Water Transport Essay Example

Water Transport Essay Water transport Water transport refers to movement of goods and passengers on waterways by using various means like boats, steamers, launches, ships, etc. With the help of these means goods and passengers are carried to different places, both within as well as outside the country. Within the country, rivers and canals facilitate the movement of boats, launches, etc. Since the goods and passengers move inside the country, this type of transport is called inland water transport. When the different means of transport are used to carry goods and passengers on the sea route it is termed as ocean transport. Let us know further about these two types of water transport. Inland water transport Inland water transport use boats, launches, barges, streamers, etc. , to carry goods and passengers on river and canal routes. These routes are called inland waterways and are used in domestic or home trade to carry bulky goods. Passenger transport through waterways is not so popular in our country. Inland water transport system exists only in few states like. West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Tamil Nadu, etc. II. Ocean transport Ocean transport refers to movement of goods and passengers with the help of ships through sea or ocean waterways. It plays an important role in the development of international trade. It is also used for transporting goods and passengers in the coastal areas. Ocean transport has its fixed route, which links almost all the countries of the world. Sea transport may be of the following two types. i. Coastal Shipping In this transport, ships ply between the main ports of a country. This helps in home trade, and also in carrying passengers within the country. i. Overseas shipping In this transport, ships ply between different countries separated by sea or ocean. It is mainly used for promotion and development of international trade. It is economical means of transport to carry heavy machines and goods in bulk. Overseas transport is carried out on fixed routes, which connect almost all the countries. In ocean transport, different types of ships are used to carry passengers and goods. The se may be classified as under. a. Liners A liner is a passenger or cargo vessel, which belongs to a regular shipping company. We will write a custom essay sample on Water Transport specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Water Transport specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Water Transport specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer These ships ply over a fixed route according to a prescribed schedule or timetable. b. Tramps A tramp is a cargo ship, which does not make regular trips but plies whenever cargo is offered to it. It does not follow a fixed route or a prescribed timetable like that of liners. Advantages of water transport Water Transport has the following advantages: a. It is a relatively economical mode of transport for bulky and heavy goods. b. It is a safe mode of transport with respect to occurance of accidents. c. The cost of maintaining and constructing routes is very low as most of them are naturally made. d. It promotes international trade. Limitations of water transport Water transport has the following limitations. i. The depth and navigability of rivers and canals vary and thus, affect operations of different transport vessels. ii. It is a slow moving mode of transport and therefore not suitable for transport of perishable goods. iii. It is adversely affected by weather conditions. iv. Sea transport requires large investment on ships and their maintenance.

Piet Mondrian essays

Piet Mondrian essays In 1872 a man named Piet Mondrian was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands. He grew up interested in painting and the surrounding environment. Following the standard painting style of the time, which was impressionism Mondrian, began painting. He studies at The Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts. He started off painting calm landscapes painted in grays, pinks, and dark greens. Soon Mondrian became influenced by a style known as cubism. Soon after that he started his own style. This style had a geometric style that he called neoplasticism. Mondrian soon moved to France in 1917 to study art and became the founder of a well know magazine called De Stijl which means The Style This magazine stated his thoughts and theories on his new art form called neoplasticism. He also published a book called The Neo-Plasticisme. With these he greatly influenced modern architecture. His paintings mostly are made up of vertical and horizontal lines at 90 degree angles in prime colors and black. He always painted on white or gray canvas. Modrian really carried abstraction to its limits. He said that art should express only universal absolutes which mean to paint only what is true. So therefore not many paintings of people where painted because it is said that he could not capture the soul of the models and got aggravated. Mondrians most famous painting as called Composition with red, yellow and blue. After living in France for many years Mondrian moved to New York in 1940 to escape the dangers of war. He began experimenting with a new type of art using chain link patterns with bright colors. When Mondrian moved his style became livelier. He stopped with the black lines. This can be seen in his last painting called Broadway Boogie Woogie. A man named Edouard Roditi said Everything in his life was reasoned or calculated. He was a compulsive neurotic and could never bear to see anything disordered or untidy. He seemed to suf...

