a fair and sensible person. She does not blame Stella for her parents’ break-up. At the dinner party, she thinks that the guests are rude for not appreciating Stella’s hard work. She realizes that ignoring Stella would not help solving matters between her parents. Feeling sorry for Stella who is being ignored by the guests, she decides to help her get accepted by showing off the green pajamas that Stella gave her. In a nutshell, the character that I admire from Step by Wicked Step is Claudia because she is gentle, loyal, fair and sensible. I think we could learn a lot from her character. In The Midst Of Hardship Scratches – Cuts on the body/limbs Despair – Hopelessness Horrendous – Awful, dreadful Bloated – Swollen Carcasses – Dead bodies Chips – Broken pieces