Causes and Effect of Poverty Essay

The level of poverty, causes and effects on the Educational sector as well as academic performance of students within the Nigeria is worrisome. Poverty, which forms a specific culture and way of life, is a growing issue in Nigeria. The number of Nigerians living in poverty is continually increasing; hence its effects on students performance. This research focuses on the causes and effects of poverty on the academic performance of pupils in primary school, using primary school within Pankshin Local Government as a case study. To create a comprehensive overview of the study and data collection, both primary and secondary methods were used. The primary method includes the questionnaire while secondary method includes books, articles, results and academics performance of students between 2005 – 2011. Questionnaires were distributed among three (3) randomly chosen primary schools, and the returned questionnaires were collated, analysed and interpreted. The results showed that majority of students in primary schools studied have parents who are living below poverty line subsequently, this affects their performance in school as a result of lack of income. Moreover, majority of the students whose parents are below poverty line have reported cases of different diseases which lead to absenteeism. Lastly, it was observed that some students dropout as a result of inability to pay tuition fees. This research hereby recommends that Government should team up with private bodies to make as well implement policies to reduce poverty. Finally, teachers are advised to inculcate teaching techniques that will help students understand the subject easily in order to perform well.

Lawrence and Dobyns Essay Revision

The human mind is a complex and often mysterious force. While it has a great capacity for logic and reasoning, there is also a part of it that reacts in a more primal, emotional way. It not only controls what we think, but how we think, and often this can lead us to do things that we would not otherwise consider doing. These actions can become so much the center of our thoughts that we can think of nothing else. We are forced to follow a course of action that can prove to be quite detrimental, and often even deadly. It is possible for us to convince ourselves that there is only one possible solution to a dilemma, and because of that, we can find ourselves spiraling out of control and into an abyss of destruction with little chance of steering away from it. Both â€Å"Rocking Horse Winner† and â€Å"Kansas† illustrate this fact in different ways. D.H. Lawrence, in â€Å"Rocking Horse Winner,† uses the desire of a child, Paul, who wants desperately to gain the luck that he has been told his entire life that his parents have lacked, and in so doing help stop the whispers of a house that demands money. His mind sets on the need to acquire this luck however he must, and once he starts on the course to gain it, his fate falls into place. In his mind, gaining the luck seems to be a course for gaining his mother’s love instead of the sham with which he has lived his entire life. If only he can stop the whispers of the house, the â€Å"hard little place† (340) in his mother’s heart will dissolve and she will feel a genuine warmth and caring for her children. This hope becomes his obsession, and his mind locks on the solution that he sees, and nothing can deter him from his goals. Conversely, Stephen Dobyns, in the short story â€Å"Kansas,† writes about a farmer who sets his mind on the destruction of wickedness demonstrated by his wife and the man with whom she runs off. His mind is so set on this course of action that the boy who rides with him finds â€Å"the strength of his resolve† (109) more frightening than the gun that lies between them. The boy perceives it as possible that the farmer will do anything to achieve his goal, and the fear that this instills him in prevents him from taking actions that, later in life, he regrets not taking. In his old age, as he is dying, his mind plays over the scene and various possible results if only the boy of so many years before had tried to steer the course of the farmer’s resolve in another direction. Both of these stories by D.H. Lawrence and Stephen Dobyns demonstrate the power of the human mind to make one thought overcome all others so completely that there seems to be no other resolution. The thought becomes an obsession, and, while it is possible that the obsession could be diverted, the task is a difficult one. While Paul and the farmer share the fact that their minds have resolved that they have one way, and one way only, to accomplish their goals, those goals take vastly different forms. Paul wishes to acquire something, and he reaches out with his mind into a realm of fantasy in which riding his rocking horse will help him reach his dreams and make things right. The farmer is more practical in a way, keeping his thoughts focused on a more tangible way of solving his problem. However, while Paul wishes to create, the farmer wishes to destroy. Paul’s desire to grab onto luck and hold on and the farmer’s desire to rid the world of wickedness are both quite logical in their minds, while the futility of these desires is obvious to the reader. However, those who are obsessed can rarely, if ever, realize that such futility is present. They have to learn it on their own, but too often the results of their obsession are tragic. The stories also diverge in their similarities when considering other important characters. In â€Å"Rocking Horse Winner,† while others are allowed to see brief glimpses of Paul’s obsession, no one really knows to what lengths it has gone. Bassett and Oscar only know that Paul wishes to continue to gain money for the benefit of his mother. They don’t see the obsession until it is too late for them to do anything about it, if such a thing is possible. However, the boy in â€Å"Kansas,† quickly gets insight into the obsession of the farmer. While his time is more limited during the short ride he is given, he has a chance to try and divert the farmer from his murderous goal. The task is difficult, but the possibility is there, although his fear keeps the boy from giving it more than a weak attempt. He even goes so far as to promise not to talk to the police, which takes away the one other chance that he has to put a stop to the farmer’s plans. This leads to a dying obsession of the old man that the boy has become to ponder all of the other possible outcomes of his encounter from so many years before. He will never know what really happened, however, and this leads to his last moments being overcome by thoughts of what might have been. Love, or perhaps the lack of love, plays a part in both stories as well. It is obvious that this emotion is what spurs the boy in Lawrence’s story on to his obsession. He sees the chance to gain real love from his mother, and that chance taunts him and pulls him in to his obsession. While it is luck that he convinces himself that he really wants, and even needs, it is the lack of love from his mother that haunts him, and the desire to fill the void in himself becomes all encompassing. He effectively fools himself into thinking that luck is his great desire. In the end, perhaps he acquires his mother’s love, but by then it is too late. Dobyns demonstrates how love can be perverted and turned into something dark and evil. One can assume that the farmer loves his wife, but her betrayal of him, if it does not destroy that love, certainly twists it and makes him want to kill that which hurt him. He convinces himself in his mind that he is doing it to destroy the wickedness that he sees represented in this betrayal, and only by killing the objects of this wickedness will he set things right. Perhaps he believes that by destroying the object of his love he can destroy the pain that he surely feels because of the betrayal. He must â€Å"stomp it out† (108) because that is what he believes he is supposed to do and he resolves that it is something that only he can do, because he is the one who was betrayed, and his wife is his own business and not that of outsiders who he likely sees as interlopers who will rob him of his final resolution. While one might write off the actions of Paul as youthful ignorance, it is more difficult to excuse the farmer. His life experience should tell him that his intended actions are wrong, but his mind finds a way to twist this knowledge and turn it into something that seems justtified and even acceptable. Paul is his own victim, but the farmer has other victims in his sights, who seem right in his mind, for he was a victim of the wickedness exhibited by his targets. So we see in these two stories the power of the mind to destroy those that it rules. It can turn thoughts into overwhelming obsessions which lead people into actions that they would not normally consider. When paired with deep emotion, the possibilities of what a person will do to feed those obsessions increase to degrees that might not seem possible to that person or those people close to him or her.

