Friday, January 31, 2020

Theoretical Background Essay Example for Free

Theoretical Background Essay Purchasing is â€Å"Critical to supply chain efficiency because it is the job of the purchasing to select suppliers and then establish mutually beneficial relationships with them. Without good suppliers and without superior purchasing, supply chains cannot compete today’s† marketplace. Purchasing is also very involved in product design and development work. Many â€Å"manufacturers have found out that manufacturing costs can be reduced, product quality maximized, and new products brought to market at a much faster rate if purchasing brings the key suppliers into the product design and development at the earliest stage of process. † And purchasing is directly involved in the implementation of e-commerce systems. (Fitzgerald, 2000) Purchasing is responsible for obtaining the materials, parts, supplies, and services need to produce a product or provide a service. You can get some idea of the importance of purchasing when you consider that, in manufacturing, upwards of 60 percent of the cost of finished goods comes from purchased parts and materials. Furthermore, the percentages for purchased inventories are even higher for retail and wholesale companies, sometimes exceeding 90 percent. Nonetheless, the importance of purchasing is more than just the cost of goods purchased; other important factors include the quality of goods and services and the timing of deliveries of goods and services, both of which can have a significant impact on operations. The goal of purchasing is to develop and implement purchasing plans for products and services that support operation strategies. Among the duties of purchasing are identifying sources of supply, negotiating contracts, maintaining a database of suppliers, obtaining goods and services that meet or exceed operations requirements in a timely and cost-efficient manner, and managing suppliers. Thus, purchasing select suppliers, negotiates contracts, establishes alliances, and acts as liaison between suppliers and various internal departments. Purchasing is taking on increase importance as organizations place greater emphasis on supply chain management, quality improvement, clean production, and outsourcing. Moreover, business-to-business buying relationships are changing: although traditional relationships currently account for the lion’s share of buying relationships, they are expected to decrease substantially by the middle of  the decade, while Web-based auctions and manage inventory relationships are expected to grow. In addition, increasing globalization will continue to have an impact on purchasing. (McGraw-Hill, 2007) The purchasing function in business organizations is becoming increasingly important. Among the reasons are increased levels of outsourcing, increased used of the Internet, greater emphasis on supply chain management, globalization, and continuing efforts to reduce costs and increase quality. Among purchasing responsibilities are obtaining the materials, parts, supplies and services needed to produce a product or provide a service. Price, quality and reliability and speed of delivery are important variables. Purchasing selects suppliers, negotiates contracts, and establishes alliances, and act as liaison between supplier and various internal departments. It also is involved in value analysis, vendor analysis, make-or-buy analysis, supplier audits, and supplier certification. (Morgan, 1994) In many business organizations there is a move to reduce the number of suppliers and to establish and maintain longer-term relationships with suppliers. Supplier partnerships may involve cooperation that takes the form of sharing of planning and information, and perhaps cooperation in product and process design. (Morgan, 1994) An underlying consideration in purchasing, as in all areas of business, is maintaining ethical standards. The supplement provides a recommended set of ethical practices in purchasing. (Morgan, 1994) Although often associated with the public sector, purchasing groups are also an alternative considered more and more by managers of the private sector. A purchasing group increases volume consolidation, making it possible to have only one negotiation, in order to increase the purchasing group members power vis†Ãƒ  Ã¢â‚¬ vis that of its suppliers. However, a purchasing group also constitutes an additional link in the supply chain and its objectives could go contrary to those of some of its members. This is why organisations considering joining a purchasing group should analyse this option strategically, in order to assess correctly the potential long†term benefits. (Nollet Beaulieu, 2005)

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Constrain The Power :: essays research papers

