Fosdick Case Study Essay

1.How should Fosdick respond to the immediate situation? Fosdick should respond to the immediate situation by contacting Robert Easter letting him known the situation and asking how he would like to handle the situation. 2.What controls, of the types discussed in this chapter, might have been used by Red Spot Markets to reduce or eliminate the problems discussed in the case? Red Spot can have the products to continuously move through the process to reduce or eliminate the problems discussed in this case. If the packages are continuously moving through the process the package will not be sitting and the employees chances will be lessen for theft. 3.What longer-range steps should Fosdick take to control the operations of the Providence distribution center? Fosdick should try revamping the inventory control process by changing the process so the packages can continuously move in and out. He should also restructure the employee shifts and lunch schedules so there will be continuous operations throughout the day. 4.What longer-range steps should Fosdick take to improve the Providence distribution center’s productivity? Long Range Steps: †¢Implement a reward system that will provide the employees with a bonus (financial or time) to push more packages through the system †¢ Implement modern technology to gage and monitor employee performance by utilizing handheld devices †¢Replacing current employees 5.What longer-range steps can Fosdick take to reduce the distribution center’s high rate of shrinkage? Reduce shrinkage †¢Provide employees with a safe and secure way to report employee theft where they are able to remain anonymous. †¢Placing a severe penalty program in place for theft or even attempted theft †¢RFID tags †¢Placing items up high that must remain in the warehouse overnight and locking the forklifts making the merchandise not easily accessible for pilfering. †¢Placing seals on the merchandise and having each handler inspect the seal and document the status of the seal as it passes through each handler. 6.Assume that Fosdick decides that the practice of free lunches from the opened cases of goods must be stopped. Develop and present the arguments he should give in a meeting with the union shop steward. I have noticed the employees are opening some of the boxes and taking items to make their lunch. I do not believe this is in the best interest of the company and it is considered pilfering. I assume these employees have been doing this for quite some time since when I stumbled upon what they were doing, the remark I received was â€Å"this was a non-contract fringe benefit†. This should not be the case since this is a loss in inventory within the company. I believe there are other ways to compensate employees and this is not one of the ways. 7.(This is a continuation of Question 6.) Assume, instead, that you are the union shop steward. Develop and present your argument that the free lunches represent a long- standing employee benefit enjoyed by the distribution center’s employees and that management’s attempt to stop them is a breach of an unwritten contract and will be resisted. Mr. Fosdick, we understand your sincere concern for company productivity and success; however, we are unable to do anything about your request at this time. We allow our employees to free lunches on the company as it represents long term employee benefits and stopping them will be a breach of an unwritten contract and will be resisted. This is one of the small things we allow to occur as it leads to happy employees and good productivity. 8.Much of the situation described in the case seems to evolve around the personality of T. D. Bigelow. How should he be treated? Why? T.D Bigelow should be handled according to company policy. He should understand his role and operate in his role toward company success. This should be done as an example to the other employees since they are watching and will follow what they believe one person is allowed to do.