History of Radio in New Zealand Essay

Radio started in 1921 when a man named Robert Jake, from Otago University made the very first broadcast in New Zealand. Robert first broadcasted from Dunedin to Christchurch, but within 10 years of the first broadcast it went from a novelty item to an every day event. He even broadcasted the arrival of Jean Batten in New Zealand after her solo flight over the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1930’s a Reverent Colin Scriminger, began to broadcast on the wireless. This man also questioned government policies on air and this scared the politicians a bit. Professor James Shelley was the Director of Broadcasting for this period of time and as he came from a high cultured background, he wanted the radio to broadcast high cultured thing such as ‘worthy talks on worthy subjects’. The year of 1936 saw a woman radio announcer take the microphone. Aunt Daisy was her name and she had a morning time slot from 9 – 10am. This was the time that the ‘housewives’ were at home and listening to the radio, so Aunt Daisy would give house hold tips about, cooking, cleaning and the general running of the woman’s side of the household. Aunt Daisy did this show for 27 years. When the government elections of 1945 came along, the government jammed Scriminger’s radio station -1 ZB -. The government took this action because of worries over what Scriminger was going to say about politicians or the government. During the 1940’s the BBC started broadcasting on New Zealand radio. Up until now the only news bulletins that had been allowed, to be aired were the ones that were OKed by the Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage. The BBC told every detail of news and to the people of New Zealand it was frightening to hear all the casualties of the war that was going on. The 1950’s and 60’s, the radio was used by the government to broadcast national propaganda. It was also the start of the Rock ‘N’ Roll era and it was nothing like any of the music before this time. The music produced at this time had a lot to do with the war that was going on in Vietnam as well. The television was bought out in 1960 and brought with it a stand-alone news service which radio could also use for news broadcasting. Radio piracy started in the late 1960’s by a station called radio Hauraki. They did pirated broadcasts because they did not want to obey the radio broadcasting rules that were in place, at this time in history. The morning report on National Radio started in 1975, and this was to take place instead of having a national newspaper for New Zealand. Over the years radio has had many more advantages such as being able to report things faster than television when they happen and recording live while out reporting. Talkback has also changed radio by letting people have their say and not just listening to the announcers opinions on certain topics. With radio you don’t have to sit in one place for a whole hour while you listen to the news but can move freely and visualise it for yourself while the announcer tells you what is going on in the country/world. I think this is the main reason why radio has survived over 80 years in New Zealand, and will continue to change and develop over another 80 years.

Does my team achieve high performance team Essay

Does my team achieve high performance team - Essay Example Communication is the most important criteria of a High Performance Team (HPT). â€Å"In order to be able to function as an efficient team, you need to develop effective team communication† (Anderson 2013). At the beginning of the semester, we had very few group meetings, and this negatively affected my group. The lack of communication made everyone not focus on a common purpose. Additionally, some members did not show respect to others’ opinions because they thought that their opinions were best. Thus, my group decided to solve this problem by scheduling regular meetings so that everyone could share their thoughts and get to know each other well. Communication was very important, and after we solved this problem my group began to show respect to others because they understood each other’s situations much. Through this we were able to achieve the team’s goals in a much more efficient way. Communication led my group to focus on a common purpose. This was very important because the group members needed to know where they were going. Having a common purpose made everyone work collectively to accomplish the team’s ultimate goal and not each individual’s goal. After group discussion we agreed to set up a goal that we should all receive an A for the group work. Furthermore,, we resolved to give others feedback if they were not working for the group’s goals. A common purpose made my group into a high performance team because everyone worked together for one mission. My group also had high self-motivation, which led us to being a high performance team. Self-motivation is very important because everyone became motivated to show professionalism in their work and be punctual always. In this semester, there were many things that occurred within our lives and classes. Sometimes we were not motivated because one group member received a bad grade, but we frequently motivated each other if we realized that one of the group members lost their motivation to

Ethics Dealing between Principles of school and Teachers Research Paper

Ethics Dealing between Principles of school and Teachers - Research Paper Example The principal of any educational institute, being the highest in rank has the biggest responsibility in his or her shoulders of being ethical. People on such posts often face many ethical and legal problems which they have to deal with. This paper highlights some of such ethical and legal problems faced by principals of educational institutes and how these problems are being dealt with and what further steps could be taken to handle a situation, it also mentions the impacts of unethical conduct by teachers in schools and their effects on children. In specific it brings to light issues in educational institutes like ethical conduct towards students, their performances and between professional colleagues. Educational institutes are not only a place of education but it is also a place that helps build the personality of a person’ and human development may be one of the most important aspects of any person’s life and educational institutes plays a significant role toward it . ... Since education is closely related to teaching students not only about studies but also about building a better personality, the administration of the school have to think about policies like what things are punishable for students and what kind of punishments should be appropriate in teaching them a lesson while not going overboard. There are many punishments that are suspension from school, being expelled or even corporal punishments. Such punishments can either help students in teaching them a lesson or it could shatter their confidence leading to more rebellious attitude. The question that arises from the matters of punishment is whether punishing students has helped them and to what limits a student should be punished. Corporal punishment is a serious violation of ethics, it is described as any form of physical punishment that involves the voluntary infliction of pain for an offence it may be administered as a punishment or even as a deter, most commonly administered way of corp oral punishment is paddling. Whether corporal punishment should be allowed or not has been one of the biggest questions in the field of education. Corporal punishment has been banned in almost 30 states in America since 1989 which includes states like New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Ohio and many more (Corporal punishment in public schools, by state). It is still legal in almost 19 states in America, where students are spanked by teachers. In an article on ABC news on corporal punishment the author talks about such incidents where students where paddled and talks about the effects it had on the students. He quotes ‘Tenika Jones says the

