Responses from DQ1 andDQ@ CC and AAw2d2 1 and 2 Assignment

Responses from DQ1 andDQ@ CC and AAw2d2 1 and 2 - Assignment Example It does also not protect junior employees from manipulation by their seniors. The act is therefore more concerned with accurate financial reporting of corporations to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A spot check on the act shows that it only affects external auditors, boards of directors, corporate roles, and the PCAOB in a move to heighten investor confidence in the organizations (Halbert, 2010). It is exceptionally true that corporate employees fear losing their jobs if they decided to talk about illegal activities in their organizations. However, employees have of late been enlightened of their rights incase of unjustified work termination. According to Cox (2009), the Sarbanes-Oxley act (2002) is exceptionally clear on the responsibilities of senior executives regarding their roles in their respective organizations. Of importance to the executive is giving truthful financial information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and this is his or her duty to loyalty towards the organization, and to some extent, duty to care (Harris, 2003). The Sarbanes-Oxley act also protects the corporations from executive malpractices; therefore, external auditors and PCAOB are mandated to check any irregularities that may arise from senior corporate executives. It is therefore very much agreeable that the Sarbanes-Oxley act has helped streamline corporations that are prone to

GIS analysis of access to greenspace Literature review

GIS analysis of access to greenspace - Literature review Example Cultural and historic resources also form part of green space in some cultures. Green space plays a vital role in the nation’s landscape encompassing among others, development patterns, economy, culture and the well-being of the populace (Van Herzele 2003, p. 111). In addition, green space is crucial as it absorbs and expels pollutants from the environment, by acting as an urban heat sink thereby protecting urban biodiversity. As agricultural pressures on land increase through greater demands for land, green spaces are slowly becoming depleted (Forman 2005, p. 38). However, as development becomes a key priority, more land that was previously set aside for agricultural purposes is being developed into residential or institution areas (Van 2007, p. 18). This has led to scarcity of green space, and access to the available few is hampered by the prospect of development. Access to green space is of paramount importance because of the unique contribution of green spaces to the quali ty of life. For instance, green spaces allow for relaxation, way from the daily stresses of urban life such as hectic work schedules and traffic. Moreover, green spaces offer immense recreational opportunities like individual exercise and organised sports. Spending time in urban green spaces offers reprieve to urban dwellers. However, because of increasing urbanisation and access to green space and spatial planning policies with regard to densification, more urban dwellers face the prospect of living in areas with few or no green space resources. Governments and individual municipalities set up clear guidelines for access to green space (Smith, Poulos and Kim 2002, p. 123). The Green Belt is a policy for managing urban growth in the UK. The policy guidelines provide concise guidelines on urban planning, which entail allocation of specific areas to urban green spaces. The Town and County Planning Act established in 1947 allows local authorities in UK mucipalities to include guideline s of the green belt in their development plans. The two acts are appreciative of the need to protect land areas designated as urban green spaces. GIS provides an environment for analysing accessibility to green space and for modelling the impacts of potential changes to green space provision and their subsequent impacts (Liu and Zhu 2004, p. 119). GIS analysis can be used to assess the accessibility of urban green spaces by selecting and quantifying factors that affect green space and constructing functions to determine the accessibility indicator (Ai) (Comber 2009, p. 109). A SPOT imagery of an urban environment provides sufficient data used to determine green space accessibility dwellers. The earlier mentioned state and county guidelines allow for division of land portions into regular grids of at least 500 meters to determine the capacity and chance of area inhabitants accessing green spaces within the area. For each green space viewed in the SPOT imagery, the resistance factors for each grid of land accessing the green space are calculated. Resistance factors refer to aspects that affect or limit access to green space. These factors include attraction to green space, population distribution, traffic patterns and pattern of land use in the area (Ritsema and De 2003, p. 84). The entire urban green space

Our Duties to the Environment Essay Example for Free

Our Duties to the Environment Essay Technology, unfortunately, has two-faces; while it can aid the human race in easing tasks, curing countless diseases, and even lengthening life spans, it can also destroy the earth and its inhabitants. There is much good to be said about the development of the human race when it comes to technology, but it cannot be denied that insofar as Mother Earth is concerned, there were countless of damages inflicted through the process of development. There is a need to evaluate the costs and problems that will be met whenever new developments arise, as well as find means to finally minimize these problems. In order to come up with the information on how such problems may be minimized, there needs to be an analysis of the literature regarding such issues (Pojman and Vaughn 895). Despite the fact that various literature has been written about the problem, the human race cannot escape the fact that they might have not done enough to address such issues. Our Duties to the Environment shows that in order for such problems to be solved, there is a need for humans to acknowledge the fact that technology and development can cause as much harm as good to everyone. Work Cited Pojman, Louis, and Lewis Vaughn. â€Å"Our Duties to the Environment. † The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature. , Louis Pojman and Lewis Vaughn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 893-895. Print.

