natural resources of the u.s essays

natural resources of the u.s essays Natural Resources of the United States We should be very proud to live in the United States. Our country has a vast variety of natural resources which we enjoy each and every day. This countrys natural resources lay in a delicate balance. If we interrupt this balance, we could destroy nature, our prosperity, or the world. Natural resources such as coal, natural gas, oil, and water are critical to our existance as a people. For example, our homes are heated by precious natural gas, our automobiles are fueled by gas as well. Coal and oil are raw materials with which we make other materials. Finally, water has always been vital to us each day in more ways than we realize. We need to drink clean water. Our culture uses water to clean, wash, and lubricate. The countrys natural resources have been present in the earth since the beginning of time. In the very top layer of the earth, we find most of the earths natural resources. These include water, plants, wood, and animals. Just below the earths surface we find minerals, such as gypsum, magnesium, peat and iron ore. We use these raw materials to combine with other minerals or metals to produce some of the worlds finest products. Special minerals such as gold, silver, and diamonds are nestled deeper down in the earths crust. Precious natural resources found in the bottom of the earths crust in- clude, oil, gas, and coal which we use for fuel. As one would guess, much of our nations natural resources are located in the great state of Texas. Texas is the nations wealthiest mineral producer. The economy is dominated by the abundant energy resources. The state is the leading U.S. source of natural gas and second largest U.S. oil producer. Other important minerals include helium, salt, sulfur, sodium sulfate, and clays. Major industries include oil refining and the manufacture of machinery, transportation equip...

English as a Native Language (ENL)

English as a Native Language (ENL) Definition: The variety of the English language spoken by people who acquired English as their first language or mother tongue. English as a Native Language (ENL) is commonly distinguished from English as an Additional Language (EAL), English as a Second Language (ESL), and English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Native Englishes include American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Irish English,  New Zealand English, Scottish English, and Welsh English. In recent years, the proportion of ENL speakers has steadily declined while the use of English in ESL and EFL regions has rapidly increased. Observation A wide variety of countries, such as Australia, Belize, Canada, Jamaica, the United Kingdom and the United States, speak English as a native language (ENL). ENL countries are established when large numbers of English speakers migrate from other English speaking countries, displacing other languages, both local and immigrant. Other countries, such as Fiji, Ghana, India, Singapore, and Zimbabwe  use English as a second language (ESL). In ESL countries the language is imported during a colonial period and promoted through education, but there is not a massive migration of native English speakers.(Roger M. Thompson,  Filipino English and Taglish. John Benjamins, 2003) ENL Varieties English varies markedly from one ENL territory to another, and often from one region to another within heavily populated countries such as the US and UK, a state of affairs which, as travelers know well, can lead to problems of intelligibility. In the UK, for example, there are significant differences of accent, grammar, and vocabulary between Anglophone visitors to London and many of the local people (speakers of Cockney and near-Cockney), as well as in Scotland, where many people routinely mix Scots and English. In the US, there are significant differences between many speakers of African-American (or Black) English and what is sometimes called mainstream English. . . . It is therefore risky to classify a territory as ENL and leave it at that, the ENLhood of a place being no guarantee whatever of unhampered communication in English.(Tom McArthur, The English Languages. Cambridge University. Press, 1998) Standards of English Standard English is typically seen as correct and grammatical, while non-standard dialects are seen as wrong and ungrammatical, regardless of whether the speaker or the speakers ancestors spoke English as a native language. Disapproval of non-standard varieties is not the prerogative of the formerly colonized. The reason that Singapore has had a Speak Good English Movement and India does not is that Singapore has a highly informal contact variety, usually known as Singlish, which has no parallel in India.(Anthea Fraser Gupta, Standard English in the World. English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles, ed. by Rani Rubdy and Mario Saraceni. Continuum, 2006) Pronunciation ​It is obvious that interdialectal contact tends to speed up phonological change, and new social norms can easily change the acceptability of formerly stigmatized pronunciations: innovation is therefore to be generally expected in ENL communities. By contrast, ESL societies are likely to be characterized by interference phenomena and overgeneralization, and therefore exhibit innovation (of different types)unless these local features are criticized as deviances when compared with an external standard, say the educated speech of the South of England. (Manfred Gà ¶rlach, Still More Englishes. John Benjamins, 2002)