Marketing and operations plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Marketing and operations plan - Assignment Example In approaching the course of studying the market successfully, the research into the market will entail engaging both secondary and primary sources of data. The secondary approach entails covering the publications on the industry that reflect the factors influencing the market. Additionally, the primary sources entail conducting individual research to collect data on the market. However, primary data is expensive to achieve, as such, this section will rely extensively on the secondary data on the market. The primary sources engaged include sample interviews and questionnaires on the niche of the business to get firsthand expectation of the market, for successful planning. The US fast foods industry is on the rise, with high density of businesses offering food services including bakery options. The total market is vast, entailing a population of about 500,000 people at the local town setting where the first venture will be located (Giovannucci, Barham & Pirog, 2010). Additionally, the business expects to expand significantly and own a share of the national market in bakery options. Thus, we expect to own at least 6% of the market share as we launch and grow accordingly to about 15% to remain equally competitive. The market has a high demand for bakery products, considering the high consumption of the products. the consumer preferences for bakery products remains high for low sugar content products, considering recent developments requiring he regulation of sugar content in products due to increasing cases of obesity (MÃ ¶ller, 2006). Nonetheless, the business will engage all legal measures to establish its product and grow accordingly as there is a n otable potential of capitalizing on the local market size accordingly. The aspect of high capital costs, training skills and marketing and consumer acceptance may prove challenging to the business entry. Nonetheless, as a

Eco-tourism in New Zealand Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Eco-tourism in New Zealand - Research Paper Example This requires communicating the restrictions without discouraging the audience. This enhances the importance of the right marketing communications mix which includes using technology to convey the customer feedback and collaborating with the government agencies. The industry is thriving and there is scope for new entrants to an emphasis on personal selling would help Dolphin Explorers to expand its reach. The nature of tourism has changed in recent times as new markets and new kinds of tourism have emerged (Herbig & O'Hara, 1997). Ecotourism has emerged among these as the fastest growing segment within the travel and tourism industry. Ecotourism involves travel to experience natural environments or settings. The demand for eco-tourism increased as customers shifted from mass tourism enriching and individualistic experiences (Diamintis & Ladkin, 1999). It has been defined as "responsible travel which conserves the natural environment and sustains the wellbeing of local people" (Herbig & O'Hara, 1997). It is a segment of the travel that appeals to the environmentally conscious and has a low impact on the surrounding area while contributing to the local economy. Nevertheless, the reality is quite different and New Zealand has particularly experienced social, cultural and economic impact. The inbound ecotourism market in New Zealand has experienced overall growth and ecotourism in NZ focuses on marine environments, particularly marine mammals, botanical, geological and ornithological resources (Higham & Carr, 2003). Wildlife tourism too also forms a significant element in ecotourism and involves seabirds, marine mammals and native avifauna. The growth and proliferation of eco tourism operations has created difficulties for this sector in NZ. Ecotourism can deprive the local people of the resources that they have been using (Herbig & O'Hara, 1997). Besides, once the local economies become dependent on eco-tourism, any downturn in tourism impacts their stability. Ecotourism can result in the commercialization of the culture. On the social side ecotourism, with higher disposable incomes in the hands of the local people can give rise to alcohol-related disturbances. Thus, for eco-tourism companies promoting tourism and sustaining the company poses a great challenge. Â  

The Healing Activity of Jesus and The Ministry of the Church Today Essay

The Healing Activity of Jesus and The Ministry of the Church Today - Essay Example His healing actions were central to His ministry as the Messiah who has come to preach the good news to the poor of the Yahweh. The cardinal principle of Jesus' mission is its stubborn option for the poor and the marginalized and the role of the healing action of Christ is an unequivocal proclamation that the people whom the society considers as the scum of the earth are the children of God in a special way. Since the Church is the continuation of Jesus in the world today, it is necessary for the Church to model its mission after the manner of Jesus and His disciples and missionaries, who provide us the benchmark of missionary conduct. Jesus has a proclaimed bias for the poor, marginalized, outcasts, handicapped, helpless and sinners. Jesus' basic identity was with those who were excluded from mainstream social class, who boasted about their pedigree and