Animal Farm: The Meaning of Equality Essay

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, he examines the impact of communism and the post-war anxiety of World War II. Orwell uses allegories to thoroughly explain the pain and worry following the clash between countries. He uses farm animals and a farm to represent the major events and figures in the time of Stalinism and the Soviet Union. The animals want to â€Å"get rid of man† (Orwell 30), and man stands for capitalist society. Communism, or â€Å"Animalism† as the animals call it, starts out as a society of equals, but gradually mutates into a dictatorship. The leaders created a dystopian world where everything they had planned took a turn for the worse instead of the originally planned utopia. All of the animals (except for the pigs/leaders) ultimately lose all of the power they believed they had gained. Post-war anxiety plays a large role in the novel, Soviet Russia, and around the world. In the years following WWII, America was constantly in fear of Russia bombin g them and Russia was afraid that America was going to invade. In Animal Farm, the animals wake up every day with the anxiety of the humans coming back to retake the farm. The humans (both Mr. Jones and the owners of other farms), on the other hand, are afraid that their animals will follow suit and revolt against them. Russell Baker explains how Orwell experienced the war first hand and how he believed that the decent people of Western Europe were being tricked into thinking that Soviet reality was remarkable in his â€Å"Preface† of Animal Farm. Orwell called the book a fable, but it is also a â€Å"satire on human folly† (Russell vi) and has numerous lessons for human morality. Post-war anxiety was tremendous in both the ‘50s and the 60’s and George Orwell found this out when he went searching for a publisher. Stalinism and the Soviet Union were so popular that neither British nor English publishers wanted to hear any criticism of his ideas. It seemed like the West had readily put on blinders because of the defeat o f Hitler’s army. Everyone had a great deal of praise for the Soviet Union and its forces. Stalin and his political system significantly benefited from all of this. Orwell marched to the beat of his own drum and has an â€Å"insistence on being his own man† (Russell ix). The preface to Animal Farm helps the reader understand why Orwell developed such a candid critique of Stalinism. Although he was a socialist, Orwell believed that Stalin and his comrades perversely transformed the meaning of socialism and equality. Without reading the â€Å"Preface†, one would assume that this novel is simple and childish. George Orwell hid his disgust in the political terror and totalitarianism going on in Russia at the time behind the many farm animals in his novel. In addition to the â€Å"Preface† by Russell Baker, C.M. Woodhouse tells the reader that the novel was offered to the general population in the same month as the atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the â⠂¬Å"Introduction.† Woodhouse goes on to explain that this â€Å"fairy-story† (Woodhouse xix) has a moral, and teaches us lessons about life. It does not take place in our world, but in a world beyond. The fairy stories are set in a place without good and evil. Woodhouse believes that Orwell has brought back the words equality, democracy, and peace. All of these words have been deceitfully changed into â€Å"shibboleths of political warfare† (Woodhouse xxii). Woodhouse also explains that it is impossible for those that have read Animal Farm to not regularly think about the fact that some people are more equal than others. He goes on to say that George Orwell’s novel may not alter the course of history in a short amount of time. It could take decades more for his novel to contribute to the world. What we do know is that Orwell successfully predicted the future of Stalin, the Soviet Union, and his ideas. George Orwell’s legacy as a prophet will undoubtedly carry on for the rest of time. Post-war tension plays a large role in Animal Farm, and represents the tension that was present around the world in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The leaders of the farm instilled fear in the animals, as did the leaders of Soviet Russia to their citizens. In the novel, the animals constantly have the fear that the neighboring farms are going to attack them and vice versa. Their apprehension forces them to go along with Napoleon’s ideas because the ideas give them a false sense of security. Napoleon also develops an anxiety that involves his fear of counter-revolutionaries, or people that want to overthrow him and the farm’s new ideals. Both Napoleon and Stalin executed everyone who didn’t have the same â€Å"morals† as them. They both purged their countries of people that they considered as enemies. These mass executions set a miserable, melancholic tone amongst all of the citizens of both Animal Farm and Russia. Both revolutions morphed and the â€Å"children† of the revolution became everything they hated. The tension and anxiety came from fear of attack, mass murders designed by the leaders, and a society where everyone was supposed to be equal but some were â€Å"more equal than others† (Orwell 133). The three pigs in the novel, Squealer, Snowball, and Napoleon, all represent tyrants from Soviet Russia. They each attempt and succeed at instilling fear in the other animals on the farm. Snowball is intellectual, passionate, and also considerably less devious than Napoleon. Although Snowball gains loyalty, trust, and respect from the other animals, he still creates a hidden sense of fear within the nation. His ideas and speeches are confusing to the animals, but they accept them without knowing what they mean exactly. On the other hand, the other pig creates fear directly. The other pig is Napoleon, and he uses his trained watchdogs, which are his military force, to consolidate power and frighten the other animals. Napoleon is a despot in every sense of the word. He even chases off his counterpart, Snowball, using his military. When Snowball and Napoleon disagree about building a windmill, Napoleon sets his dogs loose and has them â€Å"[dash] straight for Snowball† (Orwell 67). Snowball encounters a close brush with death, until he escapes. This situation greatly troubles the other animals, and Napoleon is basically letting them know not to cross him or else they will be sentenced to death. Squealer, although not as significant as the two leaders, is the epitome of those in power who use speech and language to twist facts and gain control of society and the government. Squealer spreads Napoleon’s propaganda and justifies everything Napoleon says by using false truths. Squealer became so persuasive that many of the animals â€Å"accepted his explanation† (Orwell 72) about why Napoleon was now for the windmill without asking any questions. Overall, Snowball, Squealer, and Napoleon are allegories for different leaders in Soviet Russia. They use techniques such as propaganda, military force, and persuasion to instill fear in the animals on the farm. There are parallels between Orwell’s Animal Farm and the ugly truth behind Soviet Russia. Stalin, a cruel and overbearing leader, used all three of these techniques to achieve his overall goal of controlling the country. There are extreme parallels between Animal Farm and the reality of Soviet Russia. In both Soviet Russia and on the farm, tension was great and the leaders instilled fear in their citizens. The article â€Å"Stalin’s Revolution† on flowofhistory.com explains these parallels in depth. Stalin, like Napoleon, launched a â€Å"campaign to build up† (flowofhistory.com) his communist union. Stalin gained the support of the country by saying that everything would get much better if he was the leader. This was also Napoleon’s tactic. Joseph Stalin was an extremely paranoid man, as was Napoleon, and thought that everyone was conspiring against him. Napoleon used a mass execution to â€Å"purge† the farm of the animals that he saw as traitors. Stalin also did this. In 1936 he persecuted and executed an extreme amount of the citizens that he considered threats to his administration. In both cases the inhabitants of the areas were put on trial, but the trials were nothing but a sham. They were forced to confess their alleged crimes, and then were sentenced to death. Although communism was supposed to create a society of equals, it instead made even more social divisions. Both Russia and the farm experienced the fact that some people are just more equal than others. All of these facts led to â€Å"rising political tensions† (flowofhistory.com) around the world. Although the tyrants of Russia, or in this case the animals of the farm, had not tried to devise a schemi ng plan to take down the citizens of their country, this is what they ultimately accomplished. Stalin and his followers seized the power away from the working class. Just as Stalin tried to turn Russia against capitalism, the leaders of the farm try to turn the animals against humans by telling them that the â€Å"only good human is a dead one† (Orwell 59). Although at first they stood for pure equality, they soon seemed to stand for the notion that some people are more equal than others. Orwell explains how detrimental Stalin and his cause were to Russia by using animals as an allegory and explaining the idea of communism in more simplistic terms. The leaders of Animal Farm fill the â€Å"worker† animals with fear just as Stalin and his comrades instilled fear into the working class of Russia. The animals were inspired by this idea of everyone being equal and this ultimately encouraged them to go along with the dictators’ ideas. At first, all of the animals supported the idea with their own free will but eventually only support it out of pure terror. Anxiety of the characters in Animal Farm closely matches up with the concern of everyone in the world post-WWII. Works Cited Baker, Russell. â€Å"Preface.† Animal Farm. By George Orwell. New York: Signet Classic, v-xii. Print. Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Signet Classic, 1996. Print. â€Å"The Flow of History.† FC130B: The Communist Dictatorships of Lenin & Stalin (1920-39). Web. 04 Dec. 2012. . Woodhouse, C.M.. â€Å"Introduction† Animal Farm. By George Orwell. New York: Signet Classic,1996. xiii-xxiii. Print.

