Essay Example for Free

Essay For every course of action that one takes in life, there is a cost associated. This cost may be large or small but one can weigh this cost with the alternative before he or she makes any decision. In the essay, â€Å"The Price of Crossing Borders† written by Eduardo Porter, the concept of understanding that there is a price for everything is conveyed. There is no decision that is made or path that is taken that comes without some sort of cost to us personally. An alternate title of Porter’s article, â€Å"The Cost of The Decisions We Make†, responds to his views on this idea. He tries to persuade his audience that â€Å"by evaluating opportunity costs, we organize our lives† (p. 325). In the essay, Porter used an illegal immigrant from Stockton, California as an example to help understand opportunity costs. The immigrant must make a choice on how he is going to get his children across the Mexico border into the United States. Porter stated, â€Å"The conversation laid in stark relief the type of bare-knuckle cost-benefit analyses that steer people’s lives† (p. 326). By this statement, Porter referred to the decision of how the immigrant will transport his children and the costs that it will entail. While the more expensive choice is safer, saving the money will take some time. The cheaper alternative, however, puts his children in danger and the possible risk of not making it safe or alive to the United States. Porter said, â€Å"The cost of taking any action or embracing any path consists of the alternatives that were available to us at the time† (p. 325). The illegal immigrant must weigh his opportunity cost of each path before making the im portant decision regarding his children’s lives. The debate on illegal immigration in the United States is well known and people have very strong views on it. While one extreme thinks the borders should be closed off all together and all immigrants sent back to their country, the opposing view feels we were all immigrants at one time and everyone deserves a chance at starting a new life in this country. Porter alluded that most people’s arguments against illegal immigrants in this country are fairly weak. He disagreed with those that argue illegal immigrants pose a burden due to the services they consume such as health care, food stamps, or lower the working wages for American workers. He stated, â€Å"most immigrants work on the books using false ID’s, and have taxes withheld from their paycheck like any other worker. They can’t draw benefits from most government programs† (p. 327). Basically without the proper legal documentation, illegal immigra nts cannot collect welfare, food stamps, unemployment, etc. He also said, â€Å"there is scant evidence that immigrants lower the wages of American workers† (p. 327). Since most illegal immigrants work jobs that many Americans deem undesirable, they are really primarily competing against other poor illegal immigrants. If anything, illegal immigrants actually help many companies thrive or even exist. Without these immigrants, California’s agricultural industry would be nonexistent and many of the goods it produces would be imported. Everything affects prices in the United States. Porter claimed that illegal immigrants affect prices but not in a negative manner. With a higher number of immigrants, some jobs such as gardening and housekeeping have actually seen a decrease in the average price of services. Though many politicians claim to be reforming immigration laws, Porter stated little will be done soon. Illegal immigrants provide cheap labor to many of this country’s thriving businesses. While the United States will probably not make it any easier for illegal immigrants to enter the country, they will also not completely do away with them either due to the enormous cost. In the end, all illegal immigrants must weigh the cost of their decision to enter this country against the cost of staying in their own. Is the cost of risking their life and their families’ life worth the chance at a minimum wage job and the chance for prosperity in the United States? Porter felt that based on the historical tre nd, many immigrants will continue to choose the more dangerous path for a chance at the American dream.

Traveling Experiences in Gulliver’s Travels vs. Oronooko :: Jonathan Swift Aphra Behn

Traveling Experiences While reading both stories of travel and misfortune for these characters several points came to my mind, wondering if other readers might have thought as well as me. Aphra Behn in Oronooko presents the reader with a story of disgrace, but at the same time full of love. She also lets the reader see a little farther because she gives a lot of description on the characters and the places trying to place the reader in the correct mood and spot as she wanted. Oronooko lives a life of pleasure, but after, a moment of change takes place, which will give his life a spin. On the other hand, Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travel presents the reader with a travel narrative in which the main character is experiencing constant emotional changes in which he knows not who he really is and if he wants to return home or not. Both Behn in Oronooko and Swift in Gulliver’s Travel present the main characters as lost in worlds which are unknown to them, looking for acceptance and trying to fin d who they really are. Oronooko is placed in a terrible situation in which he is deserted from his homeland by his grandfather, the King. This situation makes him feel lost because being his only family and betraying him that way had no possible excuse. He was also separated from his love Imoinda whom to which he declared eternal love. Oronooko is then again betrayed and sent as a slave to Surinam. In this occasion this makes him suffer more emotionally because he knows he is not a slave, but as soon as he gets there his name is changed so he does not feel so much a prince and starts feeling more a slave. His life by now seems like it has no sense until he sees Imoinda again and marries her. He might have thought that his life was about to change, but he did not know it would be for the worse. He would soon be father of a sibling and that child would be born a slave because both Oronooko and Imoinda were slaves at the time. He tries to look for other opportunities to leave that world behind and search for his homeland, but things do not happen as expected.

