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Global Imbalance - An Imminent Dollar Crisis
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7 Tips | Easy Ways to Improve Your Vision
They are two of your most precious possessions, but chances are, you take your eyes for granted. Most of us do. But think for a second what life would be like without being able to gaze on your grandchild or your flower garden or even navigate the kitchen without incident
Prevent Blindness America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to vision issues, estimates that 50,000 people lose their sight needlessly every year and that 80 million Americans are at risk of eye diseases that can lead to low vision and even blindness.
The good news: The most common diseases — age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), cataracts, glaucoma, and dry eye disease — are all preventable to some extent. Read on to see (pun intended) how you can get Stealth Healthy protection for your peepers. Before we go any further, we have to tell you that the first step, if you smoke, is to stop. Smoking increases your risk of cataracts, glaucoma, dry eyes, and age-related macular degeneration.
1. Mix a cup of blueberries with a cup of yogurt for breakfast this morning. Blueberries are one of the richest fruit forms of antioxidants, and a study published in The Archives of Ophthalmology found that women and men who ate the greatest amount of fruit were the least likely to develop age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), the leading cause of blindness in older people.
2. Spread bilberry jam on your morning toast. Or take a bilberry supplement every morning. The berries contain compounds called anthocyanosides, which may protect the retina against macular degeneration.
3. Have spinach twice a week. Could be a spinach quiche, steamed spinach, or maybe Tuscan
spinach — sautéed in some olive oil with garlic and raisins. Regardless, be sure to get your spinach. Studies find that lutein, a nutrient that is particularly abundant in spinach, may prevent age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. Ideally, get your lutein in combination with some form of fat (olive oil works great) for the best absorption.
4. Cook with red onions, not yellow. Red onions contain far more quercetin, an antioxidant that is thought to protect against cataracts.
5. Aim your car vents at your feet — not your eyes. Dry, air-conditioned air will suck the moisture out of eyes like a sponge. Aim the vents in your car away from your eyes, or wear sunglasses as a shield. Dry eyes can be more than an inconvenience; serious dryness can lead to
corneal abrasions and even blindness if left untreated.
6. Move your computer screen to just below eye level. Your eyes will close slightly when you’re staring at the computer, minimizing fluid evaporation and the risk of dry eye syndrome, says John Sheppard, M.D., who directs the ophthalmology residency program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia.
7. Take a multivitamin every day. Make it a habit, like brushing your teeth. A major study suggested that if every American at risk for age-related macular degeneration took daily supplements of antioxidant vitamins and zinc, more than 300,000 people could avoid ARMD-associated vision loss over the next five years. Other studies find that women who took vitamin C supplements for at least 10 years were 77 percent less likely to show initial signs of cataracts than those who took no supplemental C. So take a multi with at least 150 mg vitamin C, or take a separate C supplement
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20 Ways to Eliminate Stress
What is Stress? Stress is a result of challenges in life, and a life without challenges is too boring.This article gives you simple ways to eliminate the stress and lead a stress free life. Read More>
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31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing
Lacking inspiration to write. This is what you looking for, this post inspires you to write good articles.Read More>
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Fixed-Schedule Productivity
How To Choose The Right Goals To Focus On
Basically, you can choose to work any goal that you feel is necessary for your health, stability and happiness.
Goal setting is nothing more than a formal process for personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis you decide what you want to achieve, and then move in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of these goals.
The process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing exactly what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on to do it. You also know what nothing more than a distraction is.
Goal setting is a standard technique used by professional athletes, successful business people and high achievers in all fields. It gives you long term vision and provides you with short term motivation.
It helps to focus your attention and knowledge which helps you to organize your resources. By setting sharp and clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless effort.
By setting goals, you will also raise your self confidence, as you recognize your and ability to meet the goals that you have set. The process of achieving goals and seeing this achievement gives you confidence that you will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals later on.
Goals are set on a number of different levels. In the first place, you decide what you want to do with your life and what large scale goals you want to achieve.
Second, you break these down into the smaller aims that you must hit so that you reach your overall lifetime goals.
Finally, once you have your plan, you start working towards achieving it.