Strategic plan for LEGO Group Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Strategic plan for LEGO Group Company - Essay Example The company was started in the founder’s workshop where Ole Kirk Christiansen created toys made of wood in 1932, but the first famous plastic brick was developed in 1949. The name of the company was developed by Christiansen from a Danish term meaning â€Å"play well†, however, the company states that LEGO means â€Å"putting together† or â€Å"assembling† in Latin, but this translation is liberal. In 1947, the company obtained samples of interconnecting bricks manufactured by Kiddicraft through the manufacturer of injection molding equipment based in London that had an interest in the development of equipment sales in Denmark. Initially, Christiansen was skeptical but Kiddicraft convinced him to make the plastic bricks instead of the wooden toys he had been making. In 1949, the LEGO Group started making bricks that were similar to the manufactured by Kiddicraft while referring to them as â€Å"Automatic Binding Bricks†, using cellulose acetate whil e being developed in the same spirit of the wooden blocks which could be stacked on each other.Nonetheless, the plastic bricks have the ability to be interlocked with each other as they contain a number of round studs on the upper side and a hollow bottom that is rectangular. These blocks were able to stick to each other but not too tightly to make it difficult to be pulled apart. Using plastics to develop toys was not highly favored by retailers as well as consumers at the time when LEGO Group began manufacturing its toys.