Environmental Archaeology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Environmental Archaeology - Essay Example Most studies, since the ancient times, have indicated that increased human activities on the environment have led to environmental degradation and transformation. However, this paper presents environmental, archeological view that lack of human activities on the environment leads to land degradation and transformation. Since the ancient periods, it is highly believed that increased human activities on the environment have caused environmental transformation and degradation. Almost all human activities have either positive or negative effect on the environment. For example, all types of pollutions are because of human activity. The pronounced sources of pollution are water pollution, air pollution, and farming (Chambers, 2004). Farming is one of the main causes of environmental degradation and pollution. This is because most farmers are determined to practice only one form of animal husbandry, and produce a single crop. This is believed to fuel the loss of biodiversity since natural f orests are cleared to create space for these human activities. Clearing of land exposes the soil surface to rainfall and surface run-offs, which causes soil erosion (Chambers, 2004). In addition, cleared forests reduce the amount of natural habitat available for wildlife. Unlike the traditional assumptions that increased human activity leads to environmental degradation and transformation, â€Å"culture-centric† perspective on the environmental archeology argues that lack of human activities leads to environmental degradation and transformation (Chris, 2003). Deforestation caused through human activities, such as logging and burning, is at times beneficial to both plants and animals. Animals, plants, and trees naturally recover from burnt forests if the space is not occupied by human settlements. Birds such as woodpeckers survive well in freshly burned areas more than thickets where they feed on insects that occupy the burned area (Hall & Harry, 2006). In addition, seed dispe rsion is enhanced through human activities such as the search for food. Trees like lodgepole produce serrotonous cones. These cones are fused shut, and they only burst when burnt. Wildfires set by human burn these cones, thereby spreading their seeds into burnt areas with little competition (Hall & Harry, 2006). After 20 years of growth, the burned area soon becomes fully occupied by medium-height lodgepole pines. An example of such area is Yellowstone National Park (Chambers, 2004). This, therefore, indicates human activities such as deforestation can enhance dispersion of seeds from one area to another, thus the spread of plant and tree species. Human’s ability to confine wild animals into specific areas has also created order in the environment. Wild animals are an integral part of the natural environment, and their existence creates a balance in the ecosystem. However, due to dynamic environmental degradations and transformations, human realized the need to conserve the w ild animals in parks and zoos to protect them from drought and poaching among other factors (Rashid et al, 2005). Through conservation, animals are protected from the loss of habitat, climatic changes, hunting, natural calamities, pollution, over-exploitation, pesticides, and toxic chemicals (Rashid et al, 2005). This has ensured successful utilization of available natural resources by regulating the rate of competition among the animals, and protecting them from external threats (Rashid et al, 2

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 125

Assignment Example Anyone can love anything; the sphere of loving someone or something is not limited. To love and to be loved is the greatest joy that is considered by many people around us. Love is different from lust. Love defines the purity of emotions towards a person whereas lust is centered towards the fulfillment of one’s sexual desires (James Giles). Therefore, it can be said that there is nothing as pure as a mother’s love for her child which is free of any returns and response from the child. Different people think differently about what freedom is. For some people freedom is a name of free will, while others believe that expression of thoughts, ideas and speech is the freedom. There are also few people who believe that freedom lies in doing whatever one wants without analyzing its influence on the lives of other people. In true meaning, freedom extends liberty to a person in a restricted sphere where one should not damage the laws and customs of the society. Freedom is conveying your message and showing your actions to others, the way you want to without pressurizing other people to follow your commandments. Freedom is gaining control over your actions and speech without any

Arousal Theories Essay Example for Free

Arousal Theories Essay During the rallies, you could see that their arousal levels were increasing because he kept hitting the shuttle harder and harder each time and because he is in the autonomous stage of learning, as arousal levels increased, so did their performance as they won most rallies. Theory: Drive theory – this theory states that as arousal levels increase, so does performance/dominant response. With cognitive learners, their dominant response is usually incorrect, so low arousal levels work best as their dominant response is decreased. With athletes in the autonomous stage, their dominant response is usually correct, so high arousal levels work best as their performance increases. Inverted U theory At low levels of arousal, performance will be below par, the athlete is not psyched up. As arousal increases so does performance, up to an optimal point. After this point, further increases in arousal lead to declines in performance. Each athlete has their own optimal level of arousal. Optimal arousal is higher for more simple tasks and lower for more complex tasks. An increase in arousal causes improvement in performance up to an optimal point (moderate arousal level). After this point, increased arousal leads to deteriorated performance. Catastrophe theory – like the inverted U theory, catastrophe theory claims that as somatic arousal increases then the quality of performance improves. Performance will reach maximum potential at the optimum level only if cognitive arousal anxiety is kept low. If high cognitive anxiety coincides with high somatic arousal the athlete will go beyond the optimum level of arousal and is thought to have gone over the edge, where performance drops shown by a vertical line on the graph. After this, the performer can rejoin the upward curve of arousal and gain the optimal threshold again, to do this they have to lower cognitive anxiety.

