Building smulation model by arena to ptimize airplane C3 check Essay

Building smulation model by arena to ptimize airplane C3 check manitenance - Essay Example Once ACFT is taken O.O.S different specialty are responsible to accomplish the specified check that it is due for and make an agreed commitment to bring the ACFT back in service (B.I.S) on a specific date and time (Mcgarvey 2009). However, there are so many specialties working to achieve this goal. Therefore, effort on making good utilization and excellent planning must be considered to make sure communication and coordination are applied and insuring all this is not easy. For Instance Airframe is one of the biggest departments that cover under its umbrella many ATA chapters such as fuel, hydraulics, landing gears, flight controls, water and waste, cargo compartment, ice and rain, fire systems as well as empennage, fuselage and wings which belongs to Airframe department. Therefore, we are interested on it and as we imitate and mimic its system we will have a very good picture the maintenance system with specialties other than airframe (Brady & Hillestad 1995). There are power plant, avionics, inspection, cabin and structure or they call tem sheet metal departments. All these specialties attack the plane once it is arrived in the Hanger for heavy maintenance do their best to have back on the pre-selected date and time. A myriad of human factors challenges associated with aircraft maintenance exist. Maintenance and inspection are essential to ensure continuing airworthiness on the aging fleet. New advanced technology procedures for aircraft further complicate the aviation maintenance system. The human is a critical component of the maintenance -system. Therefore, research and development must address a variety of issues affecting the human in maintenance. In order to plan well and have an actual picture of the system shortcomings and high performance areas within the system we will have to simulate that particular system. Simulation is a tool that gives us the chance to mimic any system with data available, analyzed and entered in any program such as Arena which is one of the popular and powerful computer programs (Charlotte 2009). Since we have so many specialties, multiple maintenance scheduled check types as well as many different ACFT types that are owned by Saudi Arabian airlines, the simulation process will get complex, thus, we will mimic only one type of airplane-747-400, one type of maintenance scheduled checks which is C- check (Kinnison 2004). Keywords: Hanger Maintenance, C-Check, Scheduling, Human Component in Maintenance, Simulation. 2.0 Goal The goal of this report is to build a simulation model for Aircraft Maintenance departments’ activities that will allow us to capture each and every process in order to optimize the manpower utilization and reduce maintenance time by eliminating delays especially when bottle necks confront. 3.0 Literature Review The aircraft is the fastest method of transport that can quickly transport people and cargo over longer distances, but incur high costs and energy use. For short distances or in inaccessible places  helicopters  can be used. According to Friend (1992), growth of population explosion in world has raised the air transportation sector; in 2010 it accounts 19% of passenger, and 48% of cargo of whole transportation in world. In 2009, Saudi