Compare between two websites Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Compare between two websites - Essay Example These websites provide various services and software products for business management. Halogensoftware’s products are more focused towards talent management part of the business, whereas, Successfactors’ solutions are related to execution of business. Halogensoftware provides following major product package: performance appraisal, goal management, competency management, career development and planning, integrated talent profile, employee on boarding, activity tracker, easy HRIS integration, job description builder and real0time reporting etc. On the other hand, product and service package of successfactors include, business alignment, people performance and integrated business-execution software solutions. Both organizations provide more or less similar range of software products. Halogen provides money back guarantee for its services where as successfactors display Deloitte’s rating for its products. Analysis indicated that the successfactors has better described and marketed their products. For example, both firms offer a product 360-degree feedback; however, successfactors has given a brief comparison of 360 degree and a regular manager feedback to show how 360-degree feedback is better and why should it is adapted. Then, a visual presentation, including snap shots of the software product is available for the buyer. The product consists of three broad sections of information: employee information, employee feedback, and overall rating. A section of â€Å"legal scan† is also provided to serve legal purpos es. On the other hand, Halogen has provided a brief overview about the features, results, and affordability of its 360-degree rater. For another product, Succession planning, halogen has emphasized its cost effectiveness and affordability. The â€Å"talent pool model† is the base for this product. Its implementation is in three phases: First, the firm understands its workforce potential. Second, it develops internal

Compare and contrast Nissan Juke and BMW 128i Coupe Essay

Compare and contrast Nissan Juke and BMW 128i Coupe - Essay Example It was tested at a quarter mile, and came in a 15.5 seconds and zero to 60 in 7.3 seconds. From 60 mph to zero, it came in at 123 feet. The estimates for the Juke’s fuel economy are 27 city and 32 highway. With well weighted steering and buttoned down suspension, the Juke provides a decisive response. Coming in at $20,000 to $25,000, the Juke is also comfortable to drive. Firmly padded seats, adjustable height and steering tilts help the driver find the ideal position. It also has all wheel drive, Bluetooth and iPod capability, side and curtain airbags, as well as stability and traction control. It also comes with emergency braking assist, engine immobilizer, whiplash protection system, tire pressure monitoring and vehicle alarm impact sensor. Although the Juke comes in as an average vehicle in terms of performance, dynamics, comfort, quietness, ergonomics, visibility, space and overall build quality, it is a good vehicle with a very unique look at a fair price. With overall o wnership costs for five years coming in at $31,595, and depreciation at $10, 932, it’s a good deal. The 2011 BMW 128i Coupe is a smaller but still sleek version of BMW’s 3 series.

Media Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Media Analysis - Essay Example Introduction The term â€Å"media† was coined with the advent of radio networks, magazines and newspapers in the 1920. The media do have several main functions all of which have at least political insinuations: reporting, entertainment, socializing new generations, identifying public problems, making profits and providing a political forum. It is known to play a central role in influencing people, and, therefore, changes the formation of attitudes and beliefs. The following sections are dedicated to the study of the media in relation to daily occurrences and processes, and will consider the interaction between media and the government in daily life, in Australia and United States of America. Television Media Media television is specifically designed to serve a large audience. Television, manuscripts and books, internet, prerecorded video and speech, music, film, mobile phones and video games are today regarded as media. Hollywood executives have in the past admitted that media wields extraordinary power to entertain, educate and inform. Television programming is meant to entertain, educate and informing the masses, and known to play a main role in forming or changing people’s attitudes towards subjects or objects. Television and Politics In print media, political discussions are unavoidable just like political stories cannot miss on television extremely day. Political news and political announcements are regularly encountered on all forms of media and more especially during campaigns. Media also provides a forum for the general public to discuss topical issues, which are of, national interest. In overall, media remains a vital means through which people get information regarding the performance of their governments on top of other products that it offers. While the importance of media as the government’s watchdog cannot be undermined, it is also noted that sometimes media presents information in a biased way to influence the public in makin g decisions, which may or, may not be for their benefits. The mass media does several main functions all of which have at least political insinuations: reporting, entertainment, socializing new generations, identifying public problems, making profits and providing a political forum. When it comes to government activities, the media does have even greater influence than it has during political campaigns. This is in line with the fact that both president and media need each other. In Australia, television remains the most commonly used sources of news and current affairs with most cable television news and internet services. US Television Networks In the United States, there are five key television networks. For example, there is over-the-air; free-to-air; cable television; internet television and direct satellite broadcasting. Furthermore, there are syndicated shows which do rerun several TV series and old movies. However, there have been new concepts, which have been, established to promote the airing of international programs like National Football League, the Simpsons which do broadcast through UHF. As such, such prime time schedules and programs have been aired for not more than two hours, but when international programs like the Simpsons have achieved success despite that they were aired for a short time. However, the programs broadcasted did achieve such eminent success, and, therefore, such international programs were promoted. Consequently, that was the inception of the airing