righteousness. (The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Mat.9.11, Mk.2.16, Lk.5.13). The derogatory remark about Jesus by the Jews highlights this identity chosen consciously by Jesus: a friend of the tax collectors and sinners (Mat.11.19). In the words of Martin Percy these friends of Jesus were those, who dwelt outside the periphery of the over- righteous Jewish society, the politically, socially and religiously disadvantaged (p.28). The main focus of Jesus' ministry was directed to the poor, the oppressed, the excluded and the helpless. The then Jewish society had a system of societal exclusions based on their self-righteous attitude as the chosen people of God. In the Jewish brag as the chosen people of God they forgot the fact that God has many chosen peoples. Social classes like the Samaritans were the outcasts, the presence of the sick like the lepers violated their ritualistic standards of cleanliness, tax collectors were branded bad because of their profession and the congenital handicaps like blindness were blindly accepted as the results of the sins of their ancestors. Though healing actions of Jesus is traditionally considered as faith revelations, the Jesus' Messianic mission of the societal inclusion of the marginalized is also inherent in them. This healing touch is a gratuitous gesture extended to all the deprived who came to Him, irrespective of race or religion. (Percy 30). Jesus achieves the empowerment of the marginalized by his own voluntary disempowerment, the culmination of which is the helpless nailed condition on the cross. In the active ministry Jesus demonstrates it by His spontaneous association with all classes of people whom the Jews considered outcastes. So there is dining with tax collectors, moving in the company of women of immoral history and blatant violation of Jewish rules of social segregation by asking the Samaritan woman water to drink. The choice of the ignorant fish folk as His disciples to carry on His mission, in itself is a symbol of the unique nature of Gods' work often achieved by using human beings, who in our judgment is least suited for the task. However, history has shown that the pack of ignorant fish folk under the leadership of the impetus Peter achieved what several divisions of grand armies of historical civilizations could not achieve. According to Martin Percy: This view would not have been strange to the Early Church fathers, whose

Examining The Concept Of Lean Synchronization Information Technology Essay

Examining The Concept Of Lean Synchronization Information Technology Essay Lean manufacturing is an approach of continuous improvement that focuses on the removal of waste resources from a process so that the goods flow to the customer at determined rate with minimum inventory. It mainly focuses on eliminating resources that does not create value for the customer. Based on Toyota Production System, Lean concentrates on preserving value with less work. Lean synchronization is the aim of achieving the flow of products and services which is able to deliver exactly what customers want, in exact quantities, exactly when needed, exactly where required at the lowest possible cost (Slack et al, 2010). This report evaluates the utility and relevance of basic Lean principles and Management and applies the same principles in contemporary business environment. Executive Summary First part of the report talks about theoretical aspect of lean. The concept of lean synchronization is explained first. After this the principles of lean and benefits of using lean are described. Subsequently barriers to lean implementation are explained. Second half of the report accounts practical application of lean in context with healthcare industry. Firstly the need to apply lean in hospitals is determined. Basic need of lean in hospitals is to: Reduce patient wait time Reduce cost and increase savings and Improve staff efficiency. Lean principles are than applied on hospital operations. Analysis discovered that time creates value to the patient. After this, value stream was assessed and waste processes were identified in the journey of patients recovery and treatment. Further to this, wastes were identified and recommendations were proposed to eliminate those wastes. Important Identified Wastes are: Extra work done for simple and easy tasks. Investigations and tests those are not required. Patient waiting for tests and surgeries. Redundancy in treating a patient. Recommendations to eliminate such wastes: Avoid the use of complex equipments that makes the processes tedious and time consuming. Perform only those tests that are required for the treatment. Equipments must be ready before a patient comes to pathology lab and operation theatre so as to avoid waste of time. Things must be done in right way in first attempt so as to avoid repetitive actions. Concept behind Lean Synchronization The term lean came into existence post World War II when there was a huge shortage of resources in Automobile sector in Japan. Toyota Company developed the concept of achieving most with optimum resources, by continuous elimination of waste. Today this concept is well known as Lean Manufacturing across the globe and is not limited to manufacturing processes. Lean applies to the whole enterprise including supply-chain, new product development process and services. The concept of lean thinking was introduced to European world in 1991 by the book written by Womack, Jones, and Roos: The Machine That Changed the World. According to Slack et al (2009), lean