Attitudes to War in Dulce et Decorum est and Drummer Hodge. Essay

Attitudes to War in Dulce et Decorum est and Drummer Hodge. Life wasn't easy for soldiers in the war as Wilfred Owen and Thomas Hardy express strongly in their legendary poems 'Dulce et Decorum est' and 'Drummer Hodge'. Peter Porter writes about the situation people may find themselves in when in, his poem 'Your Attention Please', he describes an announcement concerning a nuclear Rocket Strike. Wilfred Owen died at the age of 25 and was killed seven days before the end of World War 1. He is regarded as one of the most well-known war poets of the 20th Century, having written an astonishing 110 poems. Under the influence of Romantic, early 19th Century poets such as Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley, Owen produced 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' which revealed the truth behind war, the grief and suffering caused. Wilfred Owen wanted to dismiss the idea of romance as a motivation to fight in the war; young men believed that fighting in the war would make them heroes and that girls would be passionate about them. Of course many men didn't have an option in the matter: wives and girlfriends chose not to stay with their man if they didn't fight in the war, so men were forced to join up. The fact that their partner wouldn't stick by them was one reason but if they didn't join the whole society would look down on them with disgrace: they weren't men if they didn't fight for their country. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" speaks about the severe drowsiness of the soldiers on their way back from the front line and the sudden panic caused when the soldiers are hit unexpectedly with a gas attack. The poem begins with a simile, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks". This indicates the extent of the load the men had to carry with... ...uses similes such as "like a man in fire or lime" where the man is in pain and is struggling to stay alive. Alliteration is used in both Owen and Hardy's poems. Most of Dulce et Decorum est is written in the 1st person perspective but many times it changes to 3rd person. When it's in 1st person it gives us the feeling of reality and truth behind the poem. In conclusion, war brings a great deal of pain and suffering so it shouldn't be under-estimated. Wilfred Owen, Thomas Hardy and Peter Porter all bring across the reality behind war and the torture it brings with it. Personally my favourite out of the three is "Dulce et Decorum est" as I know it's a true account of what happened in the war because Wilfred Owen was a soldier and died in action. I thought this poem contained a lot of discomfort and misery making it more out of the ordinary and authentic.