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Eye Care - For Better Eyes
2. Wear sunglasses out in the sun
3. Do not read continuously in moving vehicles, take break
4. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables such as carrots, spinach, papaya and mangoes because these are enriched with beta carotene and are excellent for healthy eyes and proper vision
5. Apply cucumber water or thin slices of cucumber to the skin around the eyes, especially if this skin is looking dry. It improves your vision and also reduces puffs and bags under the eyes. This the best and easiest eye care tips
6. Apply all-natural eye drops
7. Splash eyes with cold water. Apply cotton wool pads, soaked in warm milk, light tea solution or rose water on the eyes. Press gently and leave for 10 minutes
8. Do regular eye exercise and make it a practice
Simple Exercises:
1. Lift the eyes to the ceiling and then to the floor. Repeat. Look straight ahead, then to the left and then to the right. Repeat. Make a circle, first clockwise and then anticlockwise, with the eyes. Repeat
2. Rub your hands together until they feel warm, close your eyes and cover them lightly with cupped palms. Without applying too much pressure on the closed eyelids, place your palms on your eyes so that your nose remains uncovered, and no light rays are able to enter the eyes. Take deep breaths slowly and evenly, and relax yourself, and after your eyes see nothing but blackness, remove your palms from your eyes. Repeat
Creating and Managing a Lean Supply Chain
Lean supply chain management is not just for manufacturers who practice lean manufacturing. Nor is it just for large retailers. It is a practice that can benefit small and mid-size home furnishings retailers, wholesalers, distributors and others.
WHAT IS LEAN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT?
Lean is how a properly designed and operated supply chain should function. A lean supply chain process is one that has been streamlined to reduce and eliminate waste or non-value added activities along the supply chain flow associated with the movement of products. Waste can be measured in time, inventory and unnecessary costs. Value-added activities are those that contribute to efficiently placing the final product at the customer’s door. The supply chain and inventory contained in the chain should flow. Any activity that stops the flow or that touches inventory should create value.
Lean is how a properly designed and operated supply chain should function. A lean supply chain process is one that has been streamlined to reduce and eliminate waste or non-value added activities along the supply chain flow associated with the movement of products. Waste can be measured in time, inventory and unnecessary costs. Value-added activities are those that contribute to efficiently placing the final product at the customer’s door. The supply chain and inventory contained in the chain should flow. Any activity that stops the flow or that touches inventory should create value.
WHAT MUST BE DONE TO BE LEAN?
Supply chains tend to accrue waste and non-value added activities for many reasons, both internal to the company and external. Regaining lean supply chain efficiencies may mean addressing many of the same issues that created the problems of extra and unneeded time, inventory and costs.
Supply chains tend to accrue waste and non-value added activities for many reasons, both internal to the company and external. Regaining lean supply chain efficiencies may mean addressing many of the same issues that created the problems of extra and unneeded time, inventory and costs.
The ideal approach is to design the perfect supply chain and fit your company’s operation onto it. Supply chain management is meant to reduce excess inventory in the supply chain. It should be demand driven, built on the “pull” approach of customers pulling inventory in a flow as required, not by suppliers pushing inventory. Excess inventory reflects the additional time spent within the supply chain operation. So the perfect supply chain is lean, having removed wasteful time and inventory.
A lean supply chain, with the pull, flows back from the store floor through to purchase orders placed on suppliers. Anything that delays or impedes this flow must be analyzed as a potential non-value added activity.
To develop a lean supply chain, firms should:
- Understand that this is an ongoing, continuous improvement approach as compared to business process reengineering which can be viewed as a one-time change.
- Gain top management’s commitment. Continuous improvement requires ongoing support.
- Build a multi-discipline team for the project—one that understands lean supply chain management.
- Analyze the total supply chain process, not just the outbound part or just the inbound part.
- Map the process.
- Assess for gaps or redundancies in the process that create time, the key waste.
- Avoid cannibalizing the process by just focusing on warehousing or transportation or other activities instead of studying the entire supply chain process.
- Realize cause-effect impacts. High freight cost, for example, can be a problem or a symptom. Excess inventory can be a problem or, more often, a symptom of a problem.
- Drive for root causes, not symptoms.
- Comprehend the complexity of supply chains with multiple suppliers, distribution centers and stores.
- Appreciate the fundamental impact of international sourcing and shipping on time and inventory.
- Grasp the impact of the organization and culture on supply chain process design and operation. This can be overlooked as a factor in achieving or not achieving lean.
- Analyze the effect of continuing external events, such as Homeland Security activities or imports, on lead times and on lean dynamics.
