Bottlenecks That Face Riordan Manufacturing Essay Example for Free

Bottlenecks That Face Riordan Manufacturing Essay China plant operates as a decentralized unit of Riordan Manufacturing. Parts are purchased by buyers in the China Plant’s purchasing department from a local Chinese company. While this company attempts to maintain adequate quantities of electric motors in stock to meet all its order requirements, its on-time deliveries over the past year have averaged only 93%. Part of the China’s plant’s business is a make-to-stock operation in which the future demand for fans is forecasted based on taking the average of sales for the last three years and extrapolating it into the next year. Pontiac facility has to maintain sufficient stocks of a wide variety of raw materials in order to quickly respond to customer requests for new custom plastic parts. Riordan Manufacturing uses the Huffman Trucking Company to ship all of its products in the United States. Rates for shipping a full truckload of cargo to a single destination are lower than shipping partial loads. Higher rates for less-than full shipments. Improvement Ideas that may work for Riordan Manufacturing: The China plant is a decentralized unit of Riordan Manufacturing, which I would think would not be the best idea for Riordan. All facilities need to have communication with Riordan’s headquarters. China needs to have its own process for running Riordan’s China Location, but have to maintain contact, and obtain approval from Riordan Headquarters, before major projects are started. The China plant purchases parts from a one local manufacturer, and plastic from one local manufacturer. The China plant needs to find other plants that will also produce and ship parts to them, because the China plant cannot rely only on one organization for parts, and one organization for plastic products. What would happen if the organizations could not get Riordan China its parts? Riordan China would have to halt production, and then put manufacturing behind. The China plant forecasting method may need to be reviewed for accuracy, If the organization has a couple of bad years it may lead the plant to under forecast consumer demand. Need to look at economy and consumer history too. The Pontiac Facility needs to find alternatives to carrying large sums of stock. Need to work with vendors on Just-In-Time inventory. This will help to lower costs, and help free up inventory space. Maybe the Pontiac Facility can keep a minimal amount of  stock on items that are used more frequently in production. Riordan needs to look at other trucking companies that are willing to take partial shipments, so Riordan does not have to wait for full shipments. Riordan needs to look at small freight companies, or even large freight companies like FedEx and UPS who are inclined to taking partial freight loads, and can guarantee arrival dates.

How does Giddens solve the problem of agency versus structure? Essay ex

Giddens theorizes that structure and agency are a duality that cannot exist apart from one another. Human practices create both their consciousness and society. Because individuals make up society’s activities and structural conditions, they can choose to change it. Giddens calls this relationship between knowledge and practices the double hermeneutic. The daily routines and practices of individuals interacting with each other is what shape society. The actors have power over their actions, but the consequences are often unpredictable, allowing for change. Structure is defined by the rules and resources of society but without the human factor it cannot exist (Sociological Theory | Chapter 15 Chapter Summary, 2004). In contrast, he argues that â€Å"an actor ceases to be an agent if he or she loses the power to make a difference† (Ritzer, 2011, p 523). Giddens criticized structural theories that forced extreme limitations on the individual and placed them in a passive role in the creation of society. He suggested that actors could think about what they were doing and adjust their actions accordingly. He defined this ability as â€Å"reflexive monitoring† which is encompassed under the topic of the knowlegability of actors. Despite this reflective thinking on the part of the actors, sometimes things still go wrong. Gidden’s view takes into account a person’s tendency to misinterpret a situation (no one is perfect). In another scenario, a person’s actions might be miscalculated for a number of unconscious reasons. In either case, in his opinion, actors are less knowledgeable than interpretative sociologists would suggest (Gelderblom, 2011). Giddens argues that the interaction, between discursive and practical consciousness, is also how... ... systems allows for social changes while bridging the structure-agency dilemma (Miller, 2007). References Gelderblom, D. (2011). Sociological Theory Study Guide 2, Chapter 3: Anthony Giddens. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://myedison.tesc.edu/tescdocs/Web_Courses/SOC-417 OL/Study_Guide_8e/Study_Guide_2_417_8e.pdf Miller, S. (2007, January 4). Social Institutions (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-institutions/#AgeStr Ritzer, G. (2011). 10. Sociological theory (8th ed., p. 351-390). New York: McGraw- Hill. Sociological Theory | Chapter 15 Chapter Summary. (2004). Agency-Structure Integration. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://highered.mcgraw- hill.com/sites/0072817186/student_view0/chapter15/chapter_summary.html