Penetration Testing Scope

Penetration Testing Scope The main objective of this document is to provide the readers a view on importance of Penetration test in network security and how it will overcome the network security issues and how organizations are determining their security weaknesses in their network infrastructures. With the help of this document, readers can obtain knowledge about advantages, strategies, types, tools and techniques of the penetration testing. Introduction: Penetration testing method is one of the oldest network security techniques for evaluating the securities of a network system. Penetration testing method used by Department of Defence in early 1970s to determine the security weaknesses in computer system and to initiate the development of programs to create more secure system. Using penetration testing, organization can fix their security weaknesses before they get unprotected. Many companies are using this method because penetration testing will provide proper security information systems and services to the organizations network systems. Organization can reduce risk in their network system using penetration testing tools and techniques. The main objective of the penetration testing is to evaluate the security weaknesses of the organizations network systems. Penetration testing has more secondary objectives and that will help the organization to identify their security incidents and also test the security awareness of the employees. Scope and Goals of the Penetration Testing: Identifying gaps in security: Organization can identify the gap of the system security and company can develop an action plan to reduce the threat with the help of penetration test. Help to create strong business case: A penetration test result document will help the manager to create a strong business case to produce the security message at the implementation stage. To discover new threats: Penetration testing measures will help the organization to find the new threats. To focus on internal security resources: A Penetration test and its security analysis allow the organization to focus internal security resources. To meet regulatory compliances: Organization can meet their regulatory compliances using penetration testing tools. To find weakest link: Penetration test and security audit will assist the firm to find the weakest link in their intricate structure and it will provide baseline security for all typical entities. Provide validation feedback: Penetration test deliver validation feedback to business entities and security framework that lead the organization to reduce the risk in the implementation. Phases of the Penetration Test: Discovery Planning Attack Reporting Additional Discovery Planning Phase: Scope of the test will be defined in planning phase. In this phase, testing team will get the approvals, documents and agreements like NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and they will set the baseline for effective penetration test after that documents are signed. Penetration test team will get certain input from existing security plan, industry standards and best practices while defining their scope for the test. No real testing activity happens in the planning stage. Factor influencing the successful Penetration test: Time: Legal restriction: Discovery Phase: The real testing activity will start from this phase. In this stage, they used to identify the potential target using network scanning and to gather information using port scanning and other techniques. Vulnerability is the second part of this discovery phase. In this stage, application, operating system and services are equated against vulnerability database. Normally human testers use their own database or public database to find vulnerabilities manually. Compare with automated testing, manual testing is better way to identify the new vulnerabilities but this type of testing is time consuming unlike automated testing. This Phase can be further Characterized as: Footprinting Phase Canning and Enumeration Phase Vulnerability Analysis Phase Footprinting Phase: The process of footprinting is a completely non-disturbing activity executed to get information available about the target organization and its system using various resources, both technical and non-technical. This process includes probing the internet, querying various public repositories (Database, Domain registrar, Usenet groups and mailing list). In this phase, penetration tester will gather significant information and confidential data through internet without probing the target system. Penetration tester will conduct the social engineering attacks for that they will collect valuable information like IT setup details, e-mail address of the company, device configuration and username and password. In this phase, penetration tester tries to find various loopholes and try to explore data leakage about the target organization in shortest time period. Mostly procedure of this phase can be automated using customized script and small programs. Scanning and Enumeration: The scanning and enumeration phase includes lot of activity like identifying the live system, open / filtered ports found, service running on these ports, identifying the operating system details, network path discovery, mapping router / firewall rules, etc. Penetration tester must be careful while using the tools for these activities because they should not overwhelm the target systems with extreme traffic. Before going into live scenario, successive phase should be tested completely in a testing environment. Types of Port Scanner: Nmap SuperScan Hping Services should be fingerprinted either manually or using existing tools after successfully identifying the open ports. Penetration tester will provide exact name and version of the services which running on the target system and the underlying Operating system before including these in the final report. Also this will help to identifying and removing numerous false positive found later. Existing Fingerprint Tools: Xprobe2 Queso Nmap Amap Winfingerprint P0f Httprint Vulnerability Analysis: In this stage, penetration tester will try to identify possible vulnerabilities existing in each target system after identifying the target systems and collecting required details from the previous phase. During this stage penetration tester may use automated tools to find the vulnerabilities in the target systems. These tools have their own record containing of latest vulnerabilities and their details. In vulnerability analysis stage, penetration tester will test the systems by giving invalid inputs, random strings, etc. to check for any errors or unintended behaviour in the systems output. Penetration tester should not depend only on his experience because a successful penetration tester should be up to date with latest security related activities and join with security related mailing-lists, security blogs, advisories, etc. to keep him updated to the latest vulnerabilities. Types of Vulnerability Scanners: Nessus Shadow Security Scanner Retina ISS Scanner SARA GFI LANguard Attack Phase: Attack phase is a vital stage in penetration testing, the most challenging and interesting phase for the penetration tester. This Phase can be further Characterized as: Exploitation Phase Privilege Escalation Phase Exploitation Phase: In this phase, penetration tested will try to identify activities for the various vulnerabilities found in the previous stage. Penetration tester can get more resources from internets that provide proof-of-conception exploits for most of the vulnerabilities. In exploitation stage, all exploit should be tested thoroughly before going for a real implementation. If any vulnerabilities critical system not exploited then penetration tester should give sufficient documented proof-of-concepts about the impact of the vulnerability on the organizations business. Exploitation Frameworks: Metasploit Project Core Security Technologys Impact Immunitys CANVAS Instead of running exploitation, penetration tester need to use the full potential framework to reduce the time in writing custom exploits. Gaining Access Discovery Phase Rising Privilege System Surfing Install Add Test Software Enough data has been Gathered in the discovery phase to make an attempt to Access the target. If only user-level access was obtained in the last step, the tester will now seek to gain complete control of the system. The information gathering process begins again to identify mechanism to gain access to trusted system. Additional presentation testing software is installed to gain additional information and/or access. Attack Phase Step with Look back to Discovery Phase Privilege Escalation: In this stage, penetration tester will make further analysis to get more information that will help to getting administrative privileges. Before continuing further process, penetration tester should get the prior permission from the target organization. Penetration tester will maintain his all activity report because in the reporting stage that will be the proof for all the activities completed. Tester may install additional software for higher level of privilege. Reporting Phase: Reporting stage is the last phase in the penetration test methodology. Reporting phase will parlay occurred with other three stages or it will happen after attack phase. This reporting phase is very vital stage and this this report will cover both management and technical aspects, provide detailed information about all findings, figures with proper graphs. Penetration tester will provide suitable presentation of the vulnerabilities and its impact to the business of the target organization. Final document will be detailed and it will provide technical description of the vulnerabilities. Penetration tester should meet the client requirement in the documents also document should be detailed and that will show the ability of the successful penetration tester. Report Consist of: Executive Summary Detailed Findings Risk level of the Vulnerabilities found Business Impact Recommendations Conclusion Penetration Testing Strategy: External Testing Strategy: In this strategy, process made from outside the organizations system to refers attack on the organizations network border, this may be through Internet or Extranet. External testing strategy will start with clients publically accessible information. Naturally the External testing approach will executed with non-disclosure or fully disclosure environment. This test will target the organizations externally visible server or device like Domain Name Server (DNS), Firewall and E-mail server. Internal Testing Strategy: Internal testing approach executed from inside the organizations technology environment. The focuses of the internal testing strategy is to know what could occur if the network border were penetrated effectively or what an authorized user could do to penetrate specific information resources inside the organizations network. Both type of testing techniques are similar but the result of both tests will vary prominently. Blind Testing Strategy: Blind testing approach targets at pretending the activities and processes of a real hacker. In this approach, testing team will provide limited information about organizations systems configuration. The penetration testing team gather information about the target to conduct its penetration test using publically available information like company web-site, domain name registry, internet discussion board and USENET. This testing approach can provide lot of information about the organization but this method of testing is very time consuming. Double Blind Testing Strategy: This testing strategy is an extension of blind testing approach. In this testing approach, IT and security staff of the organization will not informed earlier and are blind to the strategic testing activities. Double blind testing strategy is a vital component of testing because it can test the organizations security monitoring and incident identification, escalating and response procedure. The main objective of this testing approach is only few people from the organization will aware of this testing activity. Once the objective of the test has been achieved then project manager will terminate the response procedure of the organization and testing procedures. Targeted Testing Strategy: Another name of this testing strategy is lights-turned-on approach. In this testing approach, both organizations IT staff and penetration testing team involve in this testing activities. In this test, there will be a clear understanding of testing actions and information about the target and network design. Targeted testing approach is very cost effective because this test mainly focused on technical setting or design of the network. This test can executed in less time and effort unlike blind test but this approach will not give clear picture of an organizations vulnerabilities and response capabilities. Types of Penetration testing There are many type of penetration test available to test the network security of an organization. But type of penetration test may depend upon the organizations needs to test their network. Black-box Testing: White-box Testing: DOS (Denial Of Service): This type of testing tries to identify the weaknesses on the system through exhausting the targets resources because it will stop responding to legal request. Denial of service testing can perform on both manually and automated tools. This test is classified into two types such as software exploits and flooding attacks. The level of this test depending upon the penetration tests information system and related resources. There are more formats in this test such as: Application Security Testing: Application security testing will protect the confidentiality and reliability of information using applications encryption and objective of this testing is to assess the control over the applications (Electronic commerce server, on-line financial applications, distributed applications and internet front ends to legacy systems) and its process flow. Components of Application Security Testing: Code Review: In this type of testing, analysing the code of the application because it should not contain the sensitive data. Authorization Testing: Authorization testing includes Analysing the system initiation and maintenance of the user sessions like Input validation of login fields, Cookies security and lockout testing. Functionality Testing: Functionality testing involves testing the functionality of the application such as input validation and transaction testing as presented to a user. War Dialling: Tools for Penetration Testing: Reconnaissance Tools: Nmap (Network Mapper): Network mapper (Nmap) is a powerful port scan tool and its a part of reconnaissance tools of penetration testing. Network mapper has ability to regulate the operating system of the target system. Network mapper maintains a database for the target computer to find its operating systems resospnse3. Network mapper is a permitted product for network security review. Network mapper was intended to quickly scan big network but it will work fine against single network. Network mapper is compatible with all major operating system like Windows, Linux and MAC operating system.2. Features of the Network mapper (Nmap) Flexible Nmap will support different advanced techniques for mapping out networks such as firewalls, IP filters and other obstacles. This tool also contains port scanners mechanism (TCP UDP), version detection, version detection, Prevailing Portable Easy Free Well documented Supported Acclaimed Popular http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9087439/Five_free_pen_testing_tools http://nmap.org/ http://www.sans.org/reading_room/analysts_program/PenetrationTesting_June06.pdf https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov/bsi/articles/tools/penetration/657-BSI.html Nessus Nessus is a vulnerability assessment tool and its free domain software released by GPLS. This tool is intended to identify the security problem. Nessus helps the management people to rectify the security problem before exploitation. Client server technology is very powerful features of Nessus. Penetration tester can test from various point of the server because Different server technology placed in various place. It can control the entire server using multiple distributed clients or central client. This tool is very flexible for penetration tester because it can run on different operating system like MAC OS X and IBM/AIX but most of the server portion will run on UNIX. Features of the Nessus: Up-to-date security vulnerability Database Nessus tool will check the database regularly and Nessus can receive with the command Nessus-update-plugins. This tool will monitor all the plugins data. Remote and Local security Nessus has the ability to detect the remote faults of the host in a network and also it will remove local flaws and omitted areas. Scalable Nessus is very scalable because it can run on a computer with low memory. If we give more power to this tool then it can scan our system quickly. Plug-Ins Every security test will be written in NASL; also its printed as an exterior plugin. For updating the Nessus, it will not download binaries from internet and to understand the result of the Nessus report, every NASL can be read and modified. NASL (Nessus Attack Scripting Language) The Nessus security Scanner contain NASL, its a designed language to inscribe security test easily and quickly. NASL run in a controlled environment on top of a virtual device, this will make the Nessus a very secure scanner. Smart Service Recognition with Multiple Services Nessus tool helps to recognize the FTP server which running in an unidentified port. This is the first tool to hold this facility. If the host runs the similar services twice or more then Nessus can scan all of them. Full SSL Support and Non-Destructive This tool has the ability to scan SSL services like https, imaps, smtps and more. Nessus tool can integrate with PKI field environment. Nessus is the first scanning tool has this feature. Nessus tool will give more option to the tester to perform a regular non-destructive security audit. Packet Manipulation and Password Cracking Tools Exploitation Tools Metasploit Version Metasploit framework is both penetration testing system and a development platform for creating security tools and techniques. Metasploit framework comprises of tools, modules, libraries and user interfaces. Metasploit framework used to network security and network security professionals will use this framework to conduct penetration test, system administrators to verify the patch connection, to perform regression testing by product vendors, and security researcher world-wide. This tool offers valuable information and tools for penetration tester security researcher. Metasploit framework written in Ruby programming language and contains components written in C and assembler. The basic function of this tool is a Module launcher, allow the user to organize the exploit module and launch the module at target system. Metasploit is very user friendly to the penetration tester to conduct the test and it will give full network penetration testing capabilities. Metasploit is an open source framework and largest combined public databank of exploits. Security Forest exploitation Framework Limitations of Penetration Testing: Penetration testing will not identify all vulnerabilities because normally this test will carried out as Black Box exercises. Penetration test will not provide information about new vulnerabilities those weaknesses identified after the test. Penetration tester will not have sufficient information about the system. Compare with vulnerability assessments, penetration test is not the correct way to identify the weaknesses because vulnerability assessments can identify more issue than penetration testing using diagnostic review of all systems and all servers. Penetration test does not have that much time to evaluate and identify the vulnerabilities and penetration testing is a snapshot for an organization and its network security. Conclusion: Scope of the penetration testing should be increased. Time period of penetration testing is very limited. Time limit of penetration testing needs to be increased, then testing team can identify more issues and testing team can protect the network security of an organization. Further action needs to be taken against vulnerabilities that identified as a result of penetration test. Penetration Testing Definitions: Penetration test is a method to assess the organizations data security system in dynamic way. The information security system of an organization will be tested to identify any security issues. In other way, penetration test is a theoretical or paper based audit. What is Penetration Test? Penetration test is a sequence of actions to find and exploit security weaknesses of the systems. Penetration test naturally includes group of people financed by the organization and Department of Internal Audit or IT department to conduct the test. Penetration test team member attempts to accomplish vulnerabilities in the system security of the organization using tools and techniques of the penetration test. The goal of the testing tem is to find out security weaknesses under controlled circumstances to eliminate the vulnerabilities before unauthorised users can exploit them. Penetration testing is an authorised action to correct the hackers (unauthorised users) activities. Penetration test is a better way to find the security weaknesses that exist in a network or system. Penetration test result will increase the awareness of the management people and also it will assist them to take an important decision making processes. Management people can find their system security weaknesses conducting penetration test in their organization. Depending upon the organization penetration test will differ and time frame of the test will depend on the type of test. If the penetration test is conducted badly then this test have serious costs like system roaring and cramming. Organization needs to have dynamic consent on this test while conducting or performing.