Digital Signal formatting

Digital Signal formatting Introduction: Digital Signal formatting is the process of transforming information from one format into another.. This is often used in many digital devices and for communication processes. A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete (discontinuous) values. By contrast, non-digital (or analog) systems use a continuous range of values to represent information. Although digital representations are discrete, the information represented can be either discrete, such as numbers, letters or icons, or continuous, such as sounds, images, and other measurements of continuous systems. Now we discuss about in the detail signal format in digital systems. Non-return-to-zero format: One of the simplest ways to transmit digital data is by having a separate clock and data line. In this approach, a clock signal of constant frequency is synchronised with its corresponding data. Depending upon the preference of the designer, the data is either latched on the rising or falling edge of the clock. For a given data signalling rate that is the bit rate, the NRZ code have requires only one half of the band-width required by the ing. When we used to show data in an asynchronous communication scheme, the absence of a neutral state requires other methods for data backup to replace method used for error detection when using synchronization data when a separate clk signal is available here. NRZ Level itself is not a synchronous system but besides encoding that can be used in either a synchronous or asynchronous transmission environment that is with or with out an external clock signal involved in it. Because of that it is not strictly important to discuss how the NRZ-Level encoding act as on a clock edge and during a clock cycle since all transitions happen in the given amount of time represents the actual implied integral clock cycle. The real question is that of sampling the high/low state be received correctly provided the transmission line has stabilizes for that bit when the physical line level is sampled at the receiving end. However may be it is handy to see NRZ transitions as happening on the trailing clock edge in order to compare NRZ-Level to other encode methods such the given Manchester coding which require clock edge information and to see the difference between the NRZ Mark and NRZ Inverted signals. Uni-polar Non-Return-to-Zero Level: One is represents by the one physical level Zero is represented by an other levels which is a + voltage level. In the clock language the 1 transitions and remain highest on the trailing clock edge of the previous bit and 0 transitions or remains low on the trailing clock edge of the previous bit, or may be just the opposite. This allows for long series without change, which makes synchronization difficult. There is only the solutions are to not send the bytes or data without uses of transitions. The fig show a line represents the physical zero under the biased logical zero shows the less usually case of 1 being a higher voltage level. Non Return-to-Zero Space: One is represents by no change in physical level.0 is represents by the change in physical stage. In clock language the level transitions on the trailing clock peak point of previous bit to represent 0. That change on zero is used by High Level Data Link and USB. They avoid long intervals of time of no transition whether there may be, when the data contains long sequence of 1 bit by using zero bit insertion. HDLC transmitters insert a zero bit after five contiguous one bits except when transmitting the frame. USB transmitters insert a zero bit after six continuously 1 bits. The receiver at the far end use the each transition both from zero bits in the data and these extra 0 bits for maintain clock synchronize. The receiver rather than ignore these non zero bits. Non-Return-to-Zero Inverted (NRZI) NRZI-transition occurs for a zero Non return to zero, inverted is technique of detect a binary to a analog signal for transmission over some transmitter medium. There are 2 level NRZI signal has a transition at a clock boundary if there is the bit being sent is a logical one and doesnt having a transition if the bit being transmit is a logical zero. 1 is represented by a transition of the physical level. 0 has no transition. Also the NRZI may be take the opposite convention in Universal Serial Bus signalling, when in the Mode one transition when signalling zero and steady level when signalling one. The transition occurs upon the leading edge of the clock for the given bit. This distinguishes NRZI from NRZ mark. Even thoughr, even NRZI can have long series of zeros (ones if transitioning on o), so clock recovery can be difficult unless some form of run length limited coding is used on top. Magnetic disk and tape generally uses fixed rate RLL codes while USB uses bit stuffing, which is more efficient, but results in a variable data rate it takes lower levelto send a long string of 1 bits over USB than it does to send a long string of 0 bits. Return-to-zero The binary signal is encoded using rectangular pulse amplitude modulation with polar return-to-zero code Return-to-zero (RZ) describes a line code used in telecommunications signals in which the signal drops (returns) to zero between each pulse. Returns to zero modulation formats are becoming increasingly popular for long-haul optical fiber transmission systems at bit rates of 10 Gb/s and above. Previously, the benefits of RZ formats were often overlooked, because they require larger bandwidth than non-return-to-zero (NRZ) formats, and their generation