Medical Billing and Coding Essay

Today the cause and effect of medical billing and coding is that they share a relationship because they each share something similar in a way. They are both understood when they are spoke about. But as you know billing and coding are and can be combined together as well. But what I would like my reader to know is my goals and achievements to become a medical billing and coding specialists as well the understanding of medical billing and coding and what is has to offer if you wanted to take up this major or was looking to get a job in this field of work. And because of the cause and effect of billing relationship medical billing and medical coding share is good for coding to have basic knowledge of the billing process and for a specialist to have a basic knowledge of the coding process. What is medical billing and coding? Medical billing and coding specialists is healthcare professional responsible for processing patient data between physician’s such as treatment records and related insurance information as well as third party payers. Without them, healthcare businesses could not function efficiently. Its also the process of submitting and followed up on claims to insurance companies in order to receive payment for the service. Medical billing and coding professionals hold pivot roles in hospitals; doctor’s offices; physician’s practices and specialty medical practices. Medical billing and coding is a robust career field that is open to anyone with a high school diploma or equivalent GED certificate. I believe my goals for becoming a medical coding and billing specialists I am going to continue working to achieve my A.A. Degree as well as continue into taking some medical courses such as medical terminology, Coding Courses like Part 2 intermediate coding exercises ICD-9-CM coding Instructions. Sequence the ICD-9-CM principal diagnosis in the first diagnosis position. Assigning all reportable secondary diagnosis including V codes and E codes (both cause of injury and place of occurrence) also some Software courses as well as  business classes. In order for me to achieve to become a medical billing and coding specialists I’m going to have to work hard and stay positive and not be a procrastinator. Achieving to become a medical billing and coding specialists to me will be somewhat challenging considering that having a full time job that requires a certain amount of hours a week, so that means you have to take courses around that schedule. That means I’m going to have to work harder to achieve my goals and achievements to become a medical billing and coding specialists. But you know what? I’m going to overcome every obstacle that comes in front of me to achieve my goals to become a medical billing and coding specialists. I’m going to accomplish every step and every achievement that needs to be done in order for me to become a medical billing and coding specialist. As a child growing up, I have seen aunts; uncles and cousins pursue a career in the medical field. So as I get older I wanted a career in the medical field too. My first step would be to talk with an adviser and see what my options would be in order to start course for medical billing and coding and my second step would be to start out with classes that I know need to be done first in order to get myself in the door in a place were I can start and career and finish out the rest of the courses in the meantime as needed for company policy and also make an effort to better my self for a good career and get on the right path . My final step would be to get a certificate so I can work in an office setting and help patients with a different varieties of payment options that better suits them and there needs and as I am done with all courses I can look back and say I am a very good achiever and be proud of myself for achieving my goals. In Conclusion through this essay I gave an idea on what medical billing and coding specialist are and what they do as well as some information about myself as I am also wanting to achieve and give my self goals to become a medical billing and coding specialists. I plan on becoming a medical billing and coding specialists here in the near future so I can tell my self I have a career and that I am on the right path. It is a very good career to overcome. Its always nice to help patients and make them feel good that they walked away knowing that the specialist who helped them find the right payment option for them that fits there needs. Helping anyone has always been one of my goals I love helping people and knowing that is always  a good thing to do. Knowing to have a good career always gives me hope and happiness. Through dedication, hard work and goals and achievements as well as accomplishment I will become a medical billing and coding specialist in no time.