synchronization is concerned all about: Elimination of waste in whole process Involving all the resources and Continuously improving the process Lean approach simply calls to work smarter rather than harder with value driven sense of purpose. Organizations that follow lean thinking understand customer value and focus the processes to increase it. The ultimate aim is to create a perfect value process for the customer with zero waste. Such contemporary approach creates processes that enable companies to respond to changing customer desires with high quality, high variety, and low cost with very fast throughput times. Lean Principles The main guiding principle of lean to create right value for the customer with minimum effort is compounded of five key principles: value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection. Value: The key principle is to identify the customers view point about what creates value to the customer. Value Stream: This is to identify all the steps in value chain and to eliminate all those that do not create value to the end product. Flow: In order to make a smooth flow of the product towards customer, the value-creating steps must occur in tight sequence. Pull: Make only what is pulled by the customer and creates synchronization between demand and manufacturing process. Perfection: Once the value is identified, value stream is specified with wasted steps eliminated and flow and pull are introduced, execute the whole process again and continue until perfection is reached in which perfect value is developed without waste. 5stepslean.gif Fig.1 Benefits of Applying Lean Traditional Approach: Traditional approach assumes that each stage is separated from the other stage by placing the output in an inventory. The next stage will take the outputs from the buffer inventory and will pass them to the succeeding buffer e.g. as shown in fig.2, outputs from stage A are stored in buffer inventory which feeds the system for Stage B. In this manner each stage of the operation acts independently and picks material from buffer inventory and processes it for the subsequent buffer. These buffers insulate each stage from its neighbors and operations of one stage do not hinder the next stage. Hence if operations at stage A cease due to some reason, stage B can still continue for at least one time. The condition of insulation of each stage that seeks to promote traditional approach is indeed the learning argument of this system. Problems: Inventory remains idle. Slow throughput times since items spend more time waiting in buffer. Lack of coordination due to insulation of stages. Problem solving responsibility will be centered on people working in that very stage. C:UsersVibhorDesktopUntitled.jpg Fig.2 Lean Approach: In contrast with the traditional approach, lean approach processes and passes items directly to the next stage, eliminating the buffer inventories, hence reducing the barriers between stages. This provides the required amount of input for each stage at the required time. In this approach, problems at any stage have different impact on the process e.g. in fig.3 if stage A stops its operations, than subsequent stages will immediately notice the issue and the problem is quickly exposed to the whole system. This helps in improving the quality by providing quick feedback at each stage. C:UsersVibhorDesktopUntitled1.jpg Fig.3 In the traditional approach, if one stage stops functioning the other stage may continue to process by the available buffer resources resulting in high capacity utilization. But generally this situation would not sustain for a long period of time and the whole process will come to halt once the buffer is empty. On the other hand, in lean approach each time there is a blockage in any stage of the process, the whole process will come to halt, reducing the capacity utilization initially. Therefore where traditional approach encourages efficiency by protecting each stage from disruption, lean approach motivates the whole system to solve the problem. Fig.4 Source: Slack et al, 2010 According to Wild (2002), following are the benefits of Lean synchronization. Also evident from the above differentiation: Reduced inventories and work in progress; Less use of space; Shorter throughput times; Increased employee motivation and participation; Smoother work flows; Increased productivity; Improved quality and customer service Barriers to Lean Synchronization Lean synchronization aims at managing the operations process in such a way that it achieves exactly what customers are looking from the operation. Pure lean synchronization intends smooth, continuous flow without any sort of delay, waste and imperfection. Following are the major barriers to achieve this ideal state: Failure to eliminate waste in all parts of the operation Failure to harness the contribution of all the people involved in the operation. Failure to establish improvement as a continuous activity. Source: (Slack et al, 2010) Waste Identification and Elimination: Elimination of waste is the basic part of lean thinking and identifying the waste is the first step towards its elimination. Any activity that does not add to value is called as waste. The wastes that hinder the streamlined flow are: Wait time worker wait time and machine wait time is waste. This is usually dependant on efficiency of machinery and workers. Conveyance Change in layout can bring processes closer resulting in reduced movements. Inventory Inappropriate quantity of production