typically requires two cascaded Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulators. In recent years, it has been shown that RZ can have superior performance over NRZ in certain regimes where chromatic dispersion and fiber nonlinearities are present [2]-[4], as the RZ pulse may exhibit soliton-like properties. In addition, RZ has greater tolerance to polarization-mode dispersion than NRZ Recent research has compared the performance of RZ with different modulation techniques, including binary ON-OFF keying (OOK) and binary differential phase-shift keying (2-DPSK ) RZ pulses are frequently generated by driving an MZ modulator by a sinusoidal drive waveform; we assume throughout this paper that RZ pulses are generated in this manner. We define the pulse duty cycle as TFWHM/TS, where TFWHM is the pulsewidth (full-width at half-maximum intensity), and TS is the symbol duration. Depending on the drive waveform amplitude and bias, RZ pulses can have duty cycles of 33%, 50%, and 67%. In particular, 67% RZ is often referred to as carrier-suppressed RZ (CSRZ). Biphase mark code: The biphase mark code is a type of encoding format for binary data streams. When a binary data stream is sent without modification via a channel, there can be long series of logical ones or zeros without any transitions which makes clock recovery and synchronization difficult. Streams encoded in NRZ are affected by the same problem. Using biphase mark code makes synchronization easier by ensuring that there is at least one transition on the channel between every data bit; in this way it behaves much like the Manchester code scheme. Every bit of the original data is represented as two logical states which, together, form a bit. Every logical 1 in the input is represented as two different bits (10 or 01) in the output. The input logical 0 is represented as two equal bits (00 or 11) in the output. Every logical level at the start of a cell is inversion of the level at the end of the previous cell. In BMC output the logical 1 and 0 are represented with the same voltage amplitude but opposite polarities, as shown in the following image: These coding provides a better results there is a change in the polarity at the minimum every two bits. That is not need to know the polarity of the sent signal since the information is not kept in the actual values of the voltage but in their change: in other words it does not matter whether a logical 1 or 0 is received.At last BMC code signal has 0 average DC voltage, therefore decreasing the necessary sending power and also reduces the electromagnetic disturbance generated by the transmission line. All these + aspects are achieved at the expense of doubling clock frequency. Manchester encoding: Manchester encoding offers distinct advantages over other digital encoding schemes. It has become a popular standard for low-cost radio frequency communication of digital data. In reality, Manchester encoding was the result of research done at the University of Manchester into phase modulation techniques used for reading and writing digital data onto a magnetic storage device. Since that time, Manchester encoding has gained wide acceptance as the modulation scheme for low-cost radio-frequency transmission of digital data. One of the most significant characteristics of Manchester encoding is its unique way of representing digital data. Rather than representing data Construction of Manchester-encoded data: Manchester encoding is very easy to construct. You simply combine the serial bits to be encoded with the clock running at the bit-boundary rate When you compare the Manchester-encoded output with the bit stream, youll see the same waveform. Decoding Manchester-encoded Data Decoding Manchester-encoded data is as easy as encoding it. You simply perform an exclusive-OR of the Manchester encoded signal with a logical 1 at the bit-boundary sample points, as shown in Fig. Differential Manchester encoding: A more esoteric version of Manchester encoding is a scheme called Differential Manchester encoding (DME). Think of it as Manchester encoding on steroids. DME is a more efficient encoding scheme because it requires less bandwidth than standard Manchester encoding. The overhead of transmitting a data stream using DME is less because it doesnt require a preamble, which is used by the DPLL to lock onto the clock frequency. Because of this, DME can be found in networks, such as fast Ethernet over copper twisted-pair wiring. DME differs from standard Manchester encoding in one simple way: Manchester encoding represents binary data based on a positive or negative edge transition at each bit boundary. DME represents data by the presence or absence of a transition between two bit boundaries. Simply stated, if a transition occurs between a bit boundary, its represented as a binary 0. An absence of a transition signifies a binary 1. As a complement to this reintroduction to the basics of Manche ster encoding for lowbit serial network applications, a second article is available online at Embedded.com. The article will leverage from the theory presented here and offer a practical, real-world example that illustrates the simplicity of implementing Manchester encoding into a real embedded design. AMI (Alternate Mark Inversion) encode format : AMI (Alternate Mark Inversion) is a synchronous clock encoding technique which uses bipolar pulses to represent logical 1 values. It is therefore a three level system. A logical 0 is represented by no symbol, and a logical 1 by pulses of alternating polarity. The alternating coding prevents the build-up of a d.c. voltage