Mcdonalds

Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds Mcdonalds Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds Mcdonalds Introduction The organisation we are going to look in this assignment is McDonalds. McDonald’s is the leading global foodservice outlet with more than 33,500 local restaurants serving approximately 69 million people in 119 countries each day. More than 80% of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local men and  women. http://www. aboutmcdonalds. com/mcd/investors/company_profile. html McDonalds has developed its operation to a very high level of efficiency over years it has been operation.One main reason is that McDonalds keeps innovating its current process design, flows, data capture, and interactions between sections, resource allocation, process technologies and its supply chain. By looking at McDonalds, we have witnessed a culture of change due to the innovative ideas McDonalds has been coming up all the time. This company not only innovate in its operation and food production process, but it innovate every single aspect of the bu siness from physical evidence, management to the customer service.McDonalds has been working for ages on its QSC, that is quality, service and cleanliness, but they have even changed this to QSC&V where V stands for value which once again shows they do not hesitate to change. Current Process Design – Batch Processes The current process design at McDonalds would be Batch Processes McDonald's uses a batch process to cook its burgers. Adopting batch process means that the speed of delivery relies on the speed and experience of the staff working at the moment. Burgers at McDonalds are cooked on a large platen, in batches of 8 for Hamburgers, 6 for Quarter Cheese and 4 for Big Macs.Two or more batches may be cooked at one time and they can happen on various stages of cooking. This makes it important that a crew of McDonalds is required to manage the grill solely during busy time. The burgers are hand dressed which again need one crew to work on that station on busy times. When the re are two batches being done in different stages of cooking, the speed is vital to keep the production moving. Interaction between departments At McDonalds, the restaurant is divided between different sections which ould Kitchen area, indoor service area, drive thru and the dining area known as the lobby. By observing the day to day activity at a McDonald’s restaurant, you would notice that every most of the sections are related to each other, which means one section rely on the second section. For example, the service area can not finish an order until kitchen supply service with a burger. The interaction between areas (departments) could be better understood when we look at the layout observation that would follow. At McDonalds there is no individual department by its own that we can do an observation on.As service and kitchen area closely related in McDonalds, we would like to concentrate on the Service and Kitchen area as an observation. Areas at McDonalds chosen for obs ervation †¢ Kitchen †¢ Indoor Service Area In McDonalds Restaurant the layout in the kitchen has been designed in other to ensure speedy preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety, increased visibility by customers, minimised supervision. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout.McDonalds Layout – these are the main areas at McDonalds Kitchen – McDonalds restaurant Layout – Product Layout McDonalds have a product layout as we can see they have a standardise operation and repetitive  assembly  of their  products. With this layout design they are able to have a better synchronization even on the different activity line, have a better control and product planning become easier. In this type of layout, even less skill level staff can work where one particular person who will be performing the operation. There are only few changes done r arely due to standard production line up.In this layout the flow of material take place smooth and continuously. Kitchen Layout – Product Layout Steps of production – Division of Labour At McDonalds, there is a high degree of division of labour. In order to produce one hamburger, 4 staff will be required based on a McDonalds kitchen layout, where each staff will perform a particular task in making the burger as mentioned below. If we look at the production of a Hamburger based from the above diagram, its production would starts at point 1 which is the Toaster, where the buns are toasted for 35 seconds by one person working only at the toaster.During quite time they may perform two or more tasks, but at busy period, they would perform one task. After the buns have been toasted, it goes to the next level of production which is point 2 at the Dressing Table where a second person would dressed the toasted buns from the condiments already stocked up on the dressing table wh ich would take 45 seconds. At the same time the dressing starts, the person at the grill at point 3 place the frozen burger patty on the grill which is automatically set for 45 seconds. By the time the meat is ready after the 45 seconds on the grill, the dressing would be finished as well.Then the dressed toasted buns is moved from point 2 to point 3, that’s mean from the dressing table to the side of the grill where the cooked meat patty will be placed on the dressed buns. The Hamburger will then be moved to point 4 which is the production display cabinet, where the person working at the production control at point 4 will wrap the hamburger after having check for quality standards. Staff working on the service area at point 5 will then take the hamburger from the production display cabinet at point 4 to complete their order to give to the customers.Please note that other burger will also follow the same process going from point 1 to point 5. Also McDonalds has been separated in two sections which are the Beef products cooking area and Chicken products cooking area, where the process is almost the same on both side. Production on chicken side also starts at point 1. At point 1A, frozen chicken are cooked at stored directly at point 3 for assembly, this step can also take place in between production. At point 1B the buns are toasted and dressed at point 2 and the same flow continues. The Precedence diagram for the production of a hamburgerThe total production time would be 1 minutes 30 seconds for a burger to reach service. Volume variety The epitome of high volume variety hamburger production