Barilla Spa Case Report

Executive Summary As per our conversation last week I would like to revisit the idea originally brought to life by Brando Vitali before he was promoted to head one of our company’s new divisions overseas. In order to address the issue which will be a direct result of introduction of JIT Distribution system, I would like to present the issues and my recommendations to you before our meeting with Marconi’s executives to discuss JITD proposal.As the meeting is scheduled for the of November I would like to hear your thoughts on JITD before the end of this month so I can make appropriate changes to address any issues you might foresee as a direct result of our proposal. The decision to adopt the Just-in-Time Distribution will most likely be met with our sales and marketing team’s resistance to change. Our old-fashioned distribution system has been nurtured since the early development of our channels of distribution.Promotions and advertising were key to our success of achieving a certain level of trust within our Supply Chain both internally and externally. I recommend a staged implementation of the JITD to allow our staff to adapt to our new philosophy. Our distribution networks could become more efficient rather than being all about relationships based on pushing the product out of our facilities. It appears that our Supply Chain executives are not looking for ways to reduce waste within our distribution channels as we are not even clear on how we measure our success.Applying Lean principles to our Supply Chain is misleading to our staff as they think their job security is on the line. This is met with internal resistance that needs to be addressed before we can communicate the advantages and benefits of JITD to our external distribution networks. I believe that Vitali’s approach will fit our new Supply Chain management strategy of Just-in-Time Distribution which will allow us to ship products as needed, rather than building enormous st ock to deal with volatile demand patterns.We need to break down the silos and secrecy of our distribution processes to our customers to allow for more efficient channels of distribution. A more transparent approach with fewer layers along the way will allow for a much more efficient Supply Chain. Working closely with our distributors will allow us to reduce our own inventory and manufacturing costs along the way. We also need to consider our own forecasting systems to built the trust within our channels of distribution.Scheduled monthly meeting will allow for an open dialogue between various groups that might be affected by this implementation. I believe that open lines of communication both internally and externally will contribute to the ultimate success of JITD implementation. We will have to address issues as they come up to ensure the peace of mind of those who will be affected the most. We need to be more flexible to address problems and bottle necks of our distributors as tha t would be crucial to success of JITD.The main idea we need to communicate across our Supply Chain is that JITD would allow us to eliminate waste and get rid of extra layers which our in the way of addressing our issue of volatile demand patters which result in stockouts. Giorgio Maggali, MBA, SCMP Director of Materials Management Barilla Fresh Products Group October 16, 2012 Barilla Spa Case Study Issue Identification As the decision maker in this case I believe that the main issue presented in this case study is resistance to change.To be more specific, DO’s (Organized Distributors) resistance to adopt a new Just-in-Time distribution (JITD) system which would replace the old-fashioned distribution system used by Barilla’s Supply Chain traditionally. This traditional distribution system has always been viewed as a successful one, as it worked for everyone within the channels of distribution supplying dry products to supermarket chains and independent supermarkets. The re was a certain level of trust achieved between the marketing group, sales reps and buyers who are a part of the Supply Chain built around trade promotions.DO’s expectations of frequent trade promotions were considered the only means to cost reduction during the â€Å"canvass† periods where distributors were able to buy as much product as desired to meet current and future needs. This is a well nurtured traditional system which took a lot of years to develop. Environmental and Root Cause Analysis Approximately 65% of Barilla’s dry products were supplied through outside distributors to supermarket chains and independent supermarkets who would eventually get the product into the hands of the ultimate user.Distributors would receive their product from one of the two Barilla’s central distribution centers (CDCs) where movement of product would be assessed based on its category which would be either â€Å"dry† or â€Å"fresh†. Barilla maintained different distribution systems for its dry and fresh products due to their differences in perishability and retail service requirements. Brando Vitali’s JITD proposal focused solely on dry products sold through Barilla’s distributors who I am going to examine. There is an industry culture around the supply and demand of Barilla products.Internal and external politics are at the root cause of the resistance to change around the distribution channels. There are issues that Barilla needs to address internally before the idea of JITD can come to life externally. Barilla’s sales and marketing personnel have expressed a range of concerns because this new philosophy could potentially cost some staff and executives their jobs from the bottom to the top of the sales organization as it is developed further. Sales executives are clinging to the idea of promotion based strategy which the old-fashioned distribution system is based around.This is not a good sign as efforts t o reduce costs should be made from all aspects of the Supply Chain Management. Executives should be concerned with efficiency of their supply chains from different tiers of suppliers all the way thru