level down the cable. This is considered an advantage since the cable may be used to carry a small d.c. current to power intermediate equipment such as line repeaters. AMI coding was used extensively in first generation PCM networks, but suffers the drawback that a long run of 0s produces no transitions in the data stream (and therefore does not contain sufficient transitions to guarantee lock of a DPLL). Successful transmission therefore relies on the user not wishing to send long runs of 0s and this type of encoding is not therefore transparent to the sequence of bits being sent. The HDB3 encoding scheme is one of many which have been developed to provide regular transitions irrespective of the pattern of data being carried. Example of AMI encoding The pattern of bits 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 encodes to + 0 0 0 0 + (the corresponding encoding using HDB3 is + 0 0 0 + + ). High Density Bipolar Order 3 Encoding: The HDB3 code is a bipolar signaling technique (i.e. relies on the transmission of both positive and negative pulses). It is based on Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI), but extends this by inserting violation codes whenever there is a run of 4 or more 0s. This and similar (more complex) codes have replaced AMI in modern distribution networks. Conclusion: The Digital signal formats are the techniques by which we uses the digital data in different formats for uses of different purposes. It is mostly used as wide applications in communication fields. Although digital representations are discrete, the information represented can be either discrete, such as numbers, letters or icons, or continuous, such as sounds, images, and other measurements of continuous systems by using these different encoding or digital formats techniques. Refrences: website links: http://www.docstoc.com/doccash/signup/?doc_id=2507650 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/encoding_format_(digital) http://pdfdatabase.com/index.php?q=signal+formats+in+digitalfiletype=2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-return-to-zero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_encoding http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse473-05/ftp/i_5cod/sld006.htm http://www.tpub.com/neets/tm/112-2.htm http://www.osun.org/alternate+mark+inversion+encoding-doc.html Books: Computer Networks and data communication by Frauzan. Computer networks by J.s katre (tech-max publisher) Signals and system by Sanjay Sharma.

Student Protest movement Essay -- essays research papers

A Battle of Rights The Student Protest Movement of the 1960's was initiated by the newly empowered minds of Americas youth. The students who initiated the movement had just returned from the â€Å"Freedom Summer† as supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, registering Black voters, and they turned the principles and methods they had learned on the Freedom Rides to their own issues on campus. These students (mostly white, middle class) believed they were being held down by overbearing University rules. Student life was governed by the policy of in loco parentis, which allowed colleges to act "in place of the parents." Off campus,these young people were considered adults, but at school they were subjected to curfews, dorm visitation restrictions, close supervision, and rules against having a car or even renting an apartment. Not only were these students being treated as children in this respect, but there were also heavy restrictions put on what they could and could not discuss. Any issues, especially political, not directly related to the university were strictly prohibited. Only sandbox issues, those related to university issues were allowed on campus. This created an extremely controlled environment and severely impinged on the students rights to free speech. In reaction to such limitations, college students across the country decided to do something about it. The Student Protest Movement (SPM) began at the University of California at Berkeley in the Fall of 1964. In September of that year Berkley campus authorities declared the area directly outside of the main entrance to the school off limits for advocates of civil rights and other causes. For years the strip had been accepted as a place where students could hand out pamphlets, solicit names for petitions, and sign people up. This ban set the stage for the beginning of the SPM. On September 29, demonstrators defiantly set up tables on the Bancroft strip and refused to leave when told to do so. The next day university officials took the names of five protesters and ordered them to appear for disciplinary hearings that afternoon. Instead of five students, five hundred, led by Mario Savio, marched to Sproul Hall, the administrati... ... the spot light. Many had negative feelings towards the protests and sit-ins, arguing that they did nothing but impinge on classroom time and interfere with the students ability to carry out there education. Though the SPM may have created chaos around campus, it was well manored and non-violent. The protestors took hold of the methods used in the Civil Rights movement, knowing that violence only made situations less credible and more dificult to keep under control. They were trained to simply go limp when arrested, not to resist the officers, therefore avoiding any danger to themselves or others. The sit-ins were just that; a group of students calmly sitting around conversing and playing music, all the while getting the attention and recognition they strived for. Whether the effectiveness came for the bottom up, with student organizations gathering to approach the administration, or top down, with the administration addressing the students, the issues were recognized and discussed. Both parties had their gains and losses, and the Student Protest Movement came out on top with a memorable place in