EliteClean International Logistics Strategies Essay

EliteClean International Logistics Strategies - Essay Example These techniques are used to detect areas of non-value adding processes otherwise defined as waste so that the necessary steps can be taken to eliminate them. One of these techniques is value stream mapping. Value stream mapping According to Mangier (2003) value stream mapping is a technique of creating a â€Å"one-page picture† of all the processes that take place in a company. This is the process from the time a customer places an order for a product until the customer has received the product at their location. The aim of value stream mapping is to illustrate the flow of material and information across and throughout all the processes that add value from the stage of production to shipment to the customer. Value stream maps documents both value-adding and non-value-adding processes from production to shipment. In creating the value stream map business and manufacturing waste can be easily identified and thus becomes the basis on which improvements can be made to the company ’s operations. Mangier (2003) indicates that there are four steps involved in value stream mapping. They are i. Defining the product or product family; ii. Creating the â€Å"current state† value stream mapping (CSV); iii. ...   The dishwasher line is manufactured in South Korea; the laundry product line in China; and the range cookers in Thailand. The value stream map for EliteClean is shown below. Figure 1 – Current State Value Stream Map In Figure 1 above a number of activities leading to the production of items are duplicated. There are several persons carrying out procurement activities. Instead of the head office obtaining information on materials required for production, the factories are allowed to do their own procurement. This procurement is carried out by the factory manager in the case of laundry and the chief production engineer who may delegate it to a production manager at the other factories. There are several trucks of raw material going to the three different factories. Some of these trucks carry similar items which are purchased separately by the three different factories. Elite Clean has employed a push-based supply chain strategy. The factories which are located in South Korea , China and Thailand produce items without any knowledge of demand and ship them to the regional distribution centers (RDCs). These distribution centers are located in Birmingham in the UK, Jordan in the Middle East and Chicago in the USA. There is a capacity problem at the RDCs due to the fact that there are too many inventory items in stores. There is some concern that some of these items may become obsolete. There is a cost involved in holding inventory. Additionally, when the storage facilities are too packed there will be a problem moving out inventory on a first-in-first-out basis. Items are not transported to the distribution centers based on demand.

Fundamentals of Business Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fundamentals of Business Law - Case Study Example With days the news spread in different media which are not always true as the original incident occurred. According to the Union, the grievant conducted for the document given by Mr. Burrell’s is just an act of being absent-minded and casual to the work. Burrell didn’t carefully evaluate the document before he gave to his colleagues. On the other hand by the Union, the work environment at Peters Middle School was very friendly and very similar types of documents are circulated often to exchange jokes. Supporting Mr. Burrell’s activity the Union stated that these exchanges of jokes should have been stopped earlier. This could have avoided the kind of situation aroused with Burrell. Mr. Burrell was very efficient as an educator thus taking that into account the management board should have taken a deeper look at the situation. By the Union, the Board solely believed the words from the employer witnesses which should not happen and should find a remedy to the problem. The management board with the policies for the employees has taken the right decision by terminating Mr. Burrell’s for his action against racism and violating the policies as an educator. The disciplinary action from the management is one of the major requirements for the school to establish a pleasant workspace for the other employees. Mr. Burrell’s not only violated the policies as a teacher but also tried to spread ‘hate sheet’ according to the management which should not be allowed at any cost by the board to maintain the regulation at school. According to the management board, the allegations against Mr. Burrell’s can be sorted as spreading sheets at school without permission which is not allowed. Secondly telling lie at the board meeting about the distribution of sheets and finally misrepresenting Gilbert Judson as black who is not very close to Mr. Burrell’s.

Rent Controls In The Big Apple Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Rent Controls In The Big Apple - Essay Example There are different levels of control, however: pre-1947 buildings, rent stabilization buildings, and unregulated apartments. The one section of society that loses out in this arrangement is the poor. Sixty years after the temporary measure of rent constraints were introduced, the state government will discuss the state of this policy soon; it will likely be continued for the foreseeable future. There was, however, an attempt to rid the market of these price restraints back in 1997. A debate ensued between the Republican-dominated Senate and the Democrat-led assembly. The result of this argument was that a compromise was reached—23,000 renters were freed of rent constraints out of a group as large as one million. The â€Å"lucky† people who qualified for this arrangement had to be extremely wealthy—household incomes of more than $175,000 per year for a period of two years, or those renting apartments that cost more than $2,000 per month. The result of this decisi on was that the poor remained under strict price controls. One thing that was hidden in that agreement was that the next date to re-consider rent constraints would change to a year without elections, thus taking politics out of the decision as much as possible. Since 1997, New York’s politics and markets have changed to the extent that not too many people are likely to oppose rent constraints now. Most economic experts do not support rents constraints because it severely affects the supply and demand markets and results in unwanted side effects. Many landlords and tenants do not have the freedom to work out their own deals; they are locked into whatever agreement is decided by the law. One consequence of the ill-nature between landlords and tenants is that the law makes it virtually impossible for a landlord to evict a criminal. Henry Pollakowski, an economist at the MIT Center for Real Estate, says