Women Soldiers in Military Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Women Soldiers in Military - Research Paper Example The purpose of this paper is to assess the difficulties through which the first women groups had to go through in order to become a significant part of the US military. Also, the paper will discuss the peculiarity of the struggle which ultimately led women to the point where they were given their rightful position in taking part within military practices as well as other forces including navy and air force. It should be noted that the first women group were marked at the military front during the late 1700s where listing of women were done with consent of military bill. However, initially, the role of women in the US Army during American Revolutionary War remained restricted to traditional roles of being nurses, cooks, and tailors (Amico and Weinstein 231). They were never put into combat as males dominated battlefields and war related planning. A common view which was being spread among men for the women who opted for the opportunity of serving the country was that women can never o vercome the obstacles as compared to men because of their physical potential. In reply of such an assertion, it has been marked that Deborah Sampson has shown her dedication by proving strength in the battle field. She was shot two times at the battle field. Since she had to disguise as a man, she took out the bullet with a knife herself (Stiehm 46). Nevertheless, there were few women who took the courage of battling the combat with their husbands. As discussed above, even some of them used disguises as men to fight in combat. Perhaps, the first lady who was named as Margaret Corbin participated in the confrontation at Fort Washington alongside with her husband to handle ammunition for a canon and later when her husband was critically injured she took control of the canon. She was recognized for her efforts and the Congress set her pension in the year 1779 (United States Army para 1). The fact remains that the contribution of women in the military field was questioned over the years for which they had to undergo a ban certain times. In 1994, the US Army banned women from a list of 26 jobs that were considered to be related to combats and also, 49 specialties where women were active participators were closed (Olsen 362). This led to almost 200,000 female military personnel to work in garrison and their position in the Army was subdued. In January, 2013, the US government lifted life ban on female soldiers to take part in combat making 1994 ban inapplicable (Holmstedt 19). This change in the defense policy under Obama’s Regime became possible after pressure was mounted by the American Civil Liberties Union to allow individuals regardless of their gender to serve in wars (Harris para 9). This could be seen as a step in light of reality as women have been actively participating in war zones and in recognition of their efforts and sacrifices this step would surely give them equal chance to fight alongside men in frontline combats (Harris). Over the years, th ere have been several sexual harassment cases against female military staff while serving in Army and these cases have become highly profiled. Argument against lifting ban state that cases where female marines falsely accuse male marines or on the basis of their personal issues could become more common (Schultz para 8). The contribution of women in the military fields and combating have been questioned and debated over the years that it became imperative for the human rights to appeal for the action. In current times, it is being noted that women marine troops have increased by large. Also, submarines are