Of Words and Women :: Feminism Equality Essays

Of Words and Women missing works cited There is an old saying that plays something to the tune of, "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me." It is possible that such a phrase was popularized in order for people to equip themselves with a psychological defense against the reality that words can, in fact, have a tremendous amount of significance depending on their usage and context. The careful manipulation of language in essays, for example, is one way that words can be arranged and exploited. This is a tool that authors will often use to reach a specific audience. Like so many authors, Anne Richardson Roiphe exercises this technique in her 1972 essay in the New Yorker, entitled "Confessions of a Female Chauvinist Sow." One way in which Roiphe orchestrates her scheme in the essay is through the use of specific pronouns, such as "us," "we," "they," and "you" to establish a rapport-like connection with female readers. The effect of this subtle device is that Roiphe is able to directly communicate with other women, enabling her to transmit her personal thoughts and feelings with readers as if they were actually having a conversation. The twist, of course, is that Roiphe is also able to take advantage of this connection to spread her message of gender equality at the same time. But if this is Roiphe's purpose, why is she concerned about sex equality in the first place? Consider her childhood: Roiphe was born in 1935, raised in the middle of the Great Depression, and closed out her first decade of life at the end of World War II. Roiphe would have seen women rise from the devastation of national disaster to take several places in factories and workshops, where many women worked during the war while the men were deployed for combat. Furthermore, Roiphe would have been introduced to one of the first female authority figures in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. As Roiphe reached adulthood, she would have been immersed in a culture torn apart by civil rights issues, Vietnam arguments, and crusades for personal liberties. It is a culture that would have nurtured feelings of both resentment and pride. The women's rights movement was one such campaign that emerged from this turbulent era. Women, of course, had been historically shunned and excluded from next to all aspects of society outside the home.

Management Control Systems 4-6

Management Control group 1| Main Case Study 4-6| Mini case study 5-2| Tom Breteler – 930228 | Max Leigh Norman – 910904 Hanway Tran – 831226 16/11/2012| | | Main Case Study 4-6: Grand Jean Company Introduction This case study covers case 4-6 of ‘Management Control Systems’, written by Robert N. Anthony and Vijay Govindarajan (2007, 12th edition). The case discusses Grand Jean Company, a jeans manufacturing company, and describes several processes and issues in their organisation and management.In this report, we will we review and discuss the main problems that Grand Jean Company faces, analyse and propose solutions to these problems. During the course of this report, we will often refer to theory from the aforementioned literature, as well as external sources where needed. Explanations of concepts, theories and jargon will be given where necessary, but references will be provided in the end of the report easy reference. Lastly, we realise our soluti ons have their limitations and are unlikely to be implemented easily, or immediately effective.But we believe that our proposed changes will allow the company to reap the benefits from knowledge sharing and increased efficiency, as both plant managers and contractors can cooperate to find the best practice to accomplish their tasks at hand. Background Grand Jean is a clothing company with a long history, having been founded in the mid 18th century it has survived several great economic crises such as two world wars, the great depression in the late 1920s and the 1970s oil crisis.Having survived so many economic shocks and still be working as a profitable company, it is possible that this has caused top management in Grand Jean to believe that the business model they are employing is a sturdy model that always works. The scientific management model that was developed in the 1910s where cost efficiency and cost analysis was prevalent then; is something that we perceive is still preval ent now in Grand Jean (Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). Their usage of key metrics is very old fashioned: * Focus on production quota for the factories. Budget estimating a plant’s future production by looking at historic production and add a little more for the following year * Using historic supervisor:employee ratio There seems to be a lot of territorial mentality between the different departments in that each department focus on their own performance, and are willing to intervene in another department to satisfy their own goal. The company also seemed to treat the management and employees at the headquarters more favourably than management and employees at production plants.Problems In this section, we shall further discuss the processes and circumstances at Grand Jean Company and lay out the problems, and more importantly we will explain why they are problems. Firstly, we feel that the company in overall