Operations Management in Daimond Manufacturing Essay Example for Free

Operations Management in Daimond Manufacturing Essay Definition Operation Management is the activity of managing the resources which produce and deliver goods and services (Slack et al, 2010). These activities commences from the very initial production stage of information gathering right up to the final stage of consumer consumption of the product. Every organization does operation management even if they do not notice it. All organizations produce goods and/or services and to create goods and/or services, the organization must perform a number of operations which must be effectively and efficiently managed. 1. 2 Role of Operations Management Operations Management is of prime importance in all sectors, cells, functions, units and groups within the organization. An organization is a system and according to the business dictionary, (http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/system. html) a system is ‘An organized, purposeful structure that consists of interrelated and interdependent elements (components, entities, factors, members, parts etc. ). These elements continually influence one another (directly or indirectly) to maintain their activity and the existence of the system, in order to achieve the goal of the system’. Read more: http://www. usinessdictionary. com/definition/system. html#ixzz2QSyXAP1f . All employees are part of this system and have a common interest in making the consumer to receive goods and/or services in the best way possible. So I will say every manager in every part of the organization is to some extent an operational manager. According to James (2011), the role of operations manag ement is to manage the transformation of an organization’s inputs into finished goods and services using processes. Processes are actually present in all areas of the organization from Human Resource to Finance to Marketing to Procurement etc. 1. The ‘Input – Transformation – Output’ process Resources can either be transforming resources or transformed resources. After the transformation process is complete, transforming resources give rise to transformed resources. According to James (2011), there are 2 main types of transforming resources: * Facility which comprises of land, building, plant and equipment. * Staff which comprises of everyone involved in the operation process. There are 3 main types of transformed resources: * Material. Transformation can be physical (manufacturing), by location (transportation), by storage (warehousing), or by ownership (retail). Information. Transformation can be by property (accountant’s information), by p ossession (market research), by storage (libraries) or by location (telecommunication). * Customer. Transformation can either be physical (plastic surgery), by storage (hotel accommodation), by location (airline transport), by physiological state (hospital), or by psychological state (entertainment). Input Output Input that will be transformed * Material * Information * Customer Input that will transform * People * Facility * Goods * Services Transformation Input Output Input that will be transformed * Material * Information * Customer Input that will transform * People * Facility * Goods * Services Transformation Figure 1: The ‘Input-Transformation-Output’ process 2 Operations Strategy 2. 1 Definition Strategy is defined by Johnson et al, (2008) as ‘the direction and scope of an organization over the long term: ideally, which matches its resources to its changing environment and in particular its markets, customers or clients so as to meet stakeholder expectations. ’ 3. 2 Levels of Strategy Strategy can be viewed from 3 levels which are: The Corporate level: This level looks at the long term position of the company. It answers questions like ‘where will the organization be in 10 years? Or are we going to launch a new product in a new market? ’ The Business level: This level looks at the market and is concerned with the goods and services which the organization has to offer. It answers questions like ‘how do we compete? ’ The Functional level: This level deals with the functional aspect of the organization like finance, marketing, human resource etc. It answers questions like ‘how do we manage our financial resources’. . 3 Operations Strategy Operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long-term capabilities of any operation and their contribution to overall strategy, through the reconciliation of market requirements with operations resources (Slack and Lewis, 2011). A 5 step structure has been designed by Hill (2005) so as to design and understand a goo d operation strategy. The steps are as follows: 1. Define Corporate Objectives Here, long term objectives are set-up so as to give the company balance and a good direction. At this stage, Sparkle does environmental scanning and the company also looks at its core competences, core processes and its global objectives. Performance Indicators (KPIs) are also established here so as monitor the accomplishment of these objectives. Top management uses a number of models which includes PESTEL, SWOT and Porter’s 5 forces. See appendix A. 2. Set Marketing Strategies Here Sparkle identifies the market it wants to compete in and then it looks on how to compete in these markets. Ansoff’s matrix is used. | New Product| Existing Product| NewMarket| Diversification| Market Development| Existing Market| Product Development| Market Penetration/ Market Growth| Figure 5: Ansoff Matrix. Source: Kaplan Financial Ltd, 2008. Sparkle uses the market penetration/market growth pathway for now. With time, they will start manufacturing out of the UK thus implementing the market development strategy. It is yet not known if they are thinking of one day starting up the production of a new product. 3. How do we gain competitive advantage? At this stage of Hill’s structure, the organization is to find ways to make its product win other products in the market. For this to happen, the organization must have a base to make its competition and this base is usually one or more of the following performance objectives: speed, quality, cost, dependability and flexibility. See chapter 3. Sparkle uses the above performance objectives to gain competitive advantage but it must be noted that, competitive advantage must: * Be real * Add value (to the consumer) and * Be difficult to imitate. 4. Choose a delivery system Here, the organization has to choose an appropriate delivery system so as to meet up with speed and maybe dependability. In Sparkle, most orders are icked up by the customer but if not, Sparkle uses their vans which have a high level of security for close distances or they post the jewelry for faraway distances. 5. Choose your Infrastructure The company at this phase has to choose all necessary infrastructures that it has to obtain so as to gain an edge over its competitors in the market. Different organizations in different industries wi ll need different types of infrastructures. But in the diamond manufacture industry, the infrastructures are almost the same and can hardly give competitive advantage. 3 Performance Objectives In the present congested and very competitive business environment, companies must do something extra so as to stand out of the crowd. For them to do this, they must react to what customers value and these fall into the following category. They are called performance objectives. 