Racial and Cultural Test Bias, Stereotype Threat and Their Implications

Racial and Cultural Test Bias, Stereotype Threat and Their Implications A substantial amount of educational and psychological research has consistently demonstrated that African American students underperform academically relative to White students. For example, they tend to receive lower grades in school (e.g., Demo & Parker, 1987; Simmons, Brown, Bush, & Blyth, 1978), score lower on standardized tests of intellectual ability (e.g., Bachman, 1970; Herring, 1989; Reyes & Stanic, 1988; Simmons et al., 1978), drop out at higher rates (e.g., American Council on Education, 1990; Steele, 1992), and graduate from college with substantially lower grades than White students (e.g., Nettles, 1988). Such performance gaps can be attributed to any number of factors, such as socioeconomic status, academic preparation, and educational opportunities; however, Steele (1997) pointed out that even when background factors are held constant, subsequent achievement remains lower for minority students. Moreover, much research in this area has focused on how African America n students’ lack of motivation and negative attitudes contribute to their inferior academic performance (Ogbu, 1990); yet many Black students often report high educational aspirations (Fordham, 1996; Fine, 1991; Ogbu, 1987, 1990; Hauser & Anderson, 1991), even higher than White students of comparable class background (MacLeod, 1995). What remains certain is the urgent need to explain what accounts for the persistent academic underachievement of Black students. One widely held explanation for the achievement gap in test performance between Black and White students is that the tests are either culturally or racially biased. Jencks (1998) points out three types of biases... ...lantic Monthly, 68-78. Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 6, 613-629. Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 5, 797-811. Steele, C., Spencer, S. J., & Aronson, J. (2002). Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. (In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 379-440. New York, NY: Academic Press. Vars, F. E., & Bowen, W. G. (1998). Scholastic aptitude test scores, race, and academic performance in selective colleges and universities. (In Jencks, C. & Phillips, M. (Eds.), The Black-White Test Score Gap (pp. 55-85). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.)