is overly traditional and outdated, resulting in a general lack of fl exibility. The company’s processes and regulations are often strict and overly simplified, which has a negative effect on the realistic day-to-day operations. One of these regulations is the relationships Grand Jean Company has with its ndependent contractors. Grand Jean has 25 company-owned manufacturing plants, which are responsible for about two thirds of the total production; the rest is done by roughly 20 independent manufacturers. Some of these contractors have long-standing relationships with Grand Jean, whereas some are very new and short-term. Contract agreements are made by the production operations’ vice president, Tom Wicks, and a ceiling price is set for each individual type of pants.If a contractor complies with Grand Jean’s quality and reliability standards, they get paid the full ceiling price, but if Grand Jean is unsure, a lower price is paid until the contractor has proven himself. This leads to a high turnover rate for contractors, considerin g the intense domestic and foreign competition in the garment industry. Strict demands combined with lower financial (as well as non-financial) support can be incredibly taxing for new contractors, resulting in them not reaching the desired quotas.Grand Jean then immediately terminates the relationship, and does not try to aid its contractors in any way that we have noticed. This is a waste of invested time and resources in the relationship, which could be easily avoided by closer collaboration and communication, combined with more a more flexible framework. The existing facilities are not used for a period of time; which is an additional  waste of resources. The key metrics that Grand Jean use to evaluate the company’s performance are very outdated.The main focus throughout the company is to focus on production output and metrics that affect or can be derived from focusing on production quantity e. g. production/year, standard hours/pair. However, there seems to be no cons ideration of metrics that affect the overall performance of the company. As mentioned before, the contractor’s that failed to meet expectations were usually just replaced by a new contractor in the same existing facility, this is an activity that impacts the company’s overall performance, as time and money has to again be spent re-negotiating terms of agreement, setting up and starting production lines.Overall the key metrics do not focus on activities that can have a more profound impact on the company’s performance. The heavy focus on production quota causes the company to miss other aspects that could generate improvements e. g. in plant efficiency, gross profit margin, overhead- and back office costs. The heavy focus on production also caused some plant managers to hoard goods to be able to meet production quota. Grand Jean makes use of 5 separate marketing departments, this is motivated with the fact that they sell to different customers.We consider the dep artment structure of marketing in the current state to be obsolete, because it doesn’t make efficient use of the knowledge that can be obtained by having cross-departmental communication or by unifying the marketing department into one big unit. Having such similar functions in 5 departments creates a lot of overhead when it comes to research and demand forecasting. The 25 company-owned plants are treated as expense centres, implying their only goal is to reach a quota at a price as low as possible. If the focus is purely on getting the lowest cost per product possible, quality is likely to fall behind.Additionally, the plants are run on a tight regulatory system based on time-and-motion systems resembling Taylor’s scientific method; making it obviously outdated, made worse by the odd use of fixed learning curves: implying learning curves are a system to be applied instead of an ongoing process. Entire budgets are made extrapolating the production time for a single pai r of jeans, and mass scale benefits are religiously pursued; resulting in an extreme lack of flexibility which severely harms the collaboration and communication with the marketing department.A major problem as well is the restrictiveness of the production quotas. Like the budgets, the quotas too are extrapolated from individual production time per pair of jeans, and administered relentlessly: the budgets are pre-made monthly one year ahead of time, and there is no indication of any adaptation being made during that year. This obviously leads to an inability to react to changes, and is overly simplistic to say the least. Additionally, the bar of budgets and quotas is raised monthly (! , because â€Å"we expect people to improve around here† (Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). Shockingly, these decisions are made arbitrarily without regard to external circumstances. If a plant reaches the quota, it is decided to have performed well, regardless of delivered quality, and if not, the plant is considered to have been working at a sub-reasonable level of speed and efficiency. Grand Jean acknowledges worker turnover and absenteeism are big problems in the plants, yet they do not show any awareness of any link from those problems to the strict quotas.Feedback is given monthly via phone, instead of in person, to see if the plants met the allowed standard labour hours compared to the actual labour hours, which is an accounting related principle that is often unsuited for practical issues such as production. This has negative consequences, the most disturbing being the plant managers retaining a safety