1. Cost 2. Quality 3. Dependability 4. Reliability 5. Speed Sparkle is aware of the tight competition in the diamond market and it takes its performance objectives very seriously so as to gain competitive advantage. Before achieving the above performance objectives, they must achieve the 4 Cs (see appendix B). * Cost. The principle of cost is doing things cheaply. Sparkle changes its processes, its materials and its suppliers every now and then so as to operate on a lower cost scale. They buy rough diamonds directly from the companies who buy them from the mine and sometimes the make orders directly from the mine so as to reduce cost because the more intermediaries there are, the higher the final price. They sometimes buy more rough diamonds than what the actually need so as to gain discount for bulk buying. They automate most of their processes to reduce the number of hours worked by human beings thus reducing total wages. Quality. This involves producing durable high standard error-free goods that consumers perceived to the good. In the fashion business, quality is king because consumers are becoming more conscious of what they wear. One can say that everything in the diamond industry is of good quality so in this kind of high standard industry, quality is not the issue but superb quality. Spark le buys the best of the rough stones which are hand-picked one after the other so that their final product will be of the best quality and they will have very little waste during production. * Dependability. This is doing everything on time so as to keep commitments and promises made to customers. Sparkle has a track record and reputation of never keeping its customers waiting. Customers’ diamonds are always fully processed before the pick-up date. Customers love coming to this organization because they know they can rely on them when it comes to delivery. There was a scandal in March 2008 in Real Diamonds where a couple arrange for their wedding rings costing thousands of pounds to be manufactured but the company was unable to meet up with the due date so the couple had to use different rings for the wedding. Flexibility. This is being able to change what you produce or how you produce it. Sparkle is very flexible in regards to their products because they produce apparently anything requested by the customer. We pride ourselves on being different, you won’t find our jewelry just anywhere, we appreciate that you want something special to you (Source: sparlediamonds. com/abo ut). They manufacture dressing rings, marriage rings, engagement rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, bangles and designers jewelry out of diamond. Over the years, they have come up with different diamond designs thought by others as impossible and have now gained a name as being the company that uses diamond to manufacture anything and everything. On the other hand, their production process is flexible too but not very flexible. They change little bits of their production process all the time to cut down cost and to increase the quality of the diamonds but this change is never a big change (process improvement). Figure 5: Different items made out of diamond. Source: * Speed. This can be described as how responsive an organization is to the customers’ demands and complain. It is a measure of the time between a customer’s order or complain to the time when that customer’s order or complain is sorted out fully. Sparkle is very fast in dealing with complains. Any customer who comes to the company with a complaint is not allowed to leave when the matter concerned has not been resolved. Complains made online take a maximum of 2 working days to be dealt with and those by post takes a little more time. Figure 5: Different colors of diamond. Source: 4 Product Design . 1 Definition Product/service design is the process of defining the specification of products and/or services in order for them to fulfill a specific market need (Slack et al, 2009). According to Russell and Taylor (2009), new product designs can provide a competitive edge by bringing new ideas to the market quickly, doing a better job of satisfying customers’ needs, or be ing easier to manufacture, use and repair. Product design is of great importance in any organization because consumers are becoming more and more conscious of the products they consume and their contents. Almost everybody in the organization is involved in product design because bringing in a new product design is not just about the market requirement but it is also about anticipating future demand and this needs imagination and creativity. In coming out with a good product design, market requirements, technical issues, cost, quality, investment information and the target market must be considered and dealt with appropriately. Diamond design ‘step by step’ Various steps are followed when coming out with a good diamond design. 1. Generating Ideas Ideas to bring up a new diamond designs can come from anywhere and comes from everywhere. Some organizations look only within the organization and come up with a diamond design but this approach is very dangerous because it can easily back fire leading to a poor design. Ideas in Sparkle usually come from: * The customers who will use the product. Most at times, the customer comes to the organization with a design in mind. The design team in the organization then sits with the customer and adds ideas to perfect the customer’s request. * The employees who serve the customers. These groups of persons know exactly what customers wants because they are the people who take customers specifications, demands and complaints. They play an important role in the creation of a new design. * Competitors and any new technology. Sparkle sometimes looks at the designs of its competitors like Avi Paz and tries to modify it so as to create something better than theirs. * Research and Development (Ramp;D) Department. One of their major roles in the organization is to look for new possible designs which will entice customers. It is at this stage that the diamond color, size, weight, cut grade, clarity grade, carat weight, laser inscription and shape is decided. Figure 4: Computer simulated diamond designing in progress. Source: www. sparklediamonds. com 2. Product Screening According to Slack et al (2009), not all concepts and ideas generated will be capable of being developed into products and/or services. Each idea generated is taken and examined to see whether or not they are acceptable, feasible and vulnerable. Fig 5 illustrates. Figure 5| Some typical evaluation questions for marketing, operations and finance. | Evaluation Criteria| Marketing| Operations| Finance| Feasibility| Is the market likely to be big enough? | Do we have capabilities to produce it? Do we have access to sufficient finance to develop and launch it? | Acceptability| How much market share could it gain? | How much will we have to reorganize our activities to produce it? | How much financial return will there be on our investment? | Vulnerability| What is the risk of it failing in the market place? | What is the risk of us being able to produce it acceptable? | How much money could we lose if things do not go as planned? | Fi g 5: Slack et al (2009) Some typical evaluation questions for marketing, operations and finance [e-book] p. 89 3. Preliminary Design At this stage, the design is reviewed by the cutters and polishers to see if the can really produce the diamond and any unnecessary complexity in the diamond’s design is eliminated because such complexities can build cost. For example; there are some unnecessary and unnoticed cuts in a diamond’s design but these cuts could split the whole diamond if not done carefully. Because customers will not even notice the additional cuts and even if they do, they will not be willing to pay an addition for it so the cuts are eliminated. Figure 4: Different diamond designs (drawing). Source: Figure 4: Different diamond designs. Source: 4. Final Design After all the above has been done, a prototype is then created out of glass and tested to see if it meets market requirements, technical requirements and the financial limit. Tangible prototypes are created and virtual (computer simulations) model too to properly assess the diamond before production goes any further. Sometimes, customers are called in to see the prototype and give their feedback from which some adjustments may be made on the product’s design. An after acceptance, diamond cutting commences. Figure 5: Prototype diamond made out of fine glass. Source: 5 Process Design 5. 