Ray Bradbury :: Essays Paper s

Ray Bradbury No name typifies science fiction to the American public more than the name Ray Bradbury. For over forty years, he has been writing novels, short stories, poems, plays, and movie scripts that have long since kept him in the forefront of American literature. His stories become standard reading for many high school and college students. His literary style can best be described as "enchantment;" the way he captivates his readers with charm, bewitchment, and stunning verbal evocations. His visions of the past, future, and the present delight his readers. His books are virtually long-time bestsellers and have been translated into over twenty languages. He is quite popular in the former Soviet Union. However, success did not come easily for Bradbury. He inched away at his writing career, crafting story after story, until he was selling and occasional short story for half a cent per word. Much of his childhood, and a little of his adulthood, inspired his writings. In this paper, these influences as well as his method of drawing the reader into a story will be discussed. Perhaps the most important influence in Bradbury's youth was his discovery of magic. The famous Blackstone the Magician once included Bradbury in his act, and it enchanted him. The most influential magician on Bradbury was Mr. Electrico. Bradbury wrote about his experience with Mr. Electrico and stated that Mr. Electrico would sit every night in his electric chair, brushing his Excalibur sword over the audience, sparking them with lightning, and crying, "Live forever!" A few weeks after Bradbury encountered Mr. Electrico, he began writing his first short stories. In July of 1941, Bradbury sold his first story to Super Science Stories. Although he only made $13.75 on the sale, he rejoiced. Within a year from that sale, he was a full-time writer. The Martian Chronicles, his first novel, was published within a decade and he soon found himself famous. Fahrenheit 451 marked a new point in Bradbury's writing style - the pessimistic side of life, where he discussed a future where mankind isslowly destroying itself. The sense of what is best in America and what is best for the American people and humanity as a whole, is another thing that fuels his literature. He writes on topics relevant to what is happening in society. Mars and book burning are a couple of them.