stock when they exceed the quota, in order to make sure they can reach the quota again next year. This is done because production over the quota is not rewarded, and production is expected to increase from the year before, no matter how high the figures are.Considering Grand Jean has to turn down orders every end of the year, this is a shame when it comes to the usage o f resources, production and profit potential. Still, Grand Jean claims to look for other things but the quota as well when evaluating plants, such as the quality of the community relations and employee satisfaction. There are no concrete standards shown in the case for these measurements however, making the rating and bonus allocation system very arbitrary and subjective.This resulted in the finance and marketing departments being rewarded higher ratings than the production plants; which is particularly questionable considering most top-managers are from finance and marketing backgrounds. To us, this smells of favouritism, which is never a basis for a proper rating system, which should of course be objective and fair i. e. have procedural justice. Also, it was issued in the case that offices are often understaffed because Mr. Wicks consistently adheres to the traditional supervisor/worker ratio of 11:1, although the fact simply is that that ratio is insufficient and outdated.Plant m anagers feared to deviate from that ratio due to the fact that Mr. Wicks managed a plant with that ratio. This causes the plants to run with a supervisor/work ratio that doesn’t adapt to the changing external environment (Anthony & Govindarajan, 2007). Lastly, the company does not properly acknowledge the differences in technology and equipment and age of the plants, instead Grand Jean demands equal performance from them all. This is obviously not prudent, and results in the older plants having more difficulties in reaching the quota.Proposed solutions The company needs to improve the communication channels between the marketing and production departments. It seems as though these departments are working completely independently from each other which is concerning as their relationship is one of the most important within the organisation. Production relies on quantity targets set by the marketers, by having much more regular meetings, face to face rather than on the phone, th ere should be a reduced risk of drastic changes in quantity needed.It is more likely that a closer relationship between these departments will cause incremental changes in production which is much easier and cheaper to manage. Consequently there will be much less wastage or excess goods being produced. Continuing with the theme of collaboration, the 5 marketing departments need to work as parts of the same unit, rather than individual units with the same name. The text refers to some departments going about their own business in order to meet aims and objectives, even if these actions have negative consequences for other departments.All departments in the organisation are trying to add value to the end product but this should not be done by trampling on others who are trying to achieve the same goal. The managers or each marketing department need to meet and ensure that no actions taken by their individual units have a negative impact for another. This is not to say there shouldnâ⠂¬â„¢t be a competitive nature within the firm but it should be regulated so as not to cause harmful repercussions. At present, the rating system and bonus allocation system seems quite subjective and inexact.Firstly, the bias that occurs in favour of the financial departments needs to be eradicated. This could be done by outsourcing the task of rating the departments. As long as the external firm knew the industry and had a set of strict guidelines as to how to rate the performance of each department, there would be no bias and ratings between departments should be more evenly spread out. Currently, there is no incentive for plants to produce at maximum efficiency because if they happen to go over quota, they do not get rewarded for doing so.This ties in nicely with the second aspect of the ratings system. The case provided no exact guidelines to which each department was being assessed. Mr Wicks would call the departments and have a conversation about whether or not they met their production quota and generally ‘how things are’. The managers need to have face to face meetings and joint plant inspections in order to really gauge how production is performing; this will give a much more accurate picture and enable bonuses to be allocated more precisely.Contractors produce around a third of Grand Jean Company’s stock and as such, are an integral part of the production process. Instead of initially offering a lower price, Grand Jean could reduce uncertainty by allowing their contractors time to move up the learning curve by allowing them a lower quantity to be produced, which would be gradually increased once product quality and production reliability is delivered. Thus building Grand Jean’s relationship with their contractors, and avoiding resource destruction, despite the existing facilities being re-used.The reduced contractor turnover would increase the utilisation of the plants which will lend itself to increased production in the long term. As has been mentioned previously, some of the plants are up to 30 years old whereas some are as new as only 5 years old, however, there seems to be no allowance for this is the targets set by the company. It stands to reason that 30 years old technology is much more likely to; breakdown, be more costly