1 Definition Process design is Sequence of interdependent and linked procedures which, at every stage, consume one or more resources (employee time, energy, machines, money) to convert inputs (data, material, parts, etc. ) into outputs. These outputs then serve as inputs for the next stage until a known goal or end result is reached (www. businessdictionary. com). Read more: http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/process. tml#ixzz2QTQAtoBi When deciding a product design, it is advisable to simultaneously come up with a matching process design. This will entail the flow of the process and Barnes (2008) said that the design of processes is different in all organizations and these designs will be based on the volume and variety of the demand for the product in the market. He further categorized the processes under project, jobbing, batch, line and conti nuous. Types of Processes There are different production processes namely project, jobbing, batch, line and continuous. See Appendix C. Sparkle is in a business of very expensive products which are very small in size so they do jobbing. Customers usually give orders which are produced by the company (make to order). They usually hold little or no fully-processed inventory. The Production Process Diamond ore is sorted by density using X-rays. Before that technology became available, grease belts were used to separate diamonds from the rest of the ore, due to the diamonds greater tendency than other minerals to stick to grease. Rough diamonds are then set to be cut as gemstones in the cutting laboratory. A diamond has different cuts and different professional specialize on different cuts. This is the most daunting task of diamond production because a bad cut will cost the company a fortune. Figure 5: Diamond plan before cutting. Source Cutting produces the facets associated with a diamond. The angles of the facets maximize light, giving the diamond its greatest possible luster (dispersion of white light). The cutting process can take as much as 50% of a rough diamonds weight. Figure 5: Illustration of diamond facets. Source: A number of factors come into play when deciding how a diamond should be cut. X-rays are employed to analyze the stones crystallographic structure, its hardness and ability to cleave. The diamonds flaws are considered, and the cutter decides which to remove and which can remain. Either a hammer or a diamond saw can be used to split the diamond – the hammer is quicker, but the saw is surer. Figure 5: Diamond cutting. Source: A number of institutes in the diamond industry offer courses for diamond cutters, but the bulk and most crucial part of the training for this delicate trade take place during the cutters apprenticeship. A diamond may get its final cut from many skilled hands: the diamond marker or designer; the diamond sawyer; the diamond cutter or brute; the cross-worker; and the brillianteer. After the initial cutting, diamonds undergo the polishing stages, usually performed by a technician as the process is a standard one. Polished diamonds are reexamined for flaws, which can be addressed through enhancement techniques or disguised when set in jewelry. Figure 5: Diamond Polishing. Source: Finally, the polished diamonds are sold to individuals, retailers, wholesalers and jewelry shops. Figure 5: Diamond quality check. Source 6 Planning, Control ;amp; Innovation In any good type of project or manufacture to be successful, it must be planned at the very beginning and at the end, it has to be controlled to make sure that the planned processes and cost is not very different from the actual. Businesses must also continuously innovate so as to move line to line with the changing tastes of consumers and to beat numerous designs from competitors. 6. 1 Planning Eur says this about planning â€Å"It lists the phases and encapsulates all the main parameters, standards and requirements of the project in terms of time, cost and quality/performance by setting out the ‘Why’, ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Who’, ‘Where’, and ‘How’, of the project. † Planning therefore looks at the entire process, product and project but in an imaginary form which has not yet happened but it is wished that it should happen that way. 6. 1. 1 Advantages of Planning 1. It gives direction of what has to be done and how it has to be done. 2. It assigns responsibilities on every person thus answering â€Å"Who does what? 3. A good plan will see problems a project, product or process will encounter before the problem strikes. 4. A plan helps us to manage cost, quality and design side by side with the profit we will want to make on the product. 5. Plans are used to assess how well a product, process, p roject or person has done. 6. 1. 2 Disadvantages of Planning 1. It is usually made up by top management and given to the employees down the management ladder who just follow it. 2. Plans are usually followed to the latter. Even when some changes have to done, it is not because a plan is being followed. 3. Plans are usually just estimates and it has no use in turbulent economic environments as the plan and the actual are usually very different. 6. 2 Control Control involves measuring the actual results against the plan and then taking action to adjust actual performance so that it moves in line with the plan. So in other words, control is only possible when we have a plan. Control has a feedback phase and this involves adjusting the actual to move in line with the plan or reporting differences between actual and budget so that there may be no such discrepancies in the future. 6. 3 Innovation Innovation is defined by the oxford dictionary as â€Å"changing something established by introducing new methods, ideas or products. † Just like there is no control where there is no plan, there is no innovation where there is no control. They all rely on one another. After control has been done, feedback is sent back and improvement or innovation is made. But in the complex business environment operating now, innovation just not just come from within the company but from outside the company like from competitors and especially from the consumers due to the rapid change in customers taste, design and fashion. In the diamond manufacture industry, there are many different innovative ways manufacturing diamonds and Sparkle has had the following innovations: 1. The Supercut design Sparkle has introduced the innovative supercut design into the industry: a patented ideal emerald cut, with more than twice the facets of a traditional Emerald – providing unparalleled brilliance and fire. The culmination of three years of research, the supercut gives extraordinary brilliance and reflection and this innovation gives Sparkle competitive advantage in terms of having good designs with extraordinary glittering. 2. Precision cutting Since 2010, Sparkle has brought in a technology of cutting the diamonds using computer software and this cut is so exact that less than 0. 000002% waste is created from diamond cutting. Waste use to be about 0. 5% during diamond cutting and this innovation has caused drastic cost saving making Sparkle to be more competitive in terms of cost. 3. Sparkle offers a wide range of jewelry manufacturing processes, including design, modeling, prototyping, grooving, setting, finishing and meticulous quality control; all featuring our own fine diamonds, and designed for clients to sell under their private labels. . 4 The ‘Planning – Control – Innovation’ Cycle. From the above notes, it can be seen that planning, control and innovation work together. Sparkle’s cycle looks like this. Plan Procurement of unrefined stones. Process the stones into fine diamond. Sell and make a reasonable gain. Actual Procurement of unrefined stones. Process the stones into fine dia mond. Sell and make a reasonable gain. Control Looks at the difference between what was planned and what actually happened. External Information Customer specific design New tastes and fashion Design from competitors Market Research (Ramp;D) Feedback and Innovation Plan Procurement of unrefined stones. Process the stones into fine diamond. Sell and make a reasonable gain. Actual Procurement of unrefined stones. Process the stones into fine diamond. Sell and make a reasonable gain. Control Looks at the difference between what was planned and what actually happened. External Information Customer specific design New tastes and fashion Design from competitors Market Research (Ramp;D) Feedback and Innovation Figure 7. The ‘planning-control-innovation’ cycle. 