Example Answer to Exam on Entrepreneurship - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2432 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Business Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Many academic studies have tried to offer an explanation to why people engage in entrepreneurial activities and what factors influence individuals to decide to become entrepreneurs. The answers range from individual characteristics like genetic reasons (Nocolaou et al., 2008), the possession of balanced skills (Lazear, 2005), psychological and personality traces (Zhao and Seibert, 2006) to environmental factors like institutional settings (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994), geographic inertia created from social embeddedness (Sorensen and Sorensen, 2003) and the industry structure (Glaeser et al, 2009). Acknowledging those differences Thornton (1999) suggests that the entrepreneurship literature can be classified into two distinct schools: one called supply-side perspective and the other demand-side perspective and even though both are concerned about the same phenomena they use different approaches. According to Thornton, while the first is focused on the individual charac teristics of entrepreneurs, the second is concerned with the influence of the contextual factors on the creation or restriction of entrepreneurial behaviors. A careful and impartial analysis of the arguments presented by the different theoretical trends leads to the conclusion that it is not possible to isolate a single concept able to cover all different individual and environmental dimensions described in the entrepreneurship literature. In doing so researchers have behaved like the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant, with some concepts treating entrepreneurs like ropes, others like threes and still others like snakes (Carland and Carland, 2004). Thus, in order to have a full picture, or at least a better one, of the entrepreneurship phenomena it is advisable the use of more than one analytical level (e.g., individual and environmental). For example, while the founding of a firm may be understood as an act heavily dependent on the individual entrepreneur, as would be suggested by a supply-side approach, it is also very clear that a single individual is very unlikely to successfully mobilize without the necessary infrastructure, as suggested by the demand-side perspective (Thornton, 1999). This way, even though the isolation of specific factors can offer an efficient alternative to advance the entrepreneurship literature, it is important to keep open the possibility for the use of integrative frameworks. Venkataraman (1997) points out that the main concerns observed in the entrepreneurship literature has been clustered on three points: (1) How and why opportunities for the creation of goods and services arise in an economy (entrepreneurial opportunities); (2) How and Why some individuals are able to discover and exploit these opportunities while others cannot or do not, and, (3) what are the economic and social outcomes of an entrepreneurial act (for both the society and the individual entrepreneur). Trying to follow an integrative approac h some authors (e.g., Venkataraman, 1997; Shane, 2000; Chiles et al., 2007) suggest that the Austrian Tradition offers a comprehensive view that fits well with the different dimensions that encompass the entrepreneurship phenomenon. Notably two of the strongest contributions emerging from that theoretical school are Schumpeter and Kirzner (Chiles et al., 2007). Following the ideas of those theorists organizational scholars developed two different, but deeply correlated perspectives. The first is based on the Schumpeterian tradition and sees entrepreneurs as innovative and creative individuals that disrupt the economic order through a process that Schumpeter describes as creative destruction. And the second, following Kirzner, considers entrepreneurs as individuals who discover opportunities emerging from incorrectness and disequilibrium conditions and exploit them by moving the market toward an equilibrium condition (even though the equilibrium is never reached). Surprisingly, it is possible to observe a supplementary nature between those two perspectives, since the Schumpeterian entrepreneur would be the cause of disruption in the economic system that consequently will generate market failures, while the Kirznerian entrepreneur makes corrections (by acting entrepreneurially and taking advantage of market failures) and drives the economy to converge toward equilibrium again, creating suitable conditions for a new disruption (Chiles et al., 2007). The paragraphs that follow will try to discuss how those approaches can be used to consider and analyze issues regarding entrepreneurship. Following many of the assumption found in the Austrian School, Shane (2000) starts his approach to explain how and why entrepreneurs exist by describing entrepreneurial opportunities as opportunities for bringing into existence goods, services, raw materials and organizing methods that allow outputs to be sold by a price superior to their production costs. Moreover, according to him, the existence of market failures and information asymmetry are some of the two main determinants for the existence of entrepreneurial opportunities in an economy. The presence of market failures implies that resources are being misallocated and not put into their best use (Casson, 1982) and therefore there are possibilities for reorganization or