to maintain, and be less efficient than 5 year old technology.Therefore, the quotas and maximum output of each plant should be heavily related to how new the plant and the technology is, presuming the staff are of equally skilled between the plants. Therefore, plant managers need to work more closely with market departments because they will be able to work out what targets are suitable for each plant rather than a ‘one size fits all’ quota system which at present, isn’t working particularly effectively. These new targets could be achieved through an initial meeting and assessment of the factory and review meetings every month to make sure the targets ar e being met.The current budgeting system is extremely primitive. The departmental managers review figures from the previous year and ‘add on a few’ because they assume the efficiency has increased and the staff ‘should’ have gotten better at their jobs. Whether these sweeping statements have some truth or not, it is obvious Grand Jean need to have a more specific budgeting and planning strategy. Using a more realistic budgeting system with more stretch would create actual learning curves instead of artificial, fixed ones.Due to more flexible targets and specific information from each individual plant capacities being used, coupled with the prospect of being rewarded for going over quota production, there should no longer be any need to hoard safety stock in order to meet targets later on in the year. Conclusion To conclude, it can be said that current affairs at Grand Jean Company are rigid and outdated, specifically in the areas of contracting relationship s, internal communication, budgeting, and reward systems. Our paper has described and explained the main issues at hand, and provided possible solutions to these problems as well.With these fixes in place, we as a team feel that Grand Jean could greatly improve its way of doing business. Mini Case Study 5-2: North Country Auto, Inc. It is prevalent that in North Country Auto, Inc. (NCA) the separate business units operated more as independent companies than subdivisions within a company. The business units’ managers themselves were aware of the problematic dilemma that the focus on their own profitability caused to the overall result of the company; even being fully aware that there were recurring situations that would have benefited the company had one department accepted a lower profit.The company lacks goal congruence between its business units, and Mr. Liddy’s endorsement of the current company structure doesn’t do anything to remedy the current friction. In stead of focusing on activities that create true value towards its customers, the company is engaging in accounting activities that do nothing to remedy the lack of goal congruence. We think Mr. Liddy should abandon the current structure for the new car-, used car- and service department, and instead structure it up with main business units, new and used car sales as one and body shop as the second one, with the service- and parts department operating as support.The new and used car sales and body shop would operate as profit centres with the service- and parts unit operating as an expense centre. To create goal congruence within the company, the department performance dependant bonuses should be removed. Instead NCA should implement a two tiered bonus program, the company’s performance should account for the larger part of the bonus program, to make sure that the department managers aren’t only thinking of their own performance.A suggestion would be to have a 20% depa rtment dependant and 80% company dependant bonus system. This would still allow a department with excellent performance to get a good reward for their above standard performance. This would increase the probability that the now different departments strive to work together to keep overall profits up and overall expenses down. Such a reward system would shift the personnels’ focus on the company’s total performance.The company should implement on one unified IT-system to make it easier to share information and hence promote inter departmental communications, thereby increasing the possibility of achieving synergy effects from the collective knowledge within the organisation. Restructuring the workflow, IT-systems and organisational structure itself won't achieve any positive effects, if the employees and managers themselves don’t embrace the new organisational structure, the whole reform will just end up being a new organization on paper.Hence why Mr. Liddy will have to be prepared to put in considerable effort to show that top management is supporting the new organisation that we propose. While it is possible to estimate a time frame for implementing a new workflow and information system, it is more difficult to estimate a time frame for when peoples’ behaviour will actually change. Without a change in behaviour, there is very a low possibility to gain any synergy effects from the new organisational structure.To implement this new organisation we propose a parallel multistage process; this requires top management to work on designing a new workflow, information system, organisational structure. And educate and involve department managers and employees to gain support for the new organisation to secure a working implementation. Bibliography Anthony, R. N. ; Govindarajan, V. (2007). MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS. 12th Edition. Net MBA website. [Online] Consulted on the 12-11-2012. URL: http://www. netmba. com/mgmt/scientific/ Appendix Pr oposal for new organisational structure for NCA.