According to Toyota, supplying less or more quantity than required is the greatest source of waste. Delivery Time- Early delivery is wasteful. Therefore items must be delivered Just In Time. Variability- If quality varies according to customer expectations and customer considers to be inadequately supplied than the whole process is wasteful. waste-poster.jpg Fig.5 Employee Participation: Organizations following lean philosophy must encourage its employees to participate in problem solving activity. The intention to encourage the feeling of personal responsibility and ownership within the employees is referred as respect-for-people. Some basic factors in encouraging employee involvement are: Environment Safety safety standards and environment must be followed by everyone. Flexibility employees must be given authority to take decisions and restrictive practices must be removed. Equality each employee must be treated equally. Creativity each persons creativity must be utilized to improve the processes. Total people involvement- staff must be encouraged to participate in other activities like recruitment, supply chain and customer dealing. This improves the processes and benefits the company as a whole. Continuous Improvement: Kaizen: Kaizen is a Japanese term for improvement or change for better. In terms of Masaaki Imai, Kaizen is a continuous process of improvement in which each individual of an organization is involved to achieve a state of perfection. Three guiding principles of kaizen as explained by Hill (2005) are: Process reviews review of entire process from designing stage to delivery. People participation employees insights to improve the process. Constant need for change seeking improvement and implementing changes result in achieving perfection. kaizen.JPG Fig.6 Source: Archfield Consulting Group Deming Cycle: It is also called PDCA cycle which involve a team of people who continuously find improvements in an organization. Waters (2002) defined this cycle as: Plan review of existing processes, information gathering, finding alternatives and suggesting improvement plans. Do plan in implemented and performance data is collected. Check analyzes the collected data to check if expected improvements appear or not. Act- if improvements are visible, the operation is made permanent else lessons are learnt. deming cycle.png Fig.7 Applying Lean in Healthcare Industry Applying lean in healthcare industry is similar to its application in manufacturing. Lean manufacturing reduces waste from the set of operations that takes place in producing of items. Similarly lean can reduce waste and improve the services provided to the patients in hospitals. This may also help hospitals to manage issues like financial deficits, infections, waiting queues and capacity management. Why Lean in healthcare? Alike other industries, healthcare also face problems like safety concerns, capacity and waiting queue management, low level of efficiency and lack of staff motivation. To get rid of these issues and to deliver improved and timely patient care, it is important to base hospital processes on lean synchronization. Lean implementation in hospitals can also prevent hospitals acquired infections, avoidable injuries, death and less recovery time. Traditional practice in hospitals Major time of patients and hospital staff is wasted due to multiple trips made by the patients and the staff members. Once the tests are performed, patient is called for diagnosis after few days. Treatment for the illness may or may not start on the same day. This delay in treatment may cause deterioration in patients condition. Implementation of lean in hospitals will reduce the time taken in treating the patient. According to lean process, a patient must come once and all the processes must be done on the same day e.g. tests are done and the treatment is started soon after the diagnosis from the tests. The process mentioned in the figure consumes unneeded time of patients and hospital staff and this in turn increases the overall cost and risk to life. Avoiding such unnecessary trips eases patient care and reduces the workload on doctors. Lean eliminates waste processes and increases the overall throughput in hospitals. Untitled.png Fig.8 Untitled.png Fig.9 Source: NHS Confederation Principles of lean in healthcare Value: To ensure patient satisfaction, hospitals need to analyze the patients viewpoint as depicted in fig.10. Value is the perception of a patient and can be created when right consultation, test, diagnosis, communication, treatment and after care is provided to the patient. By eliminating waste processes and utilizing resources, staff will be able to concentrate more on patient care. figure3.jpg Fig.10 Source: JWA Inc. Value Stream: Value stream is the process of identifying all the steps that creates value to the patient and eliminating those that creates no value to the patient. Usually hospitals tend to group patients on the basis of clinical similarity. However lean focuses not on similar conditions but similar processes.Fig.11 shows various steps and processes taken to discharge a patient. Untitled.png Fig.11 Source: Flinders Medical Centre In a hospital a value stream is the end-to-end process of caring for a group of patients whose overall care process have enough in common for them to be managed together, irrespective of clinical diagnosis (David Ben-Tovim, 2006). Following are the steps that may not create any value to the patient and should be eliminated: Patients