The Roles of Product Life Cycle Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Roles of Product Life Cycle - Case Study Example The main objective of product policy is to evaluate the risks and hazards that a product can cause during its life cycle by incorporating all the phases of product development, the possible players, trade policy and procurement, economic instruments, materials regulations, inter-trade agreements, environmental and labeling laws, and product design (Charter & Tischner, 2001). For this reason, product policy encompasses corporate policy and planning, development, portfolio management, life cycle assessment, brand management and marketing strategy. The other key concerns are reflecting good science, protecting confidential business information, avoiding technical barriers to trade and ensuring that a product has timely access to appropriate markets around the world (Gorchels, 2007). In effect, product policy refers to all aspects of development and management of a firm’s product, including branding and packaging. It also looks at key issues related to the 4Ps of marketing  œ product, price, place and promotion – to determine if the product will have good exchange value, at what price will it appeal to consumers, which particular market should it be addressed, and what marketing strategies should be employed to actualise the desired sales transaction.The initial step in observing an effective product policy is to define the core product, such that in the case of a car manufacturer like BMW, the firm decides if it will be a luxury top-of-the-line vehicle or a moderately priced sedan. Then the firm assesses the benefits that customers will derive from the core product. Next, the product is built around the core, which involves the design, packaging and the features calculated to provide the desired benefits and quality. Good practice of product management dictates that a new product stays longer at the

What arguments can be given for and against the desirability of the Essay

What arguments can be given for and against the desirability of the existence of interest groups or (as Madison called them) factions in a democracy Which position do you think is correct - Essay Example The desirability of the existence of interest groups is quite high in the United States of America, because due to their existence, the civilians or the public are able to communicate their issues and concerns to those who are in various positions in the government. There are various interest groups in the US, and the civilians can find one according to their concerns at any point in time. One of the main purposes of any interest group is to influence policy-makers and the way American public system is shaped; interest groups have enough say in the policy-making process. Interest groups have been really effective mainly due to the power imbalance of the parties that are in the government; this imbalance has been created due to difference in power structure of the two branches of the US government. The desirability of interest groups has increased because of several reasons. The same government decisions may be hurtful for one group or community and fruitful for others; thus, those hurt by government policies use interest groups to lobby to make these policies more favourable for them. Sometimes, when a political party representing one side of population is elected, it may be prone to work for the interest of that particular side, so other sides feel neglected; therefore, such people create interest groups to make sure that their interests are not harmed. As an individual, one might not have the power, resources and voice to influence public policies; therefore, interest groups are seen as a means to achieve power and resources for certain individuals who want to safeguard their interests. Several interest groups are in existence in the US, and they are there for different purposes. Another important function of interest groups is to ensure that the members of the government do not devise policies for their own interests and attach equal importance to different individuals within the US; this ability of interest groups is regarded as oversight power. For

NutritionTracking patients with nutritional risks, how does your Essay

NutritionTracking patients with nutritional risks, how does your facility do it - Essay Example In addition, lab work is conducted by examining their protein level, albumin and pre albumin levels. Their LDL and HDL is checked along with vitamin B12 and folic acid levels are checked. Caloric intake is examined by ensuring that patients are taking actual food. Fluid intake is also examined. One of the main aspects that hospitals focus their attention is on pregnant mothers. In order to understand and formulate risks associated with pregnancy, nurses have come up with criteria. If the mother demonstrates multiple gestation, that’s a bad sign. Additionally, gestational diabetes can be detrimental and must be recorded right away. Any dramatic change of 10 to 50 pound weight gain is not healthy. Furthermore, patient’s history of weight loss surgery should be obtained. Nurses and dieticians are majority in charge of handling patient’s nutritional status. Most patients that are sick tend to lose weight and must be supplemented with proper amount of food and nutrients. Conducive research indicates that as many as 65% of elderly patients are malnourished when they enter the hospital while in the hospital. Without having the proper nutritional assessment, it is highly illogical and difficult to monitor their status. Nutrition is integrated into the nursing plan through various ways. If the patient does not need a nutritional consult then the next step is to enroll them in a diet program. Their diet is ordered and is document regarding how much consumption is taken. If a nutritional consult is ordered the dietician makes sure the patient is getting enough nutrients and calories to support a healthy life function. Anthropometric refers to overall growth of human body. These measurements commonly are used to measure development in growth for infants. Growth is obtained and evaluated through length, weight and head circumference. A growth chart lists all the standards of benchmark through previous average