Case Study: Employee Retention Essay

This is a critique is based on two articles, in which addresses the issues of employee retention and suggestions for the motivation and engagement of employees in the hospitality industry. The first article is titled â€Å"Targeted employee retention: Performance-based and job-related differences in reported reasons for staying† by Hausknecht, Rodda, and Howard (2009), in which addresses the major theories to help in explaining the reason that employees stay or leave their organization, and ways to retain them. The second is titled â€Å"Terms of engagement† written by David MacLeod (2010) that presents suggest ways for motivating and engaging employees so they will want to stay. ANALYSIS OF KEY POINTS IN â€Å"TARGETED EMPLOYEE RETENTION† _Reasons employees want to stay with their company_ According to this article, the primary reason that employees stay with their employer are job satisfaction; they enjoy the work involved in serving customers. For many employees, the reasons for staying are for the extrinsic rewards such as pay, benefits and advancement opportunities. Employees want to receive fair rewards for their efforts. If these rewards are not presently found, employees may leave for other opportunities that offer greater rewards. Another factor is â€Å"constituent attachments, in the form of effective supervision and positive peer group relations,† (Hausknecht et tal, 2009, p. 3). Other incentives to retaining employees are organizational commitment and prestige. The secondary reasons are compensation, competitive wages, health benefits, retirement contributions, and incentive plans. Additional reasons for staying are â€Å"constituent attachments, organizational commitment, organizational prestige, lack of alternatives, investments,  advancement opportunities, location, organizational justice, flexible work arrangements, and non-work influences† (p.10). Companies must find ways to keep their employees satisfied so they will not want to leave. _Retention_ Retention is the most important part of a company’s approach to talent management. When organizations cannot retain high performers, its core leadership base will eventually erode as a result of losses in performance, high replacement costs, and potential talent shortages. Because of this, employers are seeking â€Å"to retain high performers and replace low performers with workers who bring greater skills and abilities to the organization† (p. 5). More important than understanding the reasons why people stay is in understanding how retention factors are different between high performers and others at different levels within the company, (p. 2). The authors suggest that organizations should adopt specific strategies retention of their most valued employees rather than those that are considered average or low performers, (p. 2). ANALYSIS OF KEY POINTS IN â€Å"TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT† _Benefits of better engagement_ The hospitality industry places certain pressures on its employees such as long hours, in which can interfere with their social life, and oftentimes having seasonal nature make it more difficult to retain good people. Engaged employees are far more likely to stay with the company than those who are disengaged. In such a highly-pressured environment as the hospitality industry, it is more difficult to more effectively assess and engage employees. According to the author, there are steps that employers can follow to help ensure employees are committed to delivering great customer experiences along with delivering longer-term growth and success, (MacLeod, 2010). _Define a clear and compelling goal_ Oftentimes employees feel that management does not clearly communicate business objectives to them, in which may give the impression that senior managers do not have a clear vision for the future of the business. That is the reason the author states the importance of communication, and having a clear vision concerning the direction of the company, the goals to achieve, and how the employee fits in to that vision, (MacLeod, 2010). On a personal level, employees want to know what those plans are and how it will affect, (MacLeod, 2010). _Involve employees_ One of the important factors to effective engagement is to involve the employees in sharing their insights into how particular issues can be addressed, such as relating to customer service issues, or how the business is promoted. It is also important to provide feedback on the points they do bring up because employees that are involved in sharing their insights tend to be more engaged in the day-to-day operations of the business, (MacLeod, 2010). _Commit to regular communication_ Whether the economic climate is strong or weak, it is important that management commit regularly to open communication by sharing information with employees throughout the year concerning the performance of the business along with any issues or challenges that they may have. By having open communications with the employees is the key to an effective employer/ employee relationship, in which builds and maintains trust, (MacLeod, 2010). SUMMARY AND OPINION Employee turnover in the hospitality industry is an issue that most business owners face. Hospitality businesses can reduce the turnover rate significantly by paying more attention to the needs of their staff because happy employees make happy customers. The analysis of the key points in the  first article; by Hausknecht, Rodda, and Howard (2009) is more about how to retain employees rather then that the reasons they quit. A primary concern for many organizations is that of retaining top talent. If organizations fail to retain their employees, it will hinder their ability to remain competitive because of a less qualified workforce. The author’s goal for this study was to generate a foundation relating to employees’ reported reasons for staying and to review â€Å"the major theories that have been advanced in the literature over the past 50 years that help explain why employees stay or quit,† (p. 2). After the hospitality industry has faced a serious challenge of retaining employees, MacLeod (2010), in his article â€Å"Terms of engagement† presents a research on the management teams of the hospitality industry. The analysis of the key points in this article was that the research presents suggestions for the motivation of employees and for employee engagement, including a clear goal, involvement of employees and analysis of behavior. The author states the importance of communicating this vision so the employees will know how this vision will personally affect them. As I read these articles, what comes to my mind is the concept of fusion; between retention high performance employees with the motivation of employees and employee engagement. If this cannot be achieved, it will continue to lead to labor turnover, which is very costly. The most important thing to remember in the hospitality industry is that the customer is number one; always. But this cannot be achieved without valuable employees who believe the same thing. Before the customer can be treated as number one, the employees must be first because happy employees lead to happy customers. References Hausknecht, J. P., Rodda, J., & Howard, M. J. (2009). Targeted employee retention: Performance-based and job-related differences in reported reasons for staying. Human Resource Management, 48(2), 269-288. MacLeod, D. (2010). _Terms of engagement_. Caterer & Hotelkeeper, 200(4618), 56-58.