visit to hospital on different days for different tests. Time wasted when patient waits to be seen by the doctor. Unnecessary step of nurse checking the patient. Time wasted in collecting medical equipments and information. Repetition of processes such as diagnostic tests and paperwork. Time consumed in searching medical history of patients. Performing tests that are not required. Fig.12 The factors stated above signify that time is the most valued element for the patient as well as for the hospital staff. To eliminate this waste of time, we first need to identify the cause of this waste. Fig.13 shows the causes that increase the waste in waiting time. Cause and Effect 3.jpg Fig.13 Waste Identification: Waste is anything that does not create value to the patient. Inventory: Holding excess material to avoid unreliable supply is referred as inventory waste in hospitals. Eliminating such waste can reduce cost and time of both the patient as well as the hospitals. Extra Processing: Use of complex equipments to conduct simple tests makes processes large and inflexible and may cause stress to the staff. Overproduction: Unnecessary tests and investigations are referred as overproduction in healthcare industry. These tests must be avoided to save time and cost. Waiting: This is the patient wait time that created due to process or material waiting e.g. patients waiting for test or surgery due to equipment readiness. Transportation: Movement of patients and materials are considered as waste but these cannot be eliminated completely. Processes must be arranged in a manner that steps become sequential and easy to identify. Defects: Defects increase the processes and are caused due to wrong medication or infections. Doing things in a right way will reduce redundancy as well as defects in a process. Movement: Hospital layout must be in a way that it minimizes the repetition of movements by staff and patients e.g. in operation theatres, all equipments must be in reach of the operation table so as to ease the surgeon while doing surgery. Mapping Value Stream: The challenge in value stream is to map exactly the things that actually occur at each stage of patients journey towards recovery, as depicted in fig.14. Lean redesigns this flow to enable seamless movement of patients to the next step without unnecessary work or wait. Fig.14 Fig.15 shows an example of process mapping where it just takes one step on the process of tests and lists each step of work that is currently performed. Amount of time, distance covered and required amount of materials can be added to each such step. It is evident that huge amount of work is being done without creating any value. Involvement of staff during waste identification is usually advised so that the effect of one persons actions is visible to all. Fig.15 Flow: Flow is the process where every patient is worked with single unit at a time and passed to the next step without any delay. Following are few processes that can be redesigned in order to implement lean operations: Concurrent medical problems complicate patient care of an elderly patient who got fractured. Treatment is affected because specialists fail to communicate and coordinate with each other. This problem can be resolved by creating another department called Trauma Unit which creates a single team having all kind of specialists. A standard hand off process between each member will make it possible to identify and address treatment issues regardless of who is on duty. In hospitals, usually same type of operations is conducted on one day and another type of operations on other day. To increase flow through surgeries, it is suggested that few operations of each type should be performed each day. This will reduce waiting time for patients as well as burden on wards. In outpatient department, patients are usually called in the morning at same time say 9a.m. and it is highly likely that not all of them will be treated at the same time and some have to wait till noon. Hence patients must be called according to priority and severity of the problem. Samples are held back in pathology to process them in batches. This leads to increase in wait time for patients. Samples must be tested soon they arrive to the lab. Pull: To create value to the customer, services should be provided in line with the demand. If the demand is for 100 admissions a day, it implies that 100 patients must be discharged on that day to accommodate the demand. To achieve this demand in hospitals all the key processes and interfaces between them must be redesigned. The time required to spend on each activity to achieve output in line with demand is called as Takt Time. It is the time that identifies the speed with which work and materials flow within different departments. In pull system, each patient is treated as one unit at a time and passed to the next level without as soon as it is ready. Fig.16 shows a pull system where each stage of the process pulls the patient towards it. Untitled.png Fig.16 Source: NHS Confederation Perfection: After eliminating all the waste processes without compromising the quality of service, the whole operations process is repeated until perfection is achieved. To achieve perfection in hospitals, following aspects must be taken care of: After Lean Implementation Patient first Wait time unaccepted Reduced errors Existing resources Reduce waste Problems visible to all End to end process Before Lean Service provider first Wait time Errors New resources Reduce cost