â€Å"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism†¦Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole,† George Orwell, [1984]. The criticisms and protests Orwell has against the dictatorship of Napoleon, a pig who tricked his animal society into believing equality was the greater evil, are vibrantly shown throughout the novel. The change of life citizens endured during their stay on Animal Farm enlightens its readers with the true purpose of the book. â€Å"George Orwell’s whole life was spent in preparation of Animal Farm, and the text itself bears the dates November, 1943-February, 1944,† The Times Literary Supplement. In November of 1943 the United States controlled the first nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago. The Manhattan project was a success, and the country held the power to decimate any opposing power. However, with this achievement erupted much controversy. Was the use of atomic bombs humane and reasonable to end conflicts? Englishman, George Orwell, opposed any practice related to these weapons. Through his brilliant satire, Animal Farm, Orwell depicted a frightening view of the future. Even those deemed as national heroes were corrupt. It was uncertain at the time if overthrowing the government would ever change current society. In essence, the United States is not run under totalitarian views. We are a democracy, a society where the people’s choice presides over that of one person. However, in smaller countries this could be overthrown very swiftly. In the book Animal Farm, two major leaders, Snowball and Napoleon, begin their journey to a successful society when Napoleon turns on Snowball. He sends his bodyguards, (portrayed as vicious dogs) after Snowball in hope to drive him off the farm. Once this was accomplished, he began to manipulate the minds of the animals on the farm into believing that Snowball was actually their enemy from the beginning. â€Å"Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill? SNOWBALL! he suddenly roared in a voice of thunder. Snowball has done this thing! In sheer malignity, thinking to set back our plans and avenge himself for his ignominious expulsion, this traitor has crept here under cover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year. Comrades, here and now I pronounce the death sentence upon Snowball,† Animal Farm, pg.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Hotel Management System Essay

1.1 Introduction The aim of every business is to achieve operational excellence and efficiency. The effectiveness of business processes today has been influenced by technology. However, as computing technology becomes increasingly vital to conducting business and communicating with associates, new and more complex issues must be resolved. Among them is the need to ensure that the benefits derived from using computers are not reduced due to accompanying information management inefficiencies or to the creation of new business risks. A hotel is a building where travelers can pay for lodging, meals and other activities. Hotel Management involves combination of various skills like management, marketing, human resource development, and financial management, inter personal skills, dexterity, etc. Hotels are a major employment generator in tourism industry. Hotel management can be a very lucrative field, both in terms of annual revenues Furthermore, hotels are big attractions to businesses and associations l ooking to hold events. Booking an event means additional revenue for the use of a conference or banquet room, in addition to overnight guests who may use laundry and other concierge services. Work in the area of Hotel Management involves ensuring that all operations, including accommodation, food and drink and other hotel services run smoothly. Hotel management system goes a long way to assist hotels in achieving its aims. Hotel management system as an automated system will enable hotels provide all round services to their various customers or stakeholders through digital or electronic means. The system will assist management in its day-to-day business activities, make decisions. 1.2 Subject and Field of Study The field of study is computer studies and in relation to the subject area being Information Management system and Web Application Development with highlights on Database management, Web and Internet Technology. This project is a web application development project prior to my area of study, the project is designed specifically for hotel businesses that has seen the need of transforming business activities from the manual process to digital process and also businesses that needs safe and proper customer data management in electronic form using the internet. 1.3 Study Objectives The study objectives are categorized into two: 1.3.1 Global Objective: The Global objective of this project is to contribute to the general body of knowledge and research work in the area of developing a hotel management system that will automate the whole management processes of the organization (hotels). 1.3.2 Specific Objectives: The following are the targeted objectives to be accomplished in order to achieve the general objective above. To be able to create mutual communication between customer and business (hotel). To provide a platform for online booking and reservation by customer’s rooms. To provide easy access to customers in viewing and making selection of hotel rooms. To be able to manage fast access to guest(customers) information and easy update of records. To be able to provide security measures to access the hotels information lowering data security threats. To be able to provide better data management facilities To able to enable backups of respective users to be made and accessed when it is needed. 1.4 Problem Statement Intended to explore the impact of the design of Hotel Management System is expected to overcome the general problems in handling issues relating to hotel business activities, managerial activities, difficulties in providing stock control of equipment’s used in the hotel, difficulties on monitoring and tracking customers details and requirements on which the tasks are performed, the time consuming aspects of various customers moving all the way to the preferred hotel to make reservation and bookings as well as viewing at the hotel rooms available. However providing notifications to respective customers about their reservation status is also time wasting. Also management of these hotels finds it difficult manually keeping records of their various employees, clients and other vital hotel related information. Difficulties in making references to old business transactions, data’s and other negotiations and issues concerning security of data and  recovery manners is also considered. It is designed to replace old method of recording information by using pen and paper. 