different tiers of their customers until the product reaches its ultimate user. Barilla executives are not looking for ways to reduce waste within their distribution channels as it’s not even clear how they measure success of their sales force. Barillas distribution network is only based around relationships, not necessarily around efficiency of their supply chain.They should be looking at ways to eliminate waste, even if it means â€Å"leaning out† their sales force and only keeping those who truly perform well. Staff will always resist change as it is uncertainty that scares everyone when new ideas are introduced within an organization, especially if it might put their job security on the line. Once the internal issues are addressed and the new philosophy starts taking p recedence they can effectively communicate JITD to their DO channels. Sales reps would be successful at communicating the ideas and benefits of JITD system to the buyers of the Organized Distributors.Those buyers would then facilitate the flow of this information from the bottom to the top of the organization before a meeting can take place with Marconi and other DOs. Alternatives and/or Options Giver the current situation, I believe there are only two options to consider here. First one is to remain status quo and run the risk of stockouts as the effect of fluctuating demand which due to variation in demand leads to cost increases. The other option would be to embrace the new philosophy of JITD internally and communicate it further down the supply chain to the DOs.Brando Vitali had it right all along with the idea he referred to as Just-in-Time Distribution (JITD) which was modelled after the renowned â€Å"Just-in-Time† manufacturing concept. His philosophy was to consider JITD as a selling tool rather that a threat to sales. Vitali’s view was that as a supply chain we should focus on demand from end user as that is the supply we trying to address at the time it’s required. In order to effectively address the issues of fluctuating demand we need to be able to respond to unexpectedly high demand from the end-consumer and the quickest way to do that would be to eliminate as many layers as possible.Additional inventories to dampen fluctuations costs money, costs of maintaining certain service levels should also be taken into consideration. Rather than filling distributors demand, according to their planning department, we should be looking at distributors data directly and only send what is needed rather than supply distributors with inventory they can hold to anticipate demand swings. By doing so, we would be able to improve operations for ourselves and our customers if we were responsible for determining the quantities and delivery schedu les.This will allow us to further reduce costs as transportation could be handled by our CDCs based on sales volume variations. Recommendation and Implementation I recommend the JITD system as it will address the stockouts issues we’re currently experiencing as the effect of fluctuating demand. Our distributors already carry too much inventory (see Exhibit 13) which doesn’t resolve the stockouts issues we’re seeing despite the fact that they are holding a couple of weeks inventory.We should be able to improve operations for our distributors if we were allowed to be responsible for determining quantities and delivery schedules based on end users demand. This would allow us to ship product as per demand required rather than trying to manufacture stock large enough to supply both of our facilities. Furthermore we would be able to reduce our own distribution, inventory and manufacturing costs and pass those savings onto our customers if we didn’t have to worr y about volatile demand patterns.Ultimately this will work the same way it does with Barilla sales representatives assisting with setting up in-store promotions analyzing competitive information including competitor’s prices, stockouts and new product additions. This would be effective because no one knows our product better than we do. If our sales reps are allowed at distribution facilities, they would be able to assist, gather and exchange a lot of valuable information about our needs and those of our DOs. The more we know about each other’s business the better off our Supply Chain will be.The fewer layers we have, the quicker we can get our product to our ultimate customers; reducing our own inventory and manufacturing costs along the way. We’ll have to improve our own forecasting systems of course as it is imperative to our business that our distributors have that extra confidence in our abilities. Monitor and Control This sort of an idea would require a lo t of back and forth communication both internally and externally. Cross functional teams would be required to address issues and concerns which might arise from this sort of implementation.The whole process should be done in stages to allow staff to adapt to the changes gradually. Keeping everyone informed would be key as the only way to reassure staff and address uncertainty would be to educate them on pros on cons of the system being brought to life. Regularly scheduled monthly meetings are an absolute must to address issues as they arise. New KPI’s should be clearly communicated to the sale reps. Our reps should be clear on all of the aspects of JITD implementation as they would play an important role of facilitating the flow of information down the Supply Chain.Once DOs are up to speed on JITD, a simulation should be considered with external distributors to demonstrate the benefits of the new distribution system once it is implemented. Inviting DO representatives to see o ur manufacturing facilities and addressing their concerns with solutions would go along way on establishing rapport and strengthening relationships. Probing and addressing bottle necks of our distributors with JITD would also be beneficial to everyone as our ability to eliminate wastes and get rid of extra layers would reduce costs across the Supply Chain.

North Carolina AT GPA, SAT Scores and ACT Scores