Mcdonaldization Essays - Fast Food, McDonalds, Hamburgers, Wendys

Mcdonaldization The way that Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers does business and markets it's product to consumers is due to the change in our society to where the consumer wants the biggest, fastest, and best product they can get for their money. This change in society can be attributed to a process known as McDonaldization. Although McDonaldization can be applied to many other parts of our society, this paper will focus on its impact on Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. My belief is that the process of McDonaldization, where the ideology of McDonald's has come to dominate the world, has caused Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers to emulate McDonald's style of running a franchised restaurant chain in terms of efficiency, calculability, and control. However, since McDonald's has become the epitome of fast-food in our society, Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers has had to change their focus to giving the consumer a higher quality product in a relatively fast amount of time. So, Wendy's still caters to a Mc Donaldized society in terms of giving them a meal as fast as possible but making quality their number one priority to give people a viable option from McDonald's. In addition, I have used my girlfriend who manages at Wendy's and observations I gathered while at McDonald's as further information for this paper. First, before I discuss the impact of McDonaldization on Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, I will define what McDonaldization is. McDonaldization is the process by which the principles of fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society, as well as, of the rest of the world. (Ritzer 1998,Page 1) George Ritzer created this concept of McDonaldization as a continuation of Max Weber's theories on bureaucracies. Max Weber defines a bureaucracy as a large hierarchical organization that is governed by formal rules and regulations and has a clear specification of work tasks. Its three main characteristics are that it has a division of labour, hierarchy of authority, and an impartial and impersonal application of rules and policies. (Newman 1997, Page 271) Thus, from that definition of a bureaucracy, one would conclude that both McDonald's and Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers are bureaucracies. The fact that both restaurants are bureaucracies is supported by the fact that each assigns workers to a specific job where each worker individually contributes to the overall success of the restaurant by doing his or her job. For example, workers at each restaurant could be assigned to working the grill, making fries, working the front register, or taking orders at the drive-thru window. Both restaurants have a hierarchy of authority from worker, crew chief, shift manager, salary manager to owner of the store. Also, each restaurant enforces an impartial and impersonal application of rules and policies. Both McDonald's and Wendy's have standard, impersonal greetings at the register and at the drive-thru window. The exception when this impersonal attitude towards the customer is changed is when a worker knows the customer outside the restaurant. In this case, the worker will probably ask their acquaintance how they are doing or what they are up to. The worker might even throw in an extra cheeseburger that a regular customer might not get. Despite this exception where standardization is broken, both these restaurants have become bureaucracies because they are the most efficient means of managing large groups of people. That leaves one to wonder why the process of McDonaldization has been so successful for both companies. The first reason is that it offers efficiency where consumers know that it means the quickest way to get from one point to another. In the case of McDonald's, it offers the best available way to get from being hungry to being full. This is so important in today's society because so many people are in a rush to get from one place to another. Therefore, the quick, efficient setup of McDonald's allows consumers to eat a fast-food meal without having to leave their car. On the other hand, Wendy's strives for as efficient service as possible without effecting the quality of their product. This is because McDonald's already has imprinted on people's minds throughout the many years of its existence that they will get the same burger each visit in the quickest

Suicide - Signs and Preventions essays

Suicide - Signs and Preventions essays One of the top causes of death in the United States today is suicide. The number of people who commit suicide each year is rapidly increasing, especially among teenagers. To help prevent this number from growing, it is important for us to know some of the warning signs of suicide, some myths and actual facts, and what you can do to help others and yourself from committing suicide. Many people who commit suicide often send out a lot of warning signals that are usually left undetected until it is too late. That is why it is extremely important to know what some of these signals are when preventing a person from committing suicide. Many people who may commit suicide start off with the signs of depression, such as feeling lonely, and like no one understands them or even cares about them. A person may even feel like they are not worth anything. Another sign could be if the person start to eat a lot more than normal, and gains a lot of weight, or vice versa, where they stop eating and lose a noticeable amount of weight. Also, suicidal persons may have problems sleeping, and may sleep either too much, or not enough. One major sign that a person could be planning to attempt suicide is a sudden change in personality, a normally social person all of a sudden becomes anti-social, or a normally shy person becomes extremely social. This could also include them losing interest in things that they normally used to enjoy doing, or suddenly become extremely active. Also, even though a person that was recently seriously depressed may look happy, they may not be, but are instead happy because they have decided to kill himself. If someone has just gone through a major life change, where they suffered a lot, such as death of someone close to them, or a divorce, they are more likely to kill himself. Many teenagers, who are planning suicide often do life-risking things casually. They may even talk about suicide and death a lot. One of the reasons that we...

WATERGATE (US History) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

WATERGATE (US History) - Assignment Example tic affairs, possible murders to execute cover-up, substantial corruption in acquiring companies’ contributions to the Nixon campaign, U.S Constitution’s subversion, and Democratic process subversion. The scandal led to the resignation of President Nixon and it further changed the campaign finance reform. Watergate indeed was a real threat to our democratic institutions. It destroyed the integrity of the government and greatly eroded the trust of the public. The public trust is the bedrock of democracy and without it, the institutions collapse. Public distrust of a government is a significant sign of problem in the political system. Without the people’s belief in democracy, the government will lose its legitimacy which sometimes yields to dictatorial rule. Nixon administration’s dishonesty injured the republic and weakened its people in the rest of the world. The Watergate scandal was a very serious matter that should concern the people until the end. It should alert the people to be always vigilant to any complex wrongdoings of the government. The people should always fight for their rights and defend democracy. As what Aristotle said, â€Å"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the

Bureaucracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Bureaucracy - Essay Example The characteristics of the work in bureaucracies may be defined as being impersonal, rule based, goal oriented and promotion of officials only on the base of merit and performance. The concept of bureaucracy goes down to a rich history coming from the Chinese and the Industrial Revolution. Despite the various changes that exist in the power and government forms throughout, the one word that has not lost its power and is still holding the authority to exercise power is ‘bureaucracy’. Even before the term came up officially, many countries followed the concept as it literally means to ‘rule by office’. The Confucianism has a certain philosophical element in the authority of the bureaucracy, as it adds to the early facets of the Chinese culture and social structure (Jacoby 53). In a more modern sequence, there was much from the bureaucracies that we saw in the social culture. The local labour problems had started to be solved by the unions as individual locals. Since the locals themselves lacked confidence and strength to negotiate with the corporations held nationally, the locals were compelled to affiliate nationally and in effect formed a parallel bureaucratic structure. The structure sooner became an entity of its own right as the voice of individual locals was diminished and taken over by the national body. Today, the bureaucracy is perceived as most closely associated with the government, and even lobbyists against excessive government red tape. Social scientists also argue that private bureaucratic development had been developed before the government. Traditionally there were hierarchies of offices defining their different areas of responsibility which was considered as a criterion for a bureaucracy. Another key component for the bureaucracy was to regulate and service other’s property rather than one’s own. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of bureaucracy changed. The development took place and with a keen

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)

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.

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.