creation of new ways for their use (an entrepreneurial act) (Cantner et al., 2007). A simple example of market failure that could generate an entrepreneurial opportunity would be the case of some unattended demands caused by a misalignment between the demand and supply for a specific good; in this case entrepreneurs would be inclined to enter this market and expand the offer (of the good in question) by means of satisfying the consumers needs and use the opportunity to generate and appropriate profit. Regarding the influence that information asymmetry has on the creation of opportunities for entrepreneurs, it is possible to infer that if all individuals had the same level of information (about market conditions and characteristics) at the same point in time (perfect information) they would be more likely to recognize the same opportunities and consequently would end up competing on price (those that decided to take advantage of that opportunity), what would reduce the incentives that individuals have to become entrepreneurs. Supporting this perspective Kaish and Gilad (1991) argue that entrepreneurs are opportunistic learners that act combining the search for information (opportunities) with the opportunistic reactions to chance events. This way, according to this perspective the presence of information asymmetry and the existence of market failures are critical determinants for the existence of entrepreneurial opportunities and therefore the very existence of entrepreneurs. The arguments above are only concerned with contextual explanations (present in the environment) while individual reasons were not discus sed, which at the very best produces an incomplete approach. In order to have a more comprehensive perspective Shane (2000) also concentrated his arguments on the fact that individuals are not equally likely to discover the same entrepreneurial opportunities. He tried to explain why individuals become entrepreneurs by suggesting that the possession of idiosyncratic information allows people to see particular opportunities that others cannot see. Considering that individuals have different stocks of knowledge formed from professional experiences, academic background, socio-economic context and situations that people pass over their lives, each individual is expected to be more likely to find certain opportunities and unlikely to find others. An important moderator present in the relationship between the discovery of opportunities and the possession of idiosyncratic knowledge is the very nature of the knowledge accumulated by an individual, since a person is more likely to find an opp ortunity to become an entrepreneur in areas related to the ones he already possess knowledge about. For example, an individual with an academic degree and professional experience in engineering will be more likely to identify an opportunity (originated from a market failure) to offer a product or service in areas related with building and construction instead of entertainment. Supporting this perspective, Cohen and Levinthal (1990) claim that in order to enter a new market it is necessary to overcome knowledge-based barriers since to access those markets it is first necessary to recognize and interpret new external information. Consequently, prior knowledge represents an important selection mechanism for what individuals will be able to identify and take advantages of emerging opportunities. A whole picture of this perspective could be described as differences in idiosyncratic knowledge among individuals as the driver of the likelihood that one person will identify a market failure (entrepreneurial opportunity) that others are not able to; this condition will be enhanced by the existence of information asymmetry. A relevant point that emerges from the arguments above is the fact that characteristics like genetics or personality traces are not among the reasons to explain why some individuals become entrepreneurs while others do not. In fact it seems that this theoretical trend tends to refuse or neglect the arguments that individual characteristics, other than the possession of idiosyncratic knowledge, can explain the existence of entrepreneurial acts. On the other hand, following the Schumpeterian tradition, it is possible to observe a description of situations in which entrepreneurs do not necessarily start their activities based on a market failure. Those situations are likely to be observed when an entrepreneurial act is associated with the creation of a completely novel good, new method of production, new market, new source of supply andor a new form o f industry organization (Schumpeter, 1934, p. 66). While entrepreneurs that build their activities on a market failure are more likely to be found in ordinary and existing markets, this second type of entrepreneur is associated with completely new ideas, concepts and acts of creativity. The definition of entrepreneur proposed by Schumpeter can be easily linked to this second type of individuals described here. According to Schumpeter . . . the function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on (p. 132). Going deep in the description offered by Schumpeter it is possible to observe that despite the fact that the starting point for an entrepreneurial activity was not a market failure; the e xpected outcome of an entrepreneurial act is indissociable from the destruction of the established economic order, which acts moving the economy away from the steady state. Therefore, the theoretical evidences support that if entrepreneurs