Research on Internet Usage Among Penang Matriculation College

(i) BACKGROUND INFORMATION By the turn of the century, information, including access to the internet, will be the basis for personal, economic, and political advancement. The popular name for the internet is the information superhighway. Whether you want to find latest financial news, browse through library catalogs, exchange information with colleagues, or join in a lively political debate, the internet is the tool that will take you beyond your telephones, faxes, and isolated computers to a burgeoning networked information frontier.The internet supplements the traditional tools you use to gather information, data graphics, and news and correspond with other people. Used skillfully, the internet shrinks the world and brings information, expertise, and knowledge on nearly every subject imaginable straight to your computer. The internet links are computer networks all over the world so that users can share resources and communicate with each other. Some computers have direct access to all the facilities on the internet such as the universities. And other computers, (e. : privately-owned ones), have indirect links through a commercial service provider, who offers some or all of the internet facilities. In order to be connected to the internet, you must go through service suppliers. Many options are offered with monthly rates. Depending on the option chosen, access time may vary. The internet is what we call a metanetwork that is a network of networks that spans the globe. It is impossible to give an exact count of the number of networks or users that comprise the internet, but it is easily in the thousands and millions respectively.The internet employs a set of standardized protocols which allow for the sharing of resources among different kinds of computers that communicate with each other on the network. These standards, sometimes referred to as the Internet Protocol Suite, are the rules that developers adhere to when creating new functions for the internet. Th e internet is also what we call a distributed system; there is no central archive. Technically, no one runs the internet. Rather, the internet is made up of thousands of smaller networks.The internet thrives and develops as its many users find new ways to create, display and retrieve the information that constitutes the internet. (ii) OBJECTIVES The main objective of conducting this experiment is to investigate the internet usage among Penang Matriculation College (PMC) students. The survey is designed to answer the following questions; 1) How the students access the internet? 2) How often they access the internet? 3) How many hours they spend time online? 4) What type of website they usually visit while online? 5) Do online affect their performances in studies?And the most important thing is, by conducting this research; it reveals the reality of online behaviour among PMC students. At the early of the research, we came up with three hypotheses which might be related to the result of the research: Hypothesis 1: a) The majority of PMC students spend 3-5 hours online per week. Hypothesis 2: b) The main online purpose of PMC students is to keep in touch with their family and friends. Hypothesis 3: c) Majority of the students online and study at the same time. (iii) STATEMENT OF PROBLEM There are some problems we discovered that leads to this survey.We came up with three important questions that it might be related to the results of this research: 1. Does social networking website (e. g: Facebook, Twitter, Blog, etc. ) distract the students in their studies? * With the existence of electronic communication, it seems like the students have become addicted to these invention of public domain such as Facebook and Twitter. Some of them spend more than 3 hours online per day. Thus, does this online behavior affect their performances in studies? 2. How do the students manage their study time with their online behaviour? If students prefer to go study and online at the same time, will they be able to concentrate on their studies? This is the problem as we want to identify does this type of online behaviour affect the concentration of the students? 3. Can they survive their lives without any internet connection? * Internet is one of the important things needed in life, especially for students. It helps a lot as students need it in order to finish up all the assignments and get further information on certain topics. Students also surf the internet to get the latest news on current issues.How would the students finishing their assignments if there is no internet connection in the college? (i) RESPONDENTS We randomly selected 50 students of PMC which represent 3% of the total students. We believed that majority of the students use internet in their daily lives for education purposes. However, as we all know, in a new era world, students also need some entertainment to cheer up their lives an there is the role of internet as students also can use it to find some entertainment in order to release stress. (ii) INSTRUMENTSIn completing this research, we used various kind of method to gather data obtained: a) Questionnaire * 10 questions about internet usage among PMC students were being asked and the questionnaire was distributed to 50 students of PMC. They were asked to answer the survey in order to complete this research and gain the data. The 50 students were randomly selected among all the total students and they were from different module of courses. b) Internet search * We also made comparison between the internet usage among PMC students and survey made by other international researcher.We found out that the usage of internet among students was high especially in purpose of education such as to do research projects and presentation. However, they also used the internet to keep in contact with family and friends as the existence of social networking site helps a lot in connecting people all over the world. c) Book, newspaper a nd magazines * Besides, we also looked for points in magazines and newspaper about the latest news of internet usage among college students. How the internet plays its role in students’ lives and how the institution itself provide the nternet connection for the students. (iii) RESEARCH PROCEDURE a) Phase One At the early stage of this research, we made a questionnaire to be distributed to the students. The questionnaire was checked by our English lecturer, Mr. Asokan before being photocopied. The questionnaire which has been checked and approved then be photocopied and distributed to 50 selected students. b) Phase Two The distribution of the questionnaire was made during our recess time. We distributed the questionnaire to the students which came from different modules (Life Science, Physics and Accounting. Basically, the different module of students does not really affect our results of finding as we put our aim on their PSPM results which might be related to their online be haviour. c) Phase Three We took almost 5 days to distribute the questionnaire and collect the data. Every one of group members was very determined in conducting this research. The data collected was kept for further analysis. We gathered during weekend and made further discussion about the findings. ANALYSIS OF DATA & DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS We found out that 5% of the students access the internet through their mobile phone.We predicted that their mobile phone have the ability to access the internet through the prepaid internet service. 15% of the students preferred to online at the cyber cafe which is most of the students were female students as the cyber cafe only located at female students’ block. Besides, another 37% of the students have their own broadband to access the internet. The rest of 43% students used the Wi-fi provided by the college and also through cafe. We can conclude that students can access the internet through several of ways at anywhere and anytime. They don’t need to be worry as the internet connection is always being available.The students also can surf the internet for many purposes and the internet connection provided is unlimited except if they access through PMC Wi-fi as the server blocked several websites containing improper contents for the students. Based on the pie chart above, we can see that majority of the students access the internet several times a week which represent 43% of the students. Another 32% of the students access the internet everyday, 13% online once a week, 10% online several times a day and finally 2% of the students online rarely which is once a month or less.The findings proved that every student have different type of online behaviour. The students who online once in a month or less probably think that internet does not really affect their lives. While for the students who access the internet once a week may be online for important purpose only. As for the rest, they often access the internet m ay be to update themselves with latest issues or many other reasons. From the data obtained, 54% of the students spent time 3-5 hours online per week. Whereas 34% online more than 5 hours per week while another 12% spent 1-2 hours online per week.Spent 3-5 hours online per week is the average time for the PMC students to access the internet. They finished up their assignments, keep in touch with family and do other things online within 3-5 hours per week. They did not waste their time do something useless while online as 3-5 hours per week is a short period to access the internet. They managed to make use of the internet wisely. The main purpose of PMC students to go online is to contact their family and friends which cover 31% of the students. Basically, they might keep in contact through e-mails or video call with many types of communicating website such as Yahoo! nd Skype. 28% of the students preferred to surf the social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter and many other. T hey also were able to keep in touch through those social networking site. 14% of the students access the internet to play games and most of them were male students. Hence, another 11% online with the purpose of finishing the assignments or maybe get update about the latest education topic through PMC portal. There were also some students who spent their time online to read online newspaper (3%), downloading music or videos (6%), and others (7%).From the findings, we found out that there was correlation between students’ online behaviour with their studies performance. 46% of PMC students spent less than 10 hours on studies per week. This may due to the activity involved by the students itself. As class was finished in the late evening, students need more time to rest in order to prepare for the tomorrow class. At night, they had to finish their tutorials and made some revision for next topic. We can conclude that half of the PMC students spent more than 10 hours on studies pe r week. 9% spent more than 15 hours whereas another 25% spent time on studies between 10-15 hours. Different students have different ability to make revision. Some can study for more than 3 hours continuously per day while some cannot. It depends on the ability of the students itself. From the data collected, it was proven that most of the students did not preferred to study and go online at the same time. They felt better if go study and online separately. Meaning, they might think that online while studying was such a waste of time, as students will be more focus to the internet compare to the books.This type of online behaviour was not really good for students as it might affect student’s performance in studies. Thus, our third hypothesis which was the majority of the students online and study at the same time should be rejected as it was totally different from the result obtained. However, there were 39% of PMC students who still preferred to go study and online at the sa me time. It was how the student itself managed their study time and online time and in returns, there should be no problem with their studies performance.The final finding of this research was the PSPM 1 of PMC students. As we believed there was correlation between internet usage among PMC students and their studies performance, we noticed that 53% of the students achieved pointer of 3. 00-3. 99 in their PSPM 1. There was also 24% of the students’ success by achieved pointer of 4. From the above pie chart, it showed that the students were able to manage their time in studies and access the internet. As majority of them succeed by getting pointer of 3 and above. It proved that it depends on the student itself on how to manage their time.As the 16% of the student who got pointer of 2-2. 99 and 4% got 1. 99 or less, it might not because of the internet. They should work harder and lessen the internet usage if it was really affect their studies performance. CORRELATION BETWEEN ON LINE BEHAVIOUR AND STUDIES PERFORMANCE (i) CONCLUSIONS This study was intended to clarify the use of the Internet and its effect on studies performances of PMC students. Thorough investigation of three primary questions revealed there is correlation between the amount of time spent on the Internet and their studies performances.Additionally, the purposes of access the internet among PMC students showed that majority of the students online in order to keep in contact with family and friends and also to surf the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Blog and many more. One finding of note was that the perception of the students about their studies performance was still not significantly influenced by Internet use. The seeming implication of this study is that the Internet, like so many other aspects of daily life, is merely a tool that individuals access and use in ways that they can choose. ii) RECOMMENDATIONS Throughout this research, we found out that internet was not the main factor that affect student’s performance. Students should put more effort in order to achieve excellent results in examination. Determination is very important as a saying goes â€Å"when there’s a will, there’s a way†. This research teaches us a lot from the perspective of team work and responsibility. Our hope is, future research can be carried in all the matriculation colleges in the country so that we can compare how internet affect student’s performances in studies do. REFERENCES Websites: 1. http://www. endeley. com/research/internet-use-among-female-and-male-college-s tudents/ 2. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Internet 3. http://www. jsu. edu/dept/geography/mhill/research/resrept. html 4. http://www. adelaide. edu. au/writingcentre/learning_guides/learningGuide_writingAResearchReport. pdf ACKNOWLEDGMENT We would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to every person who has made the completion of this project research . Without the help from them, we won’t be able to finish this research successfully. First of all, we would like thank our English Lecturer, Mr.Asokan, for his vital encouragement and support. Thank you for giving us the chance to conduct this experiment as we learnt a lot throughout this research. Thank you also for helping us and guide us on how to make a complete and good report. Besides, thank you to all the practicum members for giving us support and helping us in finding information. We discuss and share any important information that could help in comleting this project. Last but not least, thank to God, who made all things possible. That’s all. Thank you TABLE OF CONTENT TitlePage 1. 0 INTRODUCTION 1. 1 Background Information . 2 Objectives 1. 3 Statement of Problem 2. 0 METHODOLOGY 2. 1 Subject/Respondents 2. 2 Instruments 2. 3 Research Procedure 3. 0 FINDINGS & DISCUSSION 4. 0 CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS 5. 0 REFERENCES & APPENDICES RESEARCH ON INTERNET USA GE AMONG PENANG MATRICULATION COLLEGE (PMC) STUDENTS GROUP MEMBERS: * MUHAMMAD ALIFF HAIQAL BIN MUHAMMAD NASIR (MS1113508572) * MUHAMMAD AZREE IZUDDIN BIN AZMAN (MS1113508640) * SHARIFAH NURFADHLIN AFIFAH BINTI SYED AZHAR (MS1113510255) * SITI HAJAR BINTI HASSAN (MS1113510322) PRACTICUM: H1P2 LECTURER’S NAME: MR. ASOKAN