1.5 Research Methodology The proposed research methodology for this project is the â€Å"Waterfall Model†. The waterfall model takes fundamental process activities and it is a sequential design process, often used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of separate process phases such requirement specification, software design implementation, testing and maintenance. To ensure that our project is in par with our client needs, we used the waterfall model approach in developing the systems. The first process of the model is data gathering. Here we gather information about basic hotel management system functionalities. Joint Application Development (JAD) will be used as fact- findings techniques that will be used to gather the requirements analysis if the Hotel Management System should be implemented in any hotel. After the first phase of data gathering we proceeded in interviewing our clients. We asked about what their expectations were in a hotel management system. Some clients already had a hotel management system. In this case we asked them about what improvements they would have wanted to add in the system such as implementing an attribute for passport information. After gathering all of the information from our clients we proceeded with the next step which is analyzing of data and problem solving. In here we began conceptualizing the components our system needed such as inputting name and creating a log in log out system. We also thought about what elements from our initial concept did not require. After conceptualizing all of the elements we need in creating our system we proceed to the next step which is implementing requirements. In here we decide what applications we need in developing the system. Here we decided to use VB.Net and MySQL as our primary programming languages. Now that we have our tools we proceed to the next step which is system and software design. In here we take our concept design and upgrade that design by implementing our tools in the design. This means we have to understand the requirements of the end user and also have an idea of how the end product should look like. System design also helps us specify the hardware and  system requirements to create the overall system architecture. System design is the (stepping stone towards) our next task which is GUI design. GUI design is the process of designing user interface of the entire system. This means that we start creating actual look of the program for our system. After creating the design we proceed to next step which is system coding. This is where the command lines are assigned to a GUI so that they would have their proper functions. An example would be initiating the connection query in order to connect to the database. After adding all of the required components we proceed to the final step which is system testing and debugging. Here both individual components and the integrated whole are methodically verified to ensure that they are error-free and fully meet the requirements. 1.6 Background and Justification of the Study The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which a hotel management system will be used in the organization to manage hotel business processes. A background study shows that the hotel’s daily operation is managed by the Administrative Department. The process starts from customers coming to the hotel to make reservations and enquiries, through the hotel receptionist. The customer booking details will be recorded in a manual form and filed. After making enquiries and finally a reservation is made, the reservation form would be forwarded to the cashier for payment to be made, all involving paper work. Since it involves paper work lots of time is consumed and booking & reservation takes a lot of time. Furthermore, when a customer wants to check out, files will have to be searched and retrieved so that the final operations of checking out a customer will be performed. Some of the service personnel who have studied the issues concerning the manual business operation issued by customers, has contended that the manual operation reduces the operational productivity of the hotel. Because there have been cases records have been mishandled due to human error, some data’s cannot be found etc. HMS helps in managing reservations, bookings, guests and agents. The user can search for the vacant rooms in the hotel and book for it by not necessarily coming to the  physical location of the hotel. An administrator can view the booking details, transactions and coordinate the activity with the agents. He can track the entire site activity. Reservations can also be made through a phone call or an email. 1.7 Expected Outcome of the Project At the end of this project, the following becomes the outcome: There will be a created mutual communication between customer and management. Customers will be enabled make online booking and reservation by searching for rooms. There will be enabled effective storage of customers’ data Administrators will be able to manage fast access to guest files and updates of records will be done effectively and efficiently. Administrators will be provided with better data management facilities. There will be enabled security measures when trying to access the hotels information lowering data security threats. There will be enabled frequent backups of respective user details and access when needed. 