- Calculate the risks of the lean supply chain. Reducing inventory frees up capital; reducing time improves the cash-to-cash cycle. However reducing inventory, without a properly designed process, removes the comfortable feeling that accompanies excess inventory and can expose you to the risk of lost sales.
- Mitigate risks in the process redesign. This is both good business practice and meets requirements with Section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act that was passed after the Enron and other corporate scandals. Sarbanes Oxley requires that management assess internal controls, with a control framework and process. Executives must participate, keeping in mind the objective of boosting the effectiveness and efficiency of supply chain operations as well as the necessity for making documentation available for management review.
- Observe the effect that time has on inventory and on an effective process.
- Assess where standardization is feasible and where customizing to specific customer requirements is needed.
- Collaborate with suppliers. It is a requirement, not an option; and it is a two-way exchange.
- Demand supplier performance. It is vital to a lean supply chain operation.
- Measure the present process as total cycle time, costs and inventory (both in dollars and units) and inventory turns.
- Integrate the supply chain. Breaks in the flow, both internal and external, can be pockets of waste.
- Identify non-value added activities, their effect and their cause.
- Rationalize the process.
- Improve the process to drive change.
- Streamline the process for unnecessary complexity as well as unnecessary suppliers and service providers.
- Incorporate technology, such as supply chain execution technology, as part of the process improvement. It is an enabler. Understand where standard ERP and other software may, or may not, enable a lean supply chain.
- Use technology that includes event management and exception management to enhance management and control. Supply chain complexity increases the need for event and exception management technology and capability. Event management focuses on a key event(s) that must happen for process or transaction success. Exception management focuses on exceptions to what is expected instead of having to look at everything.
- Know that technology cannot overcome process flaws.
- Involve your people—employees, suppliers, service providers—to provide input on present supply chain effectiveness and improvements.
- Make the supply chain visible; recognize that blind spots can be areas of waste.
- Recognize the viability of outsourcing as a driver of needed changes. Proper outsourcing can provide people, process and technology that may otherwise not be readily available.
- Probe for uncertainties that create inventory and other waste. Forecasting accuracy is one area of opportunity.
- Investigate reasons why product does not flow in a more consistent and predictable manner. Order and shipment releases from suppliers, for example, can create inbound flows that mitigate time and inventory buffers.
- Position inventories at the proper stores and distribution centers. The right inventory at the wrong facility can result in inter-facility transfers that add time and extra transport costs and can delay customer order deliveries. This is a non-value added action that generates waste.
- Be open to the changes necessary for the creation of a lean supply chain. From technology, such as WMS, to a completely redesigned process, significant change can be expected.
- Include change management in your lean program requirements.
CONCLUSION
Lean supply chain management is not about “fixing” what someone else is doing wrong. It is about identifying and eliminating waste as measured in time, inventory and cost across the complete supply chain. This requires continuous effort and improvement.
Lean supply chain management is not about “fixing” what someone else is doing wrong. It is about identifying and eliminating waste as measured in time, inventory and cost across the complete supply chain. This requires continuous effort and improvement.
A lean supply chain can reduce time by 10 to 40%, inventories by 10% to 30% and costs by 10% to 25%. Continuous improvements can take payback to the upper range—and beyond. This is a significant benefit to ROI and to the bottom line.
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Supply Chain Management - An Overview
If you are not in a company being impacted right now by Supply Chain Management or by Continuous Replenishment and do not think that Supply Chain Management affects you, then you are wrong. If it does impact you now, it will. The concept is appearing in various industries and is moving to moving into smaller companies. Start to understand what it is, and what it means to you. Supply Chain Management is a dynamic paradigm driving through companies. Articles on supply chain management appear in many different publications, national and international, with different target audience. While many of the stories relate to large companies who supply large retailers or grocers, the attention SCM is getting is phenomenal. Add in the global impact of customers, competitors and suppliers; and the magnitude of the supply chain is very significant.
What It Is All About. Supply Chain Management is a reverse of prior practices where manufacturers supplied product to customers and they wanted to. Now customers tell suppliers how and when they want their inventory delivered. The driver behind Supply Chain Management is to remove inefficiencies, excess costs and excess inventories from the supply pipeline which extends from the customer back through his suppliers and through his suppliers' suppliers and so on back. By having the program driven by the customer, it is hoped that inventories, caused by uncertainties and slow response, will be significantly eliminated. While there are sales incentives to major suppliers with the carrot of category management or similar programs, the success of supply chain management rests with logistics.