do not originate from market failures they are very likely to lead the economic system to a situation of disequilibrium. An interesting point regarding this theoretical trend is the sharply divergences from Kirzner, since the Schumpeterian entrepreneur is described as a heroic figure who will create and introduce revolutionary combinations into the market (Chiles et al., 2007), considered by Schumpeter as differentiated individuals when compared to the whole society. Additionally, considering the magnitude of the impact that an entrepreneurial outcome generate in the economy, according to this perspective entrepreneurs have necessarily to be individuals rarely found, or at least the outcomes originating from an entrepreneur cannot be ordinary happ enings, other way the economic system would be driven into situation of complete chaos (by the effect of a continuous process of creative destruction). An important issue that emerges from the analyses above is the fact that even though innovations have been extensively described as the key function of entrepreneurship, empirical evidences give contradictory results. While it is very tempting to describe entrepreneurs as very creative individuals able to revolutionize the economic system, Singer (1990) argues that entrepreneurial acts can be classified in a continuum that ranges from completely new and innovative to the replication of existing products, services and process. In fact, most of the innovations inserted into the market are heavily based (if not all innovations) on ideas and items already invented, and despite of the lack of originality those products and services can be considered the vast majority of what is brought into the market by entrepreneurs. Shane (2008) giv es a good picture of this fact by describing what he calls the the myth of entrepreneurship. Shane gives four important evidences: 1- Individuals who change jobs more often or who are unemployed are more likely to open their own business, configuring what Block and Sandner (2009) describe as necessity entrepreneurs, characteristic that does not match with the heroic individual; 2- Around 35 to 40 percent of all business started in US each year are concentrated on construction, retail and professional services, which historically are characterized by the low rate of creation of new products, services or organizational forms; 3- Individuals are more likely to start their own companies in poorer and agricultural places than in richer and more industrialized places, which interestingly suggest that entrepreneurs are more likely to emerge in environments with more scarce resources (This is not the case for some specific sectors like software or biotech, but in more traditional and ordina ry ones that seems to be); and finally 4- Considering the percentage of the working-age population it was possible to observe that, in 2002, around 30% of the Turkish individuals, 18% of Spaniards, 10% of Germanys, 8% of Danish and 7% of Americans were self-employed, and the results are even more interesting in pointing out that as much as 40% of the US population will be self-employed at some point of their life. Additionally, it is also possible to observe that each year in the US more people starting their own business than getting married or have children (Shane, 2008, p. 3). Those evidences indicate that entrepreneurs are not very rare individuals with special characteristics, but are very present in the day to day activities of the economy. Although the empirical evidences described above seem to give support to the arguments proposed by authors like Venkataraman (1997), Shane (2000), Chiles et al., (2007) and Cantner et al., al (2007) the attempt to explain why some indivi duals become entrepreneurs solely based on market failures, information asymmetry and prior knowledge presents some limitations. The most notably one is the lack of efforts to incorporate alternative explanations that are not necessarily competing ones, but complementary. For example, the argument that the individuals with prior and related knowledge are the most likely ones to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities is not necessarily contradicted by the existence of genetic predispositions, balanced skills or psychological traces. While the possession of prior knowledge gives an individual great part of the necessary conditions to take advantage or not of an opportunity, it is necessary to explain why some individuals decide to take advantage of it and why others decide not to do that. In the end the ultimate analytical question relies on the decision, since an individual can always choose not to become an entrepreneur even possessing all the necessary conditions. Moreover, the assu mption that a person will always exploit any entrepreneurial opportunity that he/she can identify is highly unrealistic. Additionally, a similar logic can also be applied to the environmental and contextual factors that influence the emergence of entrepreneurs, since the explanations presented here do not provide a more comprehensive description for what industry, institutional or regional settings and conditions can favor or hinge the emergence entrepreneurial opportunities. This way, trying to offer a more realistic framework, the analyses that follow will adopt part of the Austrian tradition assumptions as a baseline to build on and integrate it with complementary explanations. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Example Answer to Exam on Entrepreneurship" essay for you Create order