Christopher Columbus Essay example -- History

Christopher Columbus is credited as the audacious voyager who challenged modern thinking and found the land now known as the Americas. Columbus not only discovered new lands, but also opened trade with natives and brought substantial wealth and glory to the major European powers. In addition, his ventures not only enabled the spread of the gospel to pagan peoples, but also set the stage for the emergence of the United States of America. Without Christopher Columbus the United States would not have been a separate state for over 500 years or more or not at all. However, despite all that Columbus did, people still fail to recognize the tribulations he undertook before he set off in his first ship. The public is unable to comprehend, despite years of education, the internal struggles and the ridicule Columbus was forced to endure for just believing in what he thought was correct (Philips 13). His courage in the face of this ridicule is what makes Columbus a national hero in that age as well as now. Christopher Columbus’ acts of perseverance, his moral courage, and his adventurous spirit continue to inspire the people of today. Through this intercourse, Christopher Columbus’ work has not ended, for it is everlasting as it persists to imbue the people of today with the ability to succeed in the face of an unknown future. Christopher Columbus’ perseverance and persistence have long been a trait of the philosophy of modern thinking. Columbus displayed high acts of persistence as he rode the waves of uncertainty to the land of success. When Columbus sought audience with King of Portugal in 1485, he was humiliatingly denied funding for his proposed idea to sail west to get to India. If Columbus had given up at this first sign of failure... ...make our decisions accordingly. Works Cited 123Holiday. "Christopher Columbus Biography." Columbus Day. Microsoft Encarta, 2 May 2003. Web. 27 Nov. 2010 http://columbusday.123holiday.net/christopher_columbus.html. Cohen, J.M. (1969) The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Being His Own Log- Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narrative Drawn from the Life of the Admiral by His Son Hernando Colon and Others. London UK: Penguin Classics. Davidson, Miles H. (1997) Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined, Norman and London, University of Oklahoma Press. Khurana, Simran. "Quotations: Hope." Quotes Quotations. 2001. Web. 27 Nov. 2010. . Phillips, W. D. and C. R. Phillips (1992) The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Eulogy for Grandmother :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Grandmother My grandmother was a strong woman. No matter how strained my families’ relationship could be at times, I loved her unconditionally. She was the woman who would buy me gallons of ice cream and soda frustrating my mother to no end. Whenever I spent the night she would let me stay up as late as I wanted watching TV. Crossing the street to my grandparents’ house was a daily event, which I looked forward to every morning I woke up. There was the day when my Mom had to many things to do to take me to see the Clydesdale Horses. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time. I had spent the whole day moping around the farm not telling anyone why I was so upset. To cheer me up grandma took me with her to drop off Woodruff, one of the farm hands who lived in town. I lay in the back of her huge station wagon, crying to myself as we past Main Street. Woodruff was hearing impaired, he also lacked the ability to effectively speak. Somehow he communicated to grandmother something was wrong. Needless to say my grandmother dropped Woodruff off and marched me down to Main Street to see those horses. Like a good grandmother should, she spoiled her grandson to no end. In a way she really shaped who I was to become. Around 12 I wanted to start skateboarding so badly. My mother would not allow it. I secretly saved money to buy a used set up from an older kid in school. My grandmother, although completely against the idea of me doing it, hid my board in her closet every day for weeks until she finally told my mom I was skating. Anyone who knows me realizes that skating pretty much shaped my teen years and even early adulthood. I can’t think about who I am today without thinking of her. She brought me to the hospital more times then I can count. If it wasn’t asthma it was for some type of stitches. Once she calmly picked me up after phoning to tell her I put an Ax in my leg. She was calm and collective the entire time. She was never judgmental about it, I am sure raising her two sons wasn’t that different. She prodded me about tattoos and being vegetarian, but she always went out of her way to find me something to eat. Eulogy for Grandmother :: Eulogies Eulogy Eulogy for Grandmother My grandmother was a strong woman. No matter how strained my families’ relationship could be at times, I loved her unconditionally. She was the woman who would buy me gallons of ice cream and soda frustrating my mother to no end. Whenever I spent the night she would let me stay up as late as I wanted watching TV. Crossing the street to my grandparents’ house was a daily event, which I looked forward to every morning I woke up. There was the day when my Mom had to many things to do to take me to see the Clydesdale Horses. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time. I had spent the whole day moping around the farm not telling anyone why I was so upset. To cheer me up grandma took me with her to drop off Woodruff, one of the farm hands who lived in town. I lay in the back of her huge station wagon, crying to myself as we past Main Street. Woodruff was hearing impaired, he also lacked the ability to effectively speak. Somehow he communicated to grandmother something was wrong. Needless to say my grandmother dropped Woodruff off and marched me down to Main Street to see those horses. Like a good grandmother should, she spoiled her grandson to no end. In a way she really shaped who I was to become. Around 12 I wanted to start skateboarding so badly. My mother would not allow it. I secretly saved money to buy a used set up from an older kid in school. My grandmother, although completely against the idea of me doing it, hid my board in her closet every day for weeks until she finally told my mom I was skating. Anyone who knows me realizes that skating pretty much shaped my teen years and even early adulthood. I can’t think about who I am today without thinking of her. She brought me to the hospital more times then I can count. If it wasn’t asthma it was for some type of stitches. Once she calmly picked me up after phoning to tell her I put an Ax in my leg. She was calm and collective the entire time. She was never judgmental about it, I am sure raising her two sons wasn’t that different. She prodded me about tattoos and being vegetarian, but she always went out of her way to find me something to eat.