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Plant Biology - Essay Example According to Jimmy Botella, a professor of Plant Biotechnology in University of Queensland, untraditional or genetically modified foods do not automatically mean they are threats to humans. This type of modification already existed decades ago. However, according to Botella, there are more threats to humans caused by nature or natural products such as tsunami, malaria and paralysis than GMOs. Cassava, a natural crop, causes limb paralysis if not properly processed. Genetically modified foods are seen to be threat by people who refuse to accept changes, afraid to grasp the progress in technology or simply because they are â€Å"new.† Most of these people claim that these are unacceptable because they are not naturally produced and some claims these foods are not made by God. They cannot scientifically prove that GMOs are not safe or that these pose threats to consumers. Therefore, in answer to the question whether the United States Government should have a certification program for foods containing genetically modified ingredients, I totally believe that certification program will help the citizens be informed that GMOs are safe to eat and can supply the energy needed by our bodies. This certification program can eliminate the negative thinking or belief of the people regarding this kind of food if scientifically proved that GMOs are safe to eat and will pass the certification programs and

Compare and contrast analysis essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Rhetorical Analysis Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

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Management Research Methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

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What are the factors that may contribute our brain's efficeency and Essay

What are the factors that may contribute our brain's efficeency and accuracy when performing a task - Essay Example Research studies show that there are numerous ways in which one can improve his or her brain’s efficiency and accuracy while performing a task. According Richard Restak, brain’s efficiency and accuracy are significantly improved by performing one task at a time, rather than multi-tasking. This is because human brains have some limitations that man must accept. Multi-tasking makes the overall performance of the brain slower, or less efficient than it would be if an individual is performing one task at a time. This argument is based on neuroscientific evidence and experiments that have been previously conducted among them being David Meyer’s research study. Meyer found that multitasking affects both the efficiency and the accuracy of the brains. He stated that â€Å"not only the speed of performance, the accuracy of performance, but what I call the fluency of performance, the gracefulness of their performance, was negatively influenced by the overload of multitasking.† However, this is against the popular misconception that multitasking keeps one head above the rising flood of daily demands that many people believe in. Performing one task at a time improves brain’s efficiency and accuracy because human brains have short-term memories that store between five and nine items at a time. Attempts to achieve more than one task that require both attention and consideration leads to slowing down of the brain’s efficiency and accuracy. Human brains cannot take in and process more than one streams of information, and effectively encode it to produce a short-term memory. If the information taken in does not make it into the short memory, it means that it cannot be transferred to the long-term memory for recall later. However, multitasking may not affect brain’s efficiency and accuracy to high extents especially if the tasks being

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MSD Construction Business Plan Analysis