1.8 Presentation of Thesis Chapter 1: General introduction is focused on the research which is the Project Proposal. Chapter 2: Literature Review which focuses on history and the outlook of the existing systems. Chapter 3: Methodology. In this chapter, the proposed system is analyzed into details and its importance discussed expansively where context level diagrams, dataflow diagrams, flowcharts will be used to explain the proposed system further. Chapter 4: System Analysis and Design; the study carries on with the design of the system. This chapter will encompass database modeling, class modeling, use case modeling and the relationship diagram of the proposed system. Chapter 5: Testing and Implementation; Implementation of the computer software goes on after the design. The system will be tested and reviewed to reveal errors. In this chapter also the documentation of the completed system. It also lays emphasis on both the users of the system and the system itself. Under the user documentation, the manual for both the user and the expert who will administer the system will be known. Finally conclusion and recommendation will be made as well as observations are identified and the necessary improvement which could be added to the system is made.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Reciprocal and Reflexive Sentences in Spanish

Understanding or translating reflexive or reciprocal sentences in Spanish where there are two or more subjects can be confusing because they can be ambiguous without qualifiers. Learn how these types of sentences are constructed and how to eliminate ambiguity in Spanish using two common phrases. Why There Can Be Ambiguity in Spanish Sentences First, let us define and expand upon what a  reflexive sentence is. The pronoun se is commonly used (although it has many other uses as well) to indicate that a person is performing some type of action on or toward that person. For example, se ve can mean he sees himself and se hablaba can mean she was talking to herself. The confusion with reflexive sentences can come when the subject of such sentences is plural. See, for example, how the following Spanish sentences are ambiguous. Either of the translations given after the Spanish sentence is valid: Se ayudaron. (They helped themselves. They helped each other.)Se golpean. (They are hitting themselves. They are hitting each other.)Pablo y Molly se aman. (Pablo and Molly love themselves. Pablo and Molly love each other.) The same ambiguity can exist in the first and second persons as well: Nos daà ±amos. (We hurt ourselves. We hurt each other.)Nos amamos. (We love ourselves. We love each other.) ¿Os odià ¡is? (Do you hate yourselves? Do you hate each other?) The problem occurs because in Spanish the plural reciprocal pronouns are the same as the reflexive pronouns; they are nos in the first person, os in the second person, and se in the third person. (Note that in Latin America os is seldom used, as se is typically used in both the second- and third-person plurals.) This is in contrast with English where the reflexive pronouns in the plural are ourselves, yourselves, and themselves—but the reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another. How To Clarify When Context Doesn’t Help Most of the time, the context of the sentence will make clear what meaning is intended. If the context does not help, there are two very common phrases that can be used to eliminate the ambiguity. First, the idiom a sà ­ mismos is commonly used to indicate that a reflexive meaning is intended—in other words, that the subjects are acting on themselves rather than each other. For example: Se aman a sà ­ mismos. (They love themselves.)No pueden verse a sà ­ mismos. (They cant see themselves.)Es importante que nos escuchemos a sà ­ mismos. (It is important that we listen to ourselves.) If all the persons involved are female, or if the names of all subjects are grammatically feminine, the feminine form a sà ­ mismas should be used: Cà ³mo se perciben a sà ­ mismas las mujeres con la infertilidad? (How do women with infertility perceive themselves?)Cuà ­dense a sà ­ mismas. (Take care of yourselves.)Estas piernas robà ³ticas son capaces de enseà ±arse a sà ­ mismas a andar. (These robotic legs are capable of teaching themselves to walk.) Second, the phrase el uno al otro, which can be literally translated as one to the other, is the rough equivalent of each other: No debemos hacernos eso el uno al otro. (We shouldnt do that to each other._Se golpean el uno al otro. (They are hitting each other.)El ordenador y el monitor se necesitan el uno al otro. )The computer and the monitor need each other.) ¿Os odià ¡is el uno al otro? (Do you two hate each other?) El uno al otro can also be used in feminine and/or plural variations: Pablo y Molly se aman el uno a la otra. (Pablo and Molly love each other.)Se abrazaban la una a la otra. (The two females hugged each other._No se cuidan los unos a los otros. (They (multiple persons) dont take care of each other.) Key Takeaways Reflexive pronouns are used to indicate that two or more persons or things are acting on themselves, while reciprocal pronouns are used to indicate that two or more persons or things are acting on themselves.Although English has separate reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, in Spanish they are identical.Spanish can use the phrases a sà ­ mismos (or a sà ­ mismas) and el uno al otro (with variations for number and gender) to clarify reflexive and reciprocal verbs, respectively.