The Five Key Issues of Logistics Effectiveness are core to Supply Chain Management--
- Movement of Product
- Movement of Information
- Time / Service
- Cost
- Integration, both internal and external, both organizations and systems
The customer requirements may vary by customer, but they do have certain consistencies to logistics--
- Quick response to orders from order receipt through shipment to invoicing
- Complete and accurate orders / no backorders
- Delivery windows or appointments
- Special shipment preparation as to packaging, marking, labeling, stenciling, slip sheets or pallets, etc.
- Bar coding
- EDI
- Carrier selection
Effects of Supply Chain Management. The initial benefits of supply chain management accrue to the customer, the initiator of his supply chain. He earns the reduction in inventories by driving out excesses inventories which he must purchase, store and be responsible for. The impact of supply chain management to the supplier may be more difficult to classify, initially, as benefits. They may vary, but may include--
- Fewer orders initially while the customer draws down excess inventories.
- Small and more frequent orders.
- Vendor carries inventory, not the customer.
- Higher warehousing costs for picking smaller and more orders.
- Higher freight costs for shipping smaller order and more orders.
- Penalties for not meeting the customer's requirements.
- Possible loss of business for not meeting the customer's requirements.
- Additional capital expenditure to satisfy the need for information and technology to provide the base for SCM responsiveness. Supply chain management success dictates new ways of doing business for suppliers. There is no "standard" practice; no "standard" way of doing business. Instead, there is a practice for each customer. If a company has one hundred customers, he may have one hundred customer practices. Adjusting this way challenges traditional management concepts. Impediments. There are impediments to supply chain success. Emphasis is presently on the initial customer-supplier link. It is not coordinated through the supply chain. Instead as the effects ripple through the supply chain, it is more like a "whisper down the lane" impact, where suppliers are not clear as to their role and what they must do. Responding to supply chain demands is not easy. There are issues which must be recognized and dealt with, such as--
- Accounting Silos. Supply chain management is a leading-edge technique. Yet the traditional cost measurements used by companies goes back to the Model A. Meeting Generally Accepted Accounting Principles is one thing; measuring the costs and benefits of logistics and supply chain management is something quite different.
- Logistics has a difficulty with having its costs properly identified, captured and measured properly. Some costs, such as freight, show on the P&L. Some, such as inventory, show on the balance sheet. And the driver to supply chain management, service, does not appear on any financial document. As a result, suppliers may have difficult seeing the cause-effect of supply chain management to them and the gain-sharing benefits as you progress with it. Activity-Based Costing is the closest approach to measuring the effects of supply chain management on an organization. With ABC, you can develop cost information based on the activities required to the logistics service.
- Functional Silos. Supply chain management is a process which requires integrated teamwork. Its goal is customer order-response- satisfaction. Yet traditional organizations, with their responsibilities and goals, may not be teamwork enhancers. Each function may have its own internal goals which run counter to effective logistics performance necessary for supply chain management success. Look at the underlying driver of supply chain management, the customer. In developing a tailored process to meet the needs of each customer, who is responsible for it? Sales--after all, it is one of their customers? Logistics, since they are on the front-line for making supply chain management work? Manufacturing who must be able to adapt to the dynamics of point-of-sale or other production drivers? Or consider that the company uses tools such as MRP to drive its production planning; yet supply chain management is a pull, not a push approach. How does this shift in a company's practice be absorbed? Who is responsible then for a company's supply chain management? The answer is everyone in the company is responsible; yet the organization has often dictated that one group be responsible.
- Reactionary Practices. Since supply chain management is a process, it takes time, focus and discipline to make the necessary changes to the way a company does business. It is not reacting to an order; it is responding to a customer. "Fighting fires" and other reacting events are anti-process and, while it seems like it is customer-focused, it is not. Instead reacting to crises and other emergencies keeps a company for doing what must be done to implement the needed process for supply chain management. At the end of day of crises, the company is often no closer to implementing the necessary integrated process.
- Tactical versus Strategic Role for Logistics. Supply chain success depends upon logistics. To develop the necessary programs for supply chain management, the logistics organization must be involved in the planning activity from the beginning. Other groups cannot meet without logistics, decide what logistics must do, give logistics orders and think there will be supply chain success. If that approach is used, then the likelihood of meeting the customer requirements and implementing the technology and teamwork needed will likely not be there.