is MacDonald’s, serving more that 52million customers in more than 100contries counties round the world each day. The volume variety dimension is at the heart of its service and thus has very important implications for the way MacDonald’s operations are organized. MacDonald’s has instinctively grasped the underlying idea of through put time and thus, applied it in its Speedee Service System.The restaurant operating scheme they developed has been widely adopted and refined over the past half century. The ethos of the assembly line remains at its core. The grills at McDonald's have big steel hoods that swing down and grill hamburgers on both sides at once. The burgers, chicken, French fries, and buns are frozen when they arrive at a McDonald's. Service – At MacDonald’s the customer maximum waiting time is usually three minutes and thirty seconds and staff are advised to alert the manger for assistance if there are three or more customers per line.The new process demands that customer’s maximum line time should be 2minutes Thus, using Little’s law, Through put time = WIP x Cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Cycle time for the process = 3. 5 =1. 2 minute 3 Thus a customer should emerge from the process every 1. 2 minute on average. On the other hand, given that management requires every cu stomer to be served in every two minute, Thus the number of servers required = 2 = 2 1. 2 Hence, 2 server would be needed to serve three customers in two minutes. Every second counts.Each delay, bottleneck and unnecessary step reduces output and highlights the need for efficient workflow processes. McDonald’s has embraced the importance of managing processes, by ensuring that every second is accounted for in the making of each product. Service time is critical to McDonald’s success, as McDonald’s tries to increase customer satisfaction within the competitive fastfood industry. The plan to get food to customers quicker, and keep increasing the market share that McDonald’s won in the recession, means that each second really does matter. Process Mapping Ordering a meal at MacDonald’sTo order a meal at MacDonald’s usually it takes six service steps. (1) Greet the customer (2) Take the order (3) Receive payment (4) Assemble the order (5) Present the order (6) Thank the customer and invite them to return On the other hand work flow process will take the following shape Take order Take payment Preparation begins Customer waits Packaging and inspects If the right items are placed Customer takes food Technologies at McDonalds Today various organization are using technology is the main tool through which not only increased the efficiency level but also increase their profit and growth.In current scenario various innovative companies are thanking that how we will improve our speed and efficiency level to satisfy the customer demands. Due to market changing trends and new innovation in market, compel the operations of the organization to reshape their layout process and strategy to overcome the 21th century demand and challenges. MacDonald is the world leading innovator organization in current scenario. But there is no doubt that currently McDonald faces various challenges and problems.Today McDonald have the huge challenge that h ow to increase the speed to deliver quick food. And how McDonald will beat the queue? There are various organizations which are currently using different methods and equipment to deliver excellent service. [pic] As part of McDonald’s ever-increasing process development, the company is testing a self-serve kiosk in Europe, which may prove popular with diners seeking to customize meals and limit their time in queues. The downside may be the time needed to read the screens of choices.McDonald’s Director of operations and POS technology, Laurie Gilbert, said that the system is easy to learn and may cut as much as 10 seconds off the current workflow. Approximately 5,000 restaurants out of the company’s 32,000 locations are trialling the new software. McDonald’s currently aims to serve most customers within 90 seconds of taking their order. In order to speed up times at drive-through windows, staff at the McDonald’s Innovation Centre spent years incorpor ating an automated soda fountain that fills cups as soon as an order is placed into the workflow.When this same crew discovered that hot drinks needed more milk, they added refrigerated storage below the McCafe coffee makers to speed up efficiency. These two improved services have led to the processing of as many as five extra cars per hour in the drive-through queue. Cooking instructions are not only printed in the manual, they are often designed into the machines. A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights that tell employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands.Once an order has been placed, buttons light up and suggest other menu items that can be added. Workers at the counter are told to increase the size of an order by recommending special promotions, pushing dessert, pointing out the financial logic behind the purchase of a larger drink. While doing so, they are instructed to be up -beat and Recommendations Th ree improvements that can be introduced in McDonalds Even though McDonalds has always looked forward towards innovation, there are still some areas of improvement on which I would like to discuss below.McDonalds has two main channel of delivering food to its customers. One is from counter and the second one is Drive Thru. The always busy counters and a huge number of cars spending around 3 to 5 minutes in the drive thru has forced a part of the fast food market not to eat in McDonalds. McDonalds should be coming with concrete solution to get people serve quicker than before. Front Counter Service – Self Ordering kiosk – In every McDonalds outlet In every restaurant the self ordering kiosk should be introduced.Here customers can save the queue and instead order their food from self-ordering boots, that is they enter which ever food they like from the menu and pay to the machine and obtain an ordering number and wait for their number to be called at a collection point. T he advantage from this method would saving the decision and ordering time people take at the till and making people wait behind. Even having 4 kiosks would be quicker than 4 tills as ordering time will be save, and the staff who was suppose to take an order, can actually assemble the order in the meantime customers are ordering by themselves.The factors that would make