MSD Construction Business Plan Analysis The analysis of MSD business plan Introduction The paper is about MSD Construction Company own by an Omani citizen Mr Mujahid Al-Zadjali.it specialized in providing services including concrete fabrication, utilizing framework, concrete placement and excavation. It focuses on commercial as well as residential clients. It aims to become the leading contractor by providing high quality services with affordable prices. This paper is about analyzing of the business plan for MSD. It will evaluate whether the plan is suitable for the firm to achieve their long-term goals. This assignment will be organized as follows. First, it will highlight the owner-personal quality and the skills he possessed. Then, the organizational structure and management skills and duties will be evaluated. Later on, the company product-market will be discussed. It also will discuss about its market and pricing strategy. Next, it will focus on competitive environment and their strategies. Then, the financial performance of MSD will be analyzed. After the analysis of financial statements, the paper will analyze the SWOT of the company. In conclusion, there will be a brief summary about the case and recommendation for MSD to improve their business plan. 1.0 Personal Quality of the owner manager Mr. Mujahid AL-Zadjali is capable to run his own construction business as he has 5 years experience in the field. In addition, he possesses a variety of skills that are required in running this type of the organization, such as marketing, time management and cost control skills. In addition, these will help assists him to solve the crises in future. The business plan had not mentioned whether he has IT skills which are important for all business. Based on the business plan, the owner is willing to hold liable for all debts and obligation related to company. He also established long-term planning for the organization. These all indicate that he is self-motivated and emotionally strong to face all the business risks. Also, it means that the owner definitely desires to growth his business. The objectives of the entrepreneur are to develop infrastructure for long-term planning and to achieve regular profit yearly. Furthermore, it aims to provide quality services at affordable cost to its customers. Another objective of the company is to provide health and safety work environment to its employees. The owner of the firm has adopted leadership style based on responsible and mutual respects between the staff. This is one of the ideal characters for this construction company as there are many technical works have to be performed by specialized employee. 2.0 The Management Team The business already had management team which consists of two administrative assistant and general manager. However, there are not sufficient numbers of management in the team. It should include human resource manager to accomplish the safety requirement on the job and high quality of services. The company should also appoint stock manager to manage in-coming and out-going materials for the constructions. In addition MSD did not appoint proper manger for preparation of the financial statements as it kept in position the administrative assistant with marketing and public relation background. It should hire manager that is specialized in accounting and finance. According to the management team that mentioned in the business plan have adequate mix of outside experience. For example, Ms. Jaya is an administrative assistant has excellent organizational and managing office crisis skills with 25 years of experience in accounts payable and receivable. Except for Mr. Varma which has seven years experience in marketing and public relation but which is not adequate for accounting job. The company set a goal to build an infrastructure for organizational structure but seems it does not applied yet proper organizational chart. It did not mention a detailed organizational structure and who should report to whom. It should clearly set up structure with staff position and duties. The business plan has not mentioned if there is any delegation of authority between staff. They have to plan a proper delegation strategy and to inform staff about it in order to be aware of the responsibilities that are transferred to them. There are no monitoring procedures to check the performance of the employees. The company had to have performance measurement to evaluate how the staffs perform in their duties. The organization philosophy is based on job responsibility and mutual respect between staff. The staff should follow this organization culture to achieve the companys common goals and objectives. MSD consider its employees as it provides health and safety work environment within the concrete industry. Moreover, it trains its employees adequately on the industry work. Although these are satisfying staff, there is probability of cost increasing of the company especially overhead expenses. 3.0 Product-Market Offering The construction company had set target market by supplying its services to both commercial and individual customers. It provides road construction and dirt work for commercial customers. It also provides house slabs and driveways for residential houses. Moreover, it provides concrete fabrication services for both residential as well as commercial customers. The business plan although highlight the services that provided to clients, it did not mention the types of services that are preferred by the clients. It should have a detailed investigation of customers needs to satisfy their requirements. MSD adding-value in their products through provides certain benefits to its clients including solid foundation, long lasting and safety and high quality products with cost-effective prices. Therefore, the clients can enjoy living at their house and feel safety. According to the statistics in business plan the demand of single-family units has been increased by 12% and 1.5% for multi-family units in 2001. This indicates that there is market space for MSD products and services. However, the statistics are out of date and the company should rely only on the recent data. The firm has knowledge of the industry and competitors as it knows that the market is in growth position and the competitors strength and weaknesses, such as Julfar and Bahwan Company. These all will assist firm in having resistance against any reaction by the competitors. The products and services of the firm are well-constructed and durable with high quality but at reasonable price. Therefore, it leads to low maintenance requirements. In addition, it ensures that their products are saved and approved by Muscat Municipality and Ministry of Electronic and Water Resources before providing to customers. This indicates that the company has shown the value of their products for prospect customers. Bahwan and Julfar are well known brand with many years experience in construction services. They have an exemplary skill in customer relation management which enables them to retain their clients. Besides that, they have marketing skills and database resources that create obstacles to MSD to become market leader. Construction Company is trying to stay close to customers by gathering all its services in head office (AL-Khuwair) and it provides 24 hours call centre as a facility for customers if they face or to complain about any problems. In tight economy and high competition, MSD planned to design a unique strategy to keep the cost at reasonable level with high quality of products. It also verifies calls in accordance to their circumstances and then transfers these particular calls to proper department. It can be cost leadership firstly by attempt to gain more market share than its competitors. Then, the cost will be automatically reduced by distributing fixed cost in wide range of products. 4.0 Competitive Environment Based on business plan there are no indicators of whether some of elements will affects the construction industry, such as economic stability and customer needs. MSD firm had collected only some information regarding to its competitors. This include as follows: * Operating method. The competitors using high quality services with reasonable price. These prices will gradually decrease up to the current market price without reducing in quality. * Market strategies. In order to retain their clients, they hired customer relation management for this purpose. On other hand, MSD did not find information related to competitors including size and profitability. It should get some statistical data about the competitors profit, their market shares, number of employees, number of branched and so on. The entrepreneur did not identify of the future marketing mix strategy of the competitors. It also did not investigate of whether the rivals have planned to develop new products for the future. The companys objective if the competitors develop new products or provide new services. It might be the latest one to possess these products or services and these possessions might already reach at their maturity level. MSD should at least try to gets some information about the competitors (through analysis current market strategy of the rivals to predict its future plan) in order to find proper reaction against its competitors to keep their objectives achievable. The company did not have a unique resources that makes it difference from the competitors to attract clients. It should have something that allows them to be differentiating from other. For instance: providing free maintenance after sales. 5.0 Financial Performance * Financial Statements figures The analysts found certain errors in the MSD financial plan. In its projected income statement the amount of retained profit that desired by MSD is same as the break even. Therefore, the firm should make more profit to achieve its target. Moreover, the retained profit for the year 2007 was wrongly calculated. The amount after deducting provision for tax and legal reserve should be R.O 21,000 instead of R.O 42,600. This error affected the rate of some ratios like net profit and ROE. In projected balance sheet of the firm two issues were found. First, the fixed assets were relatively low. The companys fixed assets balance should be higher due to heavy machinery and building that it possessed. If we assumed that most of its fixed assets is in form of leasing, it did not mention in the F.S. secondly, in 2008 the F.A was significantly low compare to previous years. About the projected cash flow, there is one mistake has deducted. The advance pre-payment have to be ‘nil instead of negative balance of R.O 5,000 as it is constant every year. The business plan also includes the calculation of ratios. In calculation of interest cover, MSD did not mention the amount of interest or the amount of loan that will enable it to calculate the interest. There is a financial charge in income statement but it represents beside interest other items, such as transaction fees and cost of credit. Thus, it will mislead all the stakeholders who depend on the statements. * Financial ratios analysis However, the analysis of the ratios was based on the given statement except for 2007 where it calculated after the amendment of net profit. a) Performance ratio: Return on shareholders funds. 2006 2007 2008 22.5% 14% 29% The profit available to owner had been decreased in 2007 by 8.5% but it increased again in 2008 15%. This is because the profit after tax decreased in 2007 and then increased again in the following year. According to the plan the net profit is fluctuated every year. This indicates that company does not have adequate plan for uncertainty. Return on capital employed 2006 2007 2008 25% 33.33% 35% ROCE had been increased continuously every year. It is because the profit before interest and tax increased yearly. This mean the company situation is continually improving and willing to pay its debts. However, long term debt had not taken into account as it was not available in projected balance sheet. This lead to inaccurate identifies the percentage of profit available to pay its debts. b) Profitability ratio: Gross margin 2006 2007 2008 34.84 33.48% 33.33% The projected income statement shows that gross profit has been slightly decreased from 2006 to 2007. This is due to the increasing in cost of sales and the revenue did not increase at the same level while it remained almost same in 2008. MSD should investigate the reason of such decreases as it may affect he net profit in future Net profit margin 2006 2007 2008 17.42% 18.52% 19.40% Although the gross profit had been decreased, it can be noticed that the net profit is increasing every year. The reason for increasing is operating expenses has been increased at acceptable level which let retained profit to reflect the increasing in sales revenue. The total expenses were increased from 2006 to 2007 by 1.13% (27,000/24,000) whereby retained profit had increased by 1.58% (42,600/27,000) for same period. c) Asset efficiency ratio: Debtor turnover 2006 2007 2008 177 days 143 days 155 days The debtor collection period has decreased in 2007 by 34 days and it increased again in 2008 by 12 days. However, it is still considering high. (Further explanation in III) Creditors turnover 2006 2007 2008 74 days 88 days 76 days Average payment period to MSDs suppliers is 79 days whereby average collection period is 158 days. Company might face problem in cash flow because it pays to supplier before receiving from customers. It should make sure that the money collected earlier than the payments although customers may not like it otherwise the firm will suffer to pay to its suppliers. If this situation is continued, the suppliers may not renew the contract or may ask the firm to pay on delivery. d) Liquidity ratio: Current ratio 2006 2007 2008 5.36:1 4.18:1 4.78:1 The current ratio of the firm has been decreased in 2007 and 2008 compare to 2006 but it is still at acceptable level. This is probably because the current liabilities in 2006 are less than in 2007 and 2008. MSD attempted to ensure that its current ration did not fall below 4:1. Quick ratio 2006 2007 2008 3.79:1 2.76:1 3.27:1 Again, the current liabilities in 2006 are more than in next two years. It was noticed that the inventory was less in 2006 than the inventory in following years. MSD should ensure their inventory level should not increase further otherwise it might face difficulties in cash flow. e) Gearing ratio Interest cover 2006 2007 2008 21 times 26 time 29 times The interest coverage of less than three times is considering low. It can be seen that the interest cover is increasing every year from 21 times in 2006 to 29 times in 2008 which is good news to company. The reason behind this increasing is the profit before interest and tax is greater in 2007 and 2008 than in 2006 regardless of increasing in total expenses. * Sensitivity analysis The following table will help to calculate the sensitivity to profit. 2006 2007 2008 R.O000 R.O000 R.O000 Sales 155 230 300 Less: Material cost (101) (153) (200) Less: Labor cost (8) (9) (10) Contribution 46 68 90 Less: Fixed cost (16) (18) (20) Net profit 30 50 70 I) Calculation of sensitivity Since the plan had not given clear figures for calculating sensitivity of the project, we had assumed the following: * Cost of sales had been taken as a material cost. * Staff salaries as a labor cost. * Other expenses had used as fixed cost. 2006 2007 2008 Profit to sales 19% 22% 23% Profit to material 30% 33% 35% Profit to labor 375% 555% 700% Profit to fixed cost 187% 278% 350% It had found that sales were the lowest percentage among the others. Therefore, it was more sensitivity to profit. It means that the sales will affect the profit more than other element if it decrease or increase. II) Calculation of BEP Profit to BEP (in value) = sales*(F.C/contribution) 2006 2007 2008 R.O54,000 R.O61,000 R.O67,000 The company had to sell an average of R.O54000, R.O61000 and R.O67000 in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively in order to cover all of its expenses. III) Margin of safety 2006 2007 2008 65% 73% 78% The company can allow its sales to decrease by 35%, 27% and 22% in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively without incurring any losses. 6.0 SWOT analysis of MSD construction * Strength: MSD provides quality construction services by providing an honest, fair working relationship with residential and commercial clients, subcontractors and sales people. Since the biggest concern within the concrete work industry is the health and safety of its employees as well as the customers. Also, it developed a comprehensive infrastructure designed, long term planning with a safety policy and secure company. They did good analysis about the strength and weaknesses of their competitors. The company management has different facilities which enhance them to perform better such as, experience and qualification in different areas in the market started from the owner. The ability of company to provide superior quality services at highly competitive and guaranteed price. * Weaknesses: There is no clear organizational structure of the company. They dont have a famous brand name yet. Also, they focus only in few department and duties. Moreover they did wrong calculation in different areas like in concrete work and in single-family housing construction. In order to overcome these weaknesses, MSD should create additional departments, such as IT and human resource department. Furthermore, it should hire financial analyst to analyze market accurately. * Opportunity: The owner and his management team are highly experienced and qualified in construction work. The growth in population, demand increase in construction and increase in government projects will help them to survive. Also, competitors have high overhead expenses, bad contractual terms with its key suppliers that often delay particular project and because of that they are losing some of their strategic partnership with significant firms. * Threats: MSD faced strong competitors with strong capital and shares, which they already in the market and they have high construction services and distribution quality at very competitive price. The competitors have exemplary skills in customer relationship management and leading marketing skills with efficient database management. In pricing strategy the competitors seems to be the expert in the field by offered reasonable price with high quality for a year and then slowly moves it down to compete with current price in the market. Government regulation to apply omanization which could lead to high cost and the labors May not have a good experience. MSD can merge with other construction company to get extra capital for competing with competitors. It can build its own IT department to process the data efficiency. It should have proper procedures for recruitment so it can minimize after employment cost. Conclusion and Recommendation This paper had analyzed the appropriateness of MSD business plan. There were some issues against the plan that is necessarily to succeed the business. Some of importance investigation had not carried on, such as competitors strategy. On other hand, there were some incomplete statements and improper collection of market statistic. Moreover, the firm F.S had included errors that would affect its financial goals. In addition, the company did not have PEST and Porters five forces analysis of the industry. These missing statements will lead to business failure. If it is plan to propose their business plan to the any of financial instruments to seeking loan there is potential of rejecting this proposal. Recommendation MSD should review some of its plan, such as market statistic and attempt to get more accurate data. Beside the correction of data, it should also collect significant data like competitive market shares, profit and the size. In addition, it should collect information about competitors Porters five forces. It had found that some of the management holds inappropriate position in accordance to their qualification and experience. The firm should review this and try to appoint right person for the right job. It should also hire some additional managers in management team, such as human resource manger and stock manger to implement the companys strategies.