An Interpretation of John Keats’ To Autumn Essay

Introduction Poems by John Keats are a source of inspiration. He plays with his readers and takes them to places and times with his words. What inspiration does Keats bring? He inspire his readers to go beyond his words and discover a new world he creates. He makes his words so colorful and alive it is almost musical to the ear. When one reads Keats, he wonders what’s in his heart when he wrote his particular poem and makes him want to be in Keats world and senses. In this particular review, I tried to see Keats world of autumn from afar. A world detached, to objectively examine and look at autumn as Keats paints it with his words. I also wanted to get a perspective of Keat’s style with words, of how he uses them as a vehicle for others to journey to his world. In this same review, I tried to experience the world that Keats created and feel both the experience of his symbols and my comprehension of what he symbolizes autumn to be. The formal and thematic aspect of the poem will be commented on but this interpretation will be candid as I believe Keats wanted his poem read. 1 2 Throughout the three stanzas of the poem, Keats has maintained the ten syllable measure of each line, although, the foot measure of syllable stressed is a little slacked. As in the lines, â€Å"Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find† and some more. Reading aloud the verse, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: I could not quite place the stress of the syllables to create a rhythmic sound. I call it literary license, Keats permit his reader to make a decision and choose the way to vocalize his poem. The first stanza is vibrant and tells us of bounty. It is a direct contradiction of autumn or fall as the season is the time when trees begin to bare its leaves and fruits are scarce. But in this poem, Keats describes autumn as the climax of summer, †Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;† mist and mellow here are used as a welcoming scenario to a world filled with life and produce. The last word of the first line fruitfulness rhyming with bless on the third line and sustaining the rhythmic scale throughout the stanza gives a musical air as one reads the poem aloud. The stanza tells us also of a promise of continuity. â€Å"To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells with a sweet kernel; to set budding more, and still more, later flowers for the bees,† true to the rhythm of his verses, Keats described autumn as a time when seeds are planted for life to continue. It tells as of a beginning of a season, fresh and ready for a new experience in a manner where the season before it, which is summer, in the festivities of plenty and not as a dying season ready to be forgotten and left behind. Autumn in Keats† dedication receives Summer’s gift of plenty, it began as a climax of summer and therefore, promise to be a season 3 of new discoveries and not as bleak as shedding away the leaves of trees to forgetfulness. In the second stanza, the word flowers does not rhyme with any other words at the end of each line. I need to read the poem aloud and discover a rhythm for it to make the poem alive, it gets into a perfect rhyme with the word â€Å"spares’ if that’s where I put the measure at the end of the first line, thus, â€Å" Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares / the next swath and all its twined flowers.† The same with the last two lines of the second stanza, â€Å"Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,† by simply repeating the word, the seemingly ignored rhyme is captured. This is my personal preference of setting the rhythmic pattern of vocalizing the poem, although, the rhyme pattern of the three stanzas comes out to be ababacacaaa, ababcdecdde, and ababcdecdde, in this particular order. It can be observed that the first stanza follows an independent rhyme pattern from the other two stanzas. Keats may have done it intentionally to stress the change of tone of the second stanza that is presented as a question. Why could Keats have done this? As I get absorbed in the autumn scenario of the first stanza, feeling the cool air and seeing laden apple trees bend, the mossed cottage, the vines and more, feeling the climax of summer shared into the start of autumn, and as I get lost to the world that Keats painted with his words, somebody shoots a question like, †Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?