this happened would be a high investment from McDonalds. Whereas there will the issue of staff retraining, time for customers getting used to it and more importantly, the McDonalds staff to be able to make this system possible in much quicker way compared to till system. – Online ordering This method is can work with conjunction with the 1st system discussed above. Customers can place an order online and they can spend as long as they wish in selecting the right food they wish to buy and they can just bring the order number at the restaurant to pay for their order.They only need to go to a counter or self-servi ce kiosk to pay using the code. Yet again, customer do not need to queue for long as the decision time and ordering time no more exist at the restaurant. So the 2 minutes in line time will be eliminated. From ordering online, I have not recommended that people can the facility to pay for their food online and receive a code which can be presented at a counter of kiosk. Reason behind that would be, if customers pay online, McDonalds would not know what time the foods will be collected.This will result into cold food being left waiting and as per the policy of McDonalds, the food should be wasted after 10 minutes holding time. This would also increase the food waste, thus increase cost. This can only happen if McDonalds adopt this process in all its outlets which in return will allow customers to see this as an standard and get used to it. Drive Thru – Fast lane and Online ordering Drive Thru at McDonalds is another main area of the restaurants from which McDonalds is making mo re than 50% of its sales per day.The main problem in the drive thru is that more and more people are driving in the McDonalds drive thru per hour to buy their fast food. This is resulting in longer service time because every extra second a car has to wait for the next cars to get served; in return it is increasing the queuing time, thus creating a bottle neck. As suggested above for eat in customers that can order online and use their order number to pay at counters or use in a self-service kiosk, the same method could be applied for drive thru customers.Instead of ordering on the arrival to the drive thru, customers can present their order number and pay at the cashier on drive thru. This will certainly reduce the total experience time. Even customers have order online they will still need to wait in the queue together with those cars that have ordered place their order on drive thru. In this situation, to keep the online customers move quicker, a fast lane can be introduced. Actua lly in the all the new drives thru at McDonalds, there are two lanes which allow customers to place order in any lane of their choice.But by introducing the fast lane, one of the lanes can be used for online customers, which would definitely make the process quicker. Kitchen Kitchen is one of the important parts of McDonalds that have a direct impact on the quality and speed. The longer kitchen takes to get a burger to service, the longer it takes a customer to get served. To have fresh food served all day long, it depends on the way dressing condiments and other raw food are used and stored. At McDonalds, the shelves lives of products are vital.That’s means, the holding time of raw products. For example, cheese is kept on the dressing table for only 2hours and fresh onions are kept for 1 hour. After the holding time of the condiments has elapse, kitchen staffs have to restock the kitchen with fresh stock. This process is a time consuming process and during busy time it becom e very difficult and complex. Kitchen staff could have used that time in producing burgers at the busy times. – Automated stocking up of dressing tableOur proposal to that situation would be to have automated stocking up of the dressing table by having the containers of condiments to automatically flip upside down discarding the out of holding time condiments under the dressing table bins. On the other hand fresh condiments could be automatically poured on dressing table containers. The condiments to go on the dressing table can be kept in a built-in cooler over the dressing table. This proposed system would eliminate the whole hourly stocking up; in fact just few heavy stock-up of the dressing table built cooler can maintain stock for the whole day. Automated dressing In the current situation, crew in McDonalds normally dress each burger manually even though a maximum of 8 burger buns can be toasted at the same time in one toaster. Here I would suggest special trays with 8 s mall holes that can keep the buns in one place until the final process. As the buns has been toasted, they should be taken out and place in an automated condiment dispenser, for example for a Ham Burger, the automated condiment dispenser will dispense ketchup, mustard, onion and pickle, all one by one.This saves someone from dressing each and every burger manually. Moreover all the burgers will be dress to the same standard and with exact amount of condiments. Here the food coast can be easily managed and even labour cost. Factors that would make this happen would be a good planning from the McDonalds managements. This will cost very high as completely new equipment should be introduced. The factor that could hinder this project would be a high maintenance cost, as they should be calibrated regularly in order to have proper amount of condiment dispensed. Training cost would also be high.And the most important would be to decrease the number of staff as work will be automated. Refere nces: http://www. mcdonalds. com/us/en/food/food_quality/trends_innovation. html http://www. forbes. com/2007/08/31/christensen-innovation-mcdonalds-pf-guru_in_cc_0904christensen_inl. html http://www. financetwitter. com/2011/05/mcdonalds-new-buying-experience-touch-screen-kiosk. html http://foodbelfast. com/2011/05/mci-robot/#. UKVlpocz35S http://alison. com/topic/learn/1312/24838/operations-management-strategies/operations-management-strategies-facilities-layout-planning http://www. llfreepapers. com/print/McDonalds–Burger-King/3827. html ———————– Office Toaster For Ham Burger Buns Toaster QtrCheese Dressing Table Ham Burger /QtrChesse Grill Ham Burger Grill Quarter Cheese 1 2[pic] 3 Product Display Cabinet 4 Service DriveThru 5A 5B Dressing/ Assembling Table Toaster Chicken Buns Chicken Products Fryers 1B 2[pic] Cooked Chicken Holding Cabinet 3 4 1A Toaster 1 35 secs Dressing2 45 secs Display 4 10 secs Grill 3 45 secs 1 35 Seconds 2+3 45 Seconds 4 10 Seconds