Problems not visible Functional management Perfection Fig.17 Perfection is achieved by continuous improvement of the operations process. It is therefore necessary to that all the staff members and the hospital management must commit to seek perfection at their level. By creating standard, visible and clear processes, we can develop the foundation of uninterrupted improvement, where every new improvement becomes a landmark or platform for future processes. Advantages of Lean in Hospitals: It is observed that implementation of lean in hospitals have increased efficiency from 15 to 20 percent with safer and improved services using the existing infrastructure, technology and staff. Hospitals across the globe, which have adopted lean philosophy, have benefited from its implementation. According to David Ben-Tovim of Flinders Medical Centre, Australia, the hospital was struggling to survive and was on the verge of meltdown. But after applying lean in their operations process, they managed to earn more profits and decreased the costs. Some important advantages of lean are: Reduction of wait time for patients. Reduced cost and increased savings. Reduction in physical floor space by 30%. Productivity increases from 75% to up to 125% in some cases. Good customer relations. Staff motivation and reduced stress levels. Untitled.png Fig.18 Conclusion The aim of this research was to understand the lean philosophy and to apply lean principles in healthcare industry. It is evident from the study that lean philosophy brings positive results. It improves safety, quality and morale of the staff along with reducing time and costs in the operations process. Lean when enforced in hospital operations can add value to patient care and improve efficiency. Lean principles are generic and can be applied anywhere. If lean principles are applied at each stage of the operations process than huge amount of time can be saved. These principles challenge the whole idea of batching, triage, economies of scale and de-skilling. Results of lean implementation are potentially significant. Lean acts as antidote to traditional approach of performance management. Its emphasis is to put the whole system in a valuable stream. Leans focus is to improve effort on things that weigh importance to patients and hospital staff. It opposes the external benchmarks whic h tend to express the things that are indirectly related to improve patient care. It is also evident from the data that hospitals that have adopted lean in their operations have improved in terms of patient care, costs and time. Hence it can be concluded that implementing lean in any industry will prove to be the best bet.

The Kalapalo Indians :: essays research papers

The Kalapalo Indians The Kalapalo Indians of Central Brazil are one of a few surviving indigenous cultures that is uniquely protected by a national reserve in lowland South America. Through no effort of there own, they have been isolated artificially from Brazilian social and economic influences that reach almost every other Indian tribe in Brazil. This unusual situation has made it possible for the Kalapalo’s culture to be undisturbed by the outside world and the surrounding tribes. Much of Kalapalo life is run through a central concept or an ideal of behavior, called ifutisu. This is an infinite ideological concept that is represented in many ways in social life and ideal organization among the Kalapalo. The area in which the Kalapalo live is in the northeastern Mato Grosso state called Upper Xingu Basin. There are four unintelligible languages by groups in this region. This makes the Upper Xingu Basin linguistically diverse, but with many of the groups still sharing the same social and ideological features. It is very difficult to trace back the origins of Kalapalo life because of the integration of the many different and culturally diverse groups in the Upper Xingu Basin. So, many of systems of kinship classification, marriage practices, ceremonial organizations, status allocation, and religious beliefs are consistent with cultural rules and social practices and not with the original system. Many of the modern local groups can only reconstruct their own history which is in limited detail, these systems can’t be isolated completely from the existing society. The two most important social units in Upper Xingu society are the village and the household groups. Both the village and household can be considered corporate in that both control rights to territorial resources, acts as a unit when performing certain economic and ceremonial activities. Members of a household group are obligated to pass out food which they collect amongst themselves. Even when one cannot supply food a Kalapalo is assured of a share because everyone is treated with the same kind of respect. Despite this corporate organization, membership in villages and households is constantly changing, and there is much movement of people between group to group. The Kalapalo society is a system wherein social units, such as the village groups and households exist only because of the individual who decides to live in these systems and choose to cooperate with one another. This is very different from other non-western societies whereas the individual acquire the responsibility to join in social units, by birth or other means of relationship to and with each other regardless of the identity of the individual themselves. The Kalapalo social organization is characterized by a flexible group membership