† and I was reminded that I am not alone. It was not even a question in the sense that Keats emphasized the beauty of the season being one that cannot be ignored. If he likened autumn as a stage of life’s journey and we choose the paths that we travel on, in the roads we took as we travel in this world, we met people to keep us company, 4 sometimes partway, the greatest thing maybe is to find beauty in life that keeps us company all through the journey. Reading the second stanza brings another question to my mind. What do I really seek for in this life? Why does Keats made me ask this when he wrote, â€Å"Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,† What Keats said in this line is that there are people who sought for things in this life away from where they really are and in fact, what they are seeking for is just within reach. Very clearly he meant happiness, he meant beauty of living, the beauty of living in the here and now. Keats wanted to tell his readers that we need not wait for what we can achieve in the future to experience the joy of being alive. We need only to be aware of the blessings we could find in the present to feel that joy that we seek for in our journey. The third stanza is a validation of the second stanza both in form and interpretation. I noticed that both have the same rhyme pattern and both starts with a question. It tells us of men looking out for joy too far out as in spring in autumn failing to notice that joy is just within reach. â€Å":Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?†, Keats wanted us to know that in this life’s journey, happiness is not about the things we reap in the future but of finding happiness in every endeavor that we do without waiting for whatever fruits or rewards we earned as a result of our works. He tells us that like spring or summer or winter, autumn carries within itself its own music like the wailful choir of small gnats, the loud bleats of full-grown lambs, the songs of crickets, the whistles from garden croft, the twitter of the swallows. Keats wanted his readers to discover them. The choice of the word â€Å"wailful†, the reader can almost hear the liquid fall of tears of the gnats† mournful music. Sad, yet in Keats world of words 5 they represented life’s emotions that eventually gives meaning to everyone’s existence. He pictures autumn’s soft dying day with rosy hue and not with the bleak grey or the dying blackness of the welcoming dark, but of shades of the rose, full of life, full of promise, perhaps of another day ahead, a goodnights sleep, a beautiful dream, a walk in the moon? Or whatever the good life brings in the third part of man’ life. The poem is not necessarily strict with the academic form of the poem although as much as possible Keats wanted to adhere to the scholarly it dictates. In this form, the poem creates a character of free spirit and that refused to be tamed. The three stanzas o f the poem expresses a discipline. It follows a form respecting rhyme, measure, rhythm, color, and all the constituents of this form of literature. Yet, it does hesitate to lay away the conventional to express the soul of his expression as Keats diversion from the rhyming pattern to the rhyming pattern he followed on the second and third stanza. The syllabic measure of the words spares and flowers are left to the decision of the reader, making the reader an active participant to the interpretation of the poem. The three parts of the poem suggest the three stages of man’s life at a point of view, being at birth and early life, maturity and finally at the golden old age of man. But Keats only suggest, because all three speaks of seeking the joy of finding the beauty that life brings. The poem itself, as a form, is music to the ears. His play of rhythm, rhyme, and choice of words, in the context of emotionally attaching the self during its vocalization is like listening to the music of nature. The poem vividly expressed the colors of autumn using nature’s characters as in â€Å"rosy hue†. It does not boast with lengthy lines, numerous stanzas, academic words to express the simplicity of enjoying life, in life’s term. 6 Conclusion The poem â€Å"To Autumn† is a metaphor. Keats represented the season as man’s objects of his endeavors. In the same manner, the times of the seasons’ days represented man’s three stages in life. Why has Keats chosen autumn to represent ingredients of life’s journey? Maybe because of the colors it creates as the season journeys towards another. Maybe because autumn carries with itself the fruitful harvest of summer and links itself to the preparation winter does for a new life in spring. All these are speculations, and these speculations made me look into my life and my attitudes towards life as a journey. A lot of interpretations had considered â€Å"To Autumn† as one of the greatest odes that Keats had written. â€Å"Written in September of 1819, this piece is regarded as his most achieved ode.† 1. If all forms of writing, in different degrees of exertions aims to manipulate the reader’s mind to a certain mode of thoughtfulness, then Keats’ has manipulated mine into a romantic mode of communing with nature as a tool of reflection. He has vividly painted a picture of a season with words so successfully so that its form takes life and invited its readers to experience the joys of the season. It invited everyone to forget about worrying so much about future and take the joys of life in the here and now. 1 Analysis of Keats’ Poem To Autumn Essay. http://exampleesays.com/viewpaper/?wid=1795