Problem of Good and Evil

How can a God who is both omnipotent and good allow evil in the world? 12/2/09 For Christians, evil can be a problem because non-believers can use it as a way to attack Christianity. The first thing they might say is if there is evil, then God must not be good or omnipotent because he is allowing it. Yes, God allows evil in the world, but evil does not come from God. Evil comes directly from Satan. We see this in the book of Matthew, vs. 1-11, where Satan tries to tempt Jesus.Another way an non-believer ay discredit Christianity is saying that because there is evil, God doesn't exist. This is definitely false. God does exist and we know because the Bible says so. We also can see the results of his power. Some examples of that are when Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and God parted the waters of the red sea so they could get through, but he closed them over the Egyptians and they were wiped out. Another example is the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, in M ark 5: 5-34, and with one touch of Jesus' robe, was healed.This is Just a little taste of God's power over evil. Finally, non-believers could say that God is no better than pagan gods, but he is real and here to save us. God hates evil, but Adam sinned which caused evil in mankind, and he had to bear the consequences of his disobedience against God. The Bible shows us that God is both omnipotent and good. God is omnipotent which means all-powerful. In Luke 1 :37, it says â€Å"For nothing is impossible with God. There isn't anything that God can't do.Also in Rev. 19:6, it states â€Å"Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Omnipotent reigns'. In that verse, we see God directly described using that word. Now on the other hand, God is good. How can we define good? That is difficult to do. My definition of good is: â€Å"Having desirable or positive qualities. â⠂¬  God is good to his people, and everything he has created.Psalm 136:1, a passage about God's goodness, says, â€Å"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. † Another passage is from Psalm 34:8, which says â€Å"O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusts in him. † This verse is saying that if you let God in your life, you will see that he can provide only good things for you. He will not bring evil your way. God may cause trials in your life, but that is only because he wants to produce perseverance, as said in James.

Niobium (Columbium) Chemical and Physical Properties

Niobium (Columbium) Chemical and Physical Properties Niobium, like tantalum, can act as an electrolytic valve allowing alternating current to pass in only one direction through an electrolytic cell. Niobium is used in arc-welding rods for stabilized  grades of stainless steel. It is also used in advanced airframe  systems. Superconductive magnets are made with Nb-Zr wire, which retains superconductivity in strong magnetic fields. Niobium is used in lamp filaments and to make jewelry. It is capable of being colored by an electrolytic process. Niobium (Columbium)  Basic Facts Atomic Number: 41Symbol: Nb (Cb)Atomic Weight: 92.90638Discovery: Charles Hatchet 1801 (England)Electron Configuration: [Kr] 5s1 4d4 Word Origin:  Greek mythology: Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, as niobium is often associated with tantalum. Formerly known as Columbium, from Columbia, America, the original source of niobium ore. Many metallurgists, metal societies, and commercial producers still use the name Columbium. Isotopes: 18 isotopes of niobium are known. Properties: Platinum-white with a bright metallic luster, although niobium takes on a bluish cast when exposed to air at room temperatures for a long time. Niobium is ductile, malleable, and highly resistant to corrosion. Niobium does not naturally occur in the free state; it is usually found with tantalum. Element Classification: Transition Metal Niobium (Columbium) Physical Data Density (g/cc): 8.57Melting Point (K): 2741Boiling Point (K): 5015Appearance: shiny white, soft, ductile metalAtomic Radius (pm): 146Atomic Volume (cc/mol): 10.8Covalent Radius (pm): 134Ionic Radius: 69 (5e)Specific Heat (20 °C J/g mol): 0.268Fusion Heat (kJ/mol): 26.8Evaporation Heat (kJ/mol): 680Debye Temperature (K): 275.00Pauling Negativity Number: 1.6First Ionizing Energy (kJ/mol): 663.6Oxidation States: 5, 3Lattice Structure: Body-Centered CubicLattice Constant (Ã…): 3.300 Sources Los Alamos National Laboratory (2001)Crescent Chemical Company (2001)Langes Handbook of Chemistry (1952)CRC Handbook of Chemistry Physics (18th Ed.)