- Unclear Mission. Supply chain management requires a rethinking of the company and the logistics mission. Is it customer or is it cost? These can be conflicting goals. Saying the mission is service, then measuring it by cost can cause organizations to lose focus on what must be done. Supply chain management is a new concept and requires a reassessment of the what the company is doing, where it is going and how it wants to get there. Conclusion. Supply chain management is here. It is not about shipping orders; it is not about making product then pushing it out the door. Supply chain management is about developing a process to respond to the different requirements of each customer. Customers are driving suppliers' practices. Being successful requires logistics effectiveness. Customers, competitors and vendors are global. This is an exciting challenge and opportunity for companies who see the potential and make it happen[Via Email Forward]
5S Practice
organisation. The 5S’s are a group of techniques to promote workplace organisation, ensure
adherence to standards and foster the spirit of continuous improvement.
Principles/ Key Attributes
To successfully convey the message of 5S across the organisation, achieve total
participation and systematically implement the practice, establishing effective quality
processes as prerequisites for good products and services, the following step-by-step
approach should be adhered:
· Organisation (Seiri)
The objective of organisation is to get rid of unwanted items by focussing on the core
items that are needed to fulfil the requirements of the job and discard items that are
not needed. This could focus on the elimination of excess inventory affecting,
warehouse space, transportation, labour costs, needed items, and redundant parts, for
example.
· Neatness (Seiton)
Neatness focuses on efficiency, with the main objective being on how quickly one can
get the things needed and how quickly those things can be put away. This is achieved
through locating a specific place for specific items of a specific quantity, where
needed.
· Cleaning (Seiso)
The objective of cleaning is to identify abnormalities and areas for improvement. This
is achieved through a combination of cleaning the workplace and at the same time
focusing on the identification of abnormalities or out of control conditions.
· Standardisation (Seiketsu)
The objective of standardisation is to consolidate the first 3 S’s by establishing
standard procedures. This activity is carried out to determine the best work practices
and find ways of ensuring that everyone carries out an individual activity the same
‘best’ way.
· Discipline (Shitsuke)
The objective of discipline is to sustain improvements and make further
improvements by encouraging effective use of the ‘Check-Act-Plan-Do’ cycles. This is
achieved through strict adherence to current improvements and the development of an
environment for future improvements.
The Impact on functional Activities
The approach embodied with 5S will effect everyone and everything within an organisation.
The technique of 5S begins with a promotion plan for the sole purpose of promoting the
establishment of the 5S’s. This incorporates everyone within the organisation from the
highest level to shop floor level consisting of a blame-free environment. To instil all
viewpoints at each level a steering committee is formulated and is responsible for the
implementation of 5S.
The next stage is Awareness Training focusing on the dissemination of the 5S plan and its
objectives and incorporating suggestion schemes for the ‘buy-in’ of all employees. An
Internal Audit highlighting areas for improvement.
The scope of activity for the implementation of the 5S technique may incorporate every area
within your organisation or focus on specific areas. Primarily, while incorporating the 5S’s this
will include:
· Disposal of Equipment
· Disposal of Documentation
· Signboard Strategy Team
Environmental Turbulence Indicators
· Intensity of Competition
· Dynamic Customer Requirements
· Supply Chain Turbulence
Agile Capabilities Index
· Product
· Process
· People
· Operational
· Organisational
Risks
The major problem with change is ‘buy-in’ from all levels of personnel. This includes shop
floor personnel who will predominantly encompass the ownership of change on the shop
floor and implement actual change on the surrounding area and to the processes
themselves.
Further, risks include the initial expense of equipment to start cleaning and for the
dissemination of information in terms of notice boards, posters and stationary and awareness
training.
A major risk is the lack of discipline and maintenance of the 5S technique, effectively letting
all the good work drop due to a lack of monitoring and keeping on top of the situation.
Benefits
Implementing the 5S technique will have major benefits on an organisation such as:
· Focus on needed items and the elimination/disposal of unneeded items;
· Cleaner workplace and brighter working environment;
· Employee empowerment through ownership;
· Single-point tooling, one of everything;
· Set point locations for needed items;
· Understanding by all of the implications of the 5S Technique due to open channels of
communication.
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