Pestel Analysis of Coca Cola

Discuss the PESTEL changes of an organization over the last decade. PESTEL Analysis for Coke Coca-Cola, the largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of beverage concentrates and syrups in the world. Coca-Cola is recognized as the world’s most valuable brand. They market four of the world’s top five non-alcoholic sparkling brands, including diet and light beverages, mineral water, enhanced waters, juices and juice drinks, teas, coffees and energy and sport drinks. Through the world’s largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the company’s beverages at a rate of approximately 1. billion servings each day. The Company generates revenues, income and cash flows by selling beverage concentrates and syrups as well as finished beverages. [pic] Even Coca Cola, the worlds’ largest beverage company has to consider about their macro environment and its opportunities and threats. They too have to analyze their Politic al, Economical, Social Environment and Legal Factors in order to catch up with the fast changing world. Political Analysis Non-alcoholic beverages fall within the food category under the FDA. The government plays a role within the operation of manufacturing these products in terms of regulations. There are potential fines set by the government on companies if they do not meet a standard of laws. The following are some of the factors that could cause Coca-Cola Company’s actual results to differ materially from the expected results describes in their underlying company’s forward statement:- Changes in laws and regulations, including changes in accounting standards, taxation requirements, (including tax rate changes, new tax laws and revised ax law interpretations) and environmental laws in domestic or foreign jurisdictions. Changes in the non-alcoholic business environment. These include, without limitation, competitive product and pricing pressures and their ability to gain or maintain share of sales in the global market as a result of action by competitors. Political conditions, especially in international markets, including civil unrest, government changes and restriction on the ability to transfer capital across borders. Their ability to penetrate developing and emerging markets, which also depends on economic and political conditions, and how well they are able to acquire or form strategic business alliances with local bottlers and make necessary infrastructure enhancements to production facilities, distribution networks, sales equipment and technology. A threat that the Coca-Cola Company had to face recently due to the changes in the political factors was the War against Iraq made USA and UK very unpopular in Middle East as well as in other Muslim countries. Because Coca-Cola is known as the very American company, this had a huge effect on the sales of its products. Economical Analysis Last year the US economy was strong and nearly every part of it was growing and doing well. However, things changed. Most economists loosely define a recession as two consecutive quarters of contraction, or negative GDP growth. In 2008, we are witnessing a global economic crisis which was suggested by several important indicators of economic downtown worldwide. These included high oil prices, which led to both high food prices (due to a dependence of food production on petroleum, as well as using food crop products such as ethanol as an alternative to petroleum) and global inflation; a substantial credit crisis leading to the bankruptcy of large and well established investment banks as well as commercial banks in various nations around the world; increased unemployment; and the possibility of a global recession. As the inflation rate grows higher and higher, consumer buying power will represent a key threat in the industry. The rivalry between Pepsi and Coke has produce a very slow moving industry in which management must continuously respond to the changing attitudes and demands of their consumers or face losing market share to the competition. In addition, consumers can easily switch to the other beverages with little cost or consequence. Social Analysis Many people nowadays are practicing healthier lifestyles. This has affected the non-alcoholic beverage industry in that many are switching to bottled water and diet colas instead of beer and other alcoholic beverages. The need for bottled water and other more convenient and healthy products are in important in the average day-to-day life. Possible substitutes that continuously put pressure on Coke include tea, coffee, juices, milk and hot chocolate. Consumers from the ages of 37 to 55 are also increasingly concerned with nutrition. There is a large population of the age range known as the baby boomers. Since many are reaching an older age in life they are becoming more concerned with increasing their longevity. This will continue to affect the non-alcoholic beverage industry by increasing the demand overall and in the healthier beverages. Increasing awareness among consumers, public health professionals and government agencies of the potential health problems associated with obesity and inactive lifestyles represents a significant challenge to the Coca-Cola industry. The company has recognized that obesity is a complex public health problem. Their commitment to consumers begins with the company’s broad product line, which includes a wide selection of diet and light beverages, uices and juice drinks, sports drinks and water products. Coke has hot lot of sugar by which continuous drinking of Coca-Cola may cause health problems. Being addicted to Coca-Cola also is a health problem because drinking of it has an effect on your body after few years. Technological Analysis The effectiveness of company’s advertising, marketing and promotional programs. The e new technology of internet and tv which use specific effects for advertising through media. They make some products look attractive. This helps in selling of the products. This advertising makes the product attractive and is being used in media to sell their products. As the technology is getting advanced there has been introduction of new machineries all the time. Due to introduction of this machineries the production of the Coca-Cola company has increased tremendously then it was few years ago. A latest technical achievements made by the Coca-Cola Company was the new environmentally friendly version of the iconic â€Å"Coca-Cola† Contour bottle which has won number of awards for its light weight. Environmental Analysis The Coca-Cola system’s environmental commitments are focused on the areas in which they have the most significant opportunities to make a difference – water stewardship, sustainable packaging and energy management and climate protection. In 2007, the company used approximately 300 billion liters of water in their plants to produce beverages. To meet their water needs while helping to conserve watersheds and improve community water access; water stewardship leads the list of the companies’ sustainability efforts. In 2007, Coca-Cola announced their aspirational goal to return to communities and nature, an amount of water equal to what is used in the company’s beverages and their production. Coca-Cola calls this water neutrality. Coca-Cola vision is to advance a packaging framework in which their packaging is no longer seen as waste, but instead as a valuable resource for future use. To realize this zero waste vision, they have been guided by a commitment to continuous improvement. They continues to make strides by advancing packaging initiatives focus on reduce, recover and reuse. They invested in designing and producing sustainable fashion apparel made from recycled PET bottles too. Legal Changes Analysis Marketing decisions are strongly affected by developments in the political and legal environment. This environment is composed of laws, government agencies and pressure groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals. Sometimes these laws also create new opportunities for business. Here are some legal affairs that Coca-Cola had to face recently: The European Commission has alerted EU member countries to ban Coca-Cola drinks because of recent poisoning of 100 children in Belgium and cause seems to be the wrong carbon dioxide which was used in the soft drinks. In 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) a non-governmental organization, said Coca-Cola contained toxins including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyifos – pesticides that can contribute to cancer and a breakdown of the immune system.