Content Quality and Quantity Are the Cause of Wikipedias Woes

Content Quality and Quantity Are the Cause of Wikipedias Woes Content Quality and Quantity Are the Cause of Wikipedia’s Woes Content Quality and Quantity Are the Cause of Wikipedia’s Woes By Mark Nichol Recent coverage of Wikipedia has pointed out that the collaborative online encyclopedia is in trouble. What’s up? It’s all about production. When Wikipedia was launched in 2001, it attracted many people who found the idea of a user-generated Web resource akin to The Encyclopedia Britannica highly appealing. Since then, multitudes of people have contributed to more than 19 million articles in nearly 300 languages, including almost 4 million items in English. And many more people have taken it upon themselves to continuously refine Wikipedia. That’s one of its greatest strengths: Unlike print encyclopedias, which must wait until the release of a new edition to offer new entries and updates to existing ones, Wikipedia’s massive trove of information is being increased and improved constantly. But as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales recently admitted, the pace of progress is slowing. The problem, it seems, is that many contributors are timing out. Wikipedia, operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, is a volunteer enterprise. Writers and editors are not paid for their time. And now, ten years after Wikipedia’s launch, many of those contributors have moved on with their lives. (Another reason many Wikipedia writers have given for bailing out is that some of the site’s volunteer editors, displaying the all-too-common combination of ignorance and arrogance, clumsily compromise the quality of their work.) An additional challenge is that the longtime contributors who remain, and the newcomers who have logged on more recently, are running out of things to write about. Some late-nineteenth-century scientists have earned everlasting opprobrium for their unimaginative declarations that thanks to their manifold discoveries and those of their contemporaries, no new science of any significance would be done in the future. Just as we’ve learned a thing or two about the universe since the late 1800s, however, there will always be new material for Wikipedia, but the momentum is waning, and the number of contributors is declining. Wikipedia has its weaknesses: Both because of and despite its open collaborative nature, factual errors occur (though they’re often caught quickly) and opinions intrude (again, usually not for long). And it doesn’t take too much time on the site to determine that the writing quality varies tremendously. Though Wikipedia claims that studies show its accuracy to be comparable to that of venerable print resources like The Encyclopedia Britannica, it cannot deny that the overall writing quality is much inferior. It’s still a brilliant idea triumphantly realized, and I resort to it often in my work, but it’s something else as well, something that earns it a mention on this Web site: It’s an object lesson in how not to run an editorial enterprise. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d have a great deal more respect for Wikipedia if it rested securely on the foundation of professional writers and editors who are subject-matter experts (or at least highly skilled generalist writers whose expert editors catch any problems with the accuracy of the content). That was the idea behind its predecessor, the professionally developed free encyclopedia Nupedia, of which Wikipedia was originally merely an offshoot. Why has hardly anyone heard of Nupedia? Because it tanked. Why? As the result of a rigorous review process that, partly because only the editor in chief, Larry Sanger, was salaried, proceeded at a glacial pace. Good writing and editing takes time and effort and expense. Great editorial work requires even more expenditure. Nupedia died, and Wikipedia lives, but even many of those who champion the latter acknowledge that its value is as a starting point for locating authoritative information as a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. If you want high-quality content well written, impartial, and authoritative you almost invariably have to pay for it. As Wikipedia has learned, there’s no such thing as a free launch. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How Many Tenses in English?"Gratitude" or "Gratefulness"?1,462 Basic Plot Types

Language learning assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Language learning assignment - Essay Example Moreover, it is a reservoir of knowledge of various disciplines like communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. Most of the developments in specialised fields in the developed countries require the usage of English. The advent of Internet and information technology has further emphasised the importance of English as an international language. In this globalised era, the progress and development of a country, to a large extent, is associated with the usage of the English language. After the Second World War, British idealism spread in many parts of the globe and with the United Kingdom becoming highly developed, the language spoken by most European countries, i.e., English became very popular. Thus, over a period of time English has developed into a prominent language. Because of these reasons, the teaching of English, especially in non-English speaking countries has assumed special significance. With the expansion of commerce a nd industry, and the advances in technology, geographical distance has become irrelevant and the world has shrunk into a global village. With the opening up of bigger markets, many new job opportunities became available for aspirants in various fields all over the world. So there is such an unprecedented movement of skilled labourers across the globe and most of them seek Europe and USA as their hopeful destinations. The primary requisite for employment is a working knowledge of English. The requirement and proficiency will vary according to the nature of the job. The burgeoning job opportunities in various fields necessitated the aspirants to master the English language. In the filed of education also English is accepted as the most preferred mediums of instruction and interaction between teacher and pupils. Therefore, proficiency in English language has become a primary necessity. Hence to measure the proficiency of language called for certain criteria. Because of these