The people bomb on 20-20 :: essays research papers

The film â€Å"The people bomb† was a compilation of stories and videos collected from diverse cultures and geographical locations focusing on dramatic increases in human population over short spans of time. This population explosion was having a direct, negative impact on the environment and society of the locations discussed. As a result, involved governments began taking action to alleviate the repercussions of this population expansion and to prevent its continuance. Some of these actions were received harshly by citizens under the acting governments, some were wavered and seen as ineffective for religious reasons and others were successful and becoming more so as time continues. One example of a harshly received marshal action was that of either forced, or persuaded, mass sterilization of societal members. This particular action was taken in India, where citizens from the general population were either forced or coerced into thinking they were being forced to accept ster ilization procedures. Many health and wrongful death issues ensued, as well as moral and emotional objection.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Population expansion, on scales demonstrated in â€Å"The people bomb,† create serious issues for the societies that experience them. A large congestion of people in an area not designed, or capable of maintaining them spawns problems with waste disposal, employment, availability of necessary resources, health, and proper living accommodations. Most commonly experienced in the third world, matters such as these are quickly becoming pandemic in their proportions. Without proper regulation and control of the population or the existence of necessary support programs for a number of people not conducive to their environment, conditions will only worsen.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One may argue that the problem of overpopulation in areas experiencing absolute poverty is inevitable. It may be viewed as a situation only repaired by either force, such as forced sterilization, or the simple end result of an abnormally high mortality rate amongst the population due to poor health conditions.