Production function

No matter the objective of any business organization, achievement of efficiency in production or cost minimization for a given production activity appear to be one of the prime concern of the managers In the manager's effort to minimize production costs, the fundamental questions he or she faces are: (f) How can production be optimized or costs minimizes? (g) What will be the behavior of output as inputs increase? (h) How does technology help In reducing production costs? 0) How can the least-cost combination of Inputs be achieved? J) Given the technology, what happens to the rate of return when more plants are added to the firm? The Theory of Production Production theory generally deals with quantitative relationships, that is, technical and technological relationships between inputs, especially labor and capital, and between inputs and outputs. An Input Is a good or service that goes Into the production process. As economists refer to It, an Input Is simply anything which a firm bu ys for use In Its production process. An output, on the other hand, is any good or service that comes out of a production process.Economists classified inputs as (I) labor; (II) capital; land; (iv) raw materials; and, (v) time. These variables are measured per unit of time and once referred to as flow variables. In recent times, entrepreneurship has been added as part of the production Inputs, though this can be measured by the managerial expertise and the ability to make things happen. Inputs are classified as either fixed or variable Inputs. Fixed and variable inputs are defined in both economic sense and technical sense. In economic sense, a fixed input is one whose supply is inelastic in the short run.In technical sense, a fixed input is one that remains fixed (or constant) for certain level of output. A variable input is one whose supply in the short run is elastic, example, labor, raw terrestrial, and the like. Users of such inputs can employ a larger quantity in the short run . Technically, a variable Input Is one that changes with changes In output. In the long run, all Inputs are variable 3. 1 The Production Function Production function is a tool of analysis used in explaining the input-output relationship. It describes the technical relationship between inputs and output in physical terms.In its general form, it holds that production of a given commodity depends on certain specific Inputs. In Its specific form, it presents the quantitative relationships between Inputs and outputs. A production function may take the form f a schedule, a graph line or a curve, an algebraic equation or a mathematical model. The production function represents the technology of a firm. An empirical production function is generally so complex to include a wide range of inputs: land, labor, capital, raw materials, time, and technology.These variables form the Independent variables In a firm's actual production function. A firm's long- run production function Is of the form: where Old = land and building; L = labor; K = capital; M = materials; T = technology; and, t = time. For sake of convenience, economists have reduced the number of variables used in a reduction function to only two: capital (K) and labor (L). Therefore, in the analysis of input-output relations, the production function is expressed as: Q = f(K, L) (3. 1. 2) Equation (3. . 2) represents the algebraic or mathematical form of the production function. It is this form of production function which is most commonly used in production analysis. As implied by the production function (equation (3. 1. 2)), increasing production, Q, will require K and L, and whether the firm can increase both K and L or only L will depend on the time period it takes into account for increasing production, that is, whether he firm is thinking in terms of the short run or in terms of the long run.Economists believe that the supply of capital (K) is inelastic in the short run and elastic in the long run. Thus, in the short run firms can increase production only by increasing labor, since the supply of capital is fixed in the short run. In the long run, the firm can employ more of both capital and labor, as the supply of capital becomes elastic over time. In effect, there exists two types of production functions: The short-run production function; and, The long-run production function

Armco Inc. †Midwestern Steel Division Essay

Armco Inc is a steel manufacturer that used to be the sixth largest in its industry in United States in 1990. The Kansas City Works within its Midwestern Steel Division was hit by the decline in the business in the US steel industry. The firm produces grinding media and carbon wire rod. The first one has been successful in the industry with its great durability compared to the competitors. Carbon wire rods on the other hand were non profitable and covered only some of its fixed costs through its production volume. The old performance measurement system used by Armco Inc did not work properly because it had some problems. First, it did not provide information on the product mix being produced while it provided data on total tonnage produced but didn’t breakdown what was produced. Second the measurement system compared actual to objective but didn’t provide data on what factors exactly caused variance. Third, the costs were not broken down by fixed costs, variable costs a nd relevant range. Also the reports were generated on the 15th day following every month ending so I think managers could not take immediate corrective actions which would have been sometimes very necessary. In my opinion, also the fact that the system did not measure Key Performance Index for each department such as the new system, is one important reason why the old system was inadequate. Even if the operating managers liked the old system, the new system was necessary. The operating managers may have liked the old system probably because it is understandable that no one likes to be moved out of their familiar comfort zone after many years. In my opinion the greatest weakness of the old system is that the data it provides isn’t clear enough and it is quite difficult to read and understand properly. The new system for instance proposes to focus on ten different measures. The measures have exact â€Å"goals† which is positive. It is also good point that with the new system production managers were no longer held accountable for all costs incurred. It has to be said that the implementation of the process of the new system was done so fast that the top managers could not train other managers to use the new system. I think this was quite a problem. Some actions or changes could be recommended for the new system. For example in my opinion it would probably be good to specify the fixed and variable costs so that managers could have an idea of the differences of each type of costs. Also the proper training supply for the managers would be more than important thing to do. Because there were some uncontrollable factors which affected significantly the production process I think Armco Inc could try to ask some energy companies to diagnose the transformer failures and figure out if there were any other ways to fix the problem permanently. They also could consider having some generators to back up the possible power failures so that the production would not stop suddenly. I read the documentary twice and made some notes about the key points. Then I tried to figure out the problems and the possible conclusions to them. I learned about the importance of proper measurement system and the importance of the functional training program for the managers if there are any changes in the important practices of the firm.