6. Changes happening in the diamond industry. * Researchers are on the verge of bringing in new materials which reflect light better than diamond and these materials are stronger and more durable than diamond. But, they will be far cheaper than diamonds and this is going to be a big problem to diamond manufacturers as the demand for diamond will surely drop. An example is synthetic stones. * In response to growing concern over illicit trade in conflict or blood diamonds, the United Nations General Assembly established the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in 2003. This scheme is going to make sure of the source of every single diamond so as to ensure that they are from a genuine source. This happening will increase the price of diamond because more than 55% of diamonds are from Africa and the mines there are operated by very cheap labor and sometimes by slaves, women and children. The UN will come in and stop this practice thus increasing the cost of labor, working conditions and ultimately the price for diamonds. 7 Quality Management Quality is one of the performance objectives and it is taken very seriously by all organizations because if achieved, may give them competitive advantage. Some organizations rely on quality more than others and the fashion and health industry takes quality as primary considering the fact that people want to look good and in good health. Quality is a matter of perception so what can be called quality for A might not necessarily be called quality for B. According to Garvin (1984), the attributes in quality for a product are: * Performance * Features * Reliability * Conformance * Durability * Serviceability * Aesthetics * Other perceptions Parasuraman et al. (1985), on the other hand listed 5 attributes in defining what is quality of a service? nd they are: * Reliability – Are we always going to get on time delivery? * Responsiveness – Are the always going to respond quickly to our demands and complaints? * Assurance – Are we assured of their competence? * Empathy – Does the organization feel and understand customers’ needs and concerns? * Tangibles – Is the physical surrounding conducive? 7. 1 Qu ality in the Organization But in relation to Sparkle, the best definition of quality is that as per Slack et al. (2009) â€Å"quality is consistent conformance to customers’ expectation† and I will say and even surpassing those expectations. Sparkle uses total quality management as their quality management technique. They look for means and ways to maintain and continuously improve quality at each stage of the production process. All employees meet once a month to discuss on how to improve the organization’s present performance. Books by Deming, Crosby, Juran, Hill and other total quality management gurus are in the company’s library and research department for employees to read and be motivated to contribute into the organization’s performance. All employees are made to know that quality and customer’s requirements being met comes before any other thing. The organization has a suggestion box where employees can write any inspiring idea that comes in mind and this box is emptied every day and read by the research staff and it is summarized and sent to the manager examine. 7. 2 The Cost of Quality Quality has a cost which is like a double-edged sword meaning that good quality will have a cost and bad quality will also have a cost. 7. 2. 1 The Cost of Good Quality This is also known as the cost of quality assurance. Sparkle has a lot of this cost because they are continuously always trying to get better in quality all over the organization so as to better serve customers’ needs. The cost of quality assurance is further divided into prevention cost and appraisal cost. * Prevention cost is the cost of trying to make everything right on first attempt and some of this cost are: * Sparkle does not give a command for precious stones and wait for the stones to come. They go to the supplier’s premises and pick the stones one after the other and not in groups to ensure the best stones are taken. The supplier charges more for this. * The cost of designing the jewelry in a computer automated system and running several checks with other very expensive bespoke software before the design is confirmed. Sparkle trains its employees every 6 months and buys books to update them on new technologies and to keep their skills up and awake. * All employees are taught a wide variety of skills so that if a certain employee is not available to do a specific thing, there will always be another to do it. * Appraisal cost is concerned with controlling quality and this is achieved by testing the process before the product is manufactured and testing the product before it gets to the customer. Some of these costs are: * The cost incurred in testing all equipment, machines and ensuring staffs are fit and able before any diamond is processed. The cost of checking the diamond after manufacture by employees and with the use of a computer aided personalized software which is very expensive to make sure that the diamonds are flawless. * The time spent in testing the diamonds ensuring the pass all the set of test before and after manufacture. 7. 2. 2 The Cost of Bad Quality All organizations including Sparkle wants to evade this cost because it is very dangerous and it can even bring down the entire organization in a blink of an eye. The cost of bad quality is divied into internal failure cost and external failure cost. Internal failure cost is cost incurred before the product reaches the customer. Some of this cost are: * The cost of scrap. Diamonds are very expens ive so any little scrap of badly shaped diamond is worth a whole lot. So Sparkle makes sure the best quality diamond is procured and diamond cutting should be not less than perfect. * The cost of reshaping ill-shaped diamonds and gluing broken once. * The resources lost in repairing diamonds. Labor, machine time, and electricity are used which should have if the diamonds were made right the first time. External failure cost arises after the product has been received by the customer and some of this cost include: * The cost listening to customer complaints and responding to them. * The cost of replacing a defective diamond which a customer has rejected. This can cause the organization a fortune. * The customer might have to take the company to court and the organization will pay a huge sum if the lost the lawsuit. Some compensation may run to millions of pounds and could bring the organization to its end. * One of the most dangerous costs is that which we don’t see. An example is the lost sale and contribution. When a customer is dissatisfied, he will most at times not want to come back and he will discourage a potential customer who will discourage another customer to come to us. Saying all this, quality should be treated like an egg in the midst of rocks. 8 Supply Chain Management 8. 1 Definition Supply Chain is the management of the interconnection of organizations that relate to each other through upstream and downstream linkages between the processes that produce value to the ultimate consumer in the form of products and services (Slack et al. 2010). A supply chain is a holistic network starting from the sourcing of material, through its transportation to the organization’s premises, to manufacturing, to storage and warehousing and finally to consumers. So it is a whole system and it works as one therefore is one part of the chain is broken, the whole system will fall apart and consumers’ will not be satisfied. 8. 2 Sparkleâ⠂¬â„¢s Supple Chain Stage 1 Sparkle’s supply chain starts from the diamond mines in Africa which produce more than 50% of total diamonds to mines in India, Russia, Canada and Australia. The mines usually dug very deep but the deepest diamond mine runs for about 160km passing through sand, rocks, and gravel to be blasted drilled, crushed and processed. It should be noted that only 20% of diamonds from mines can be polised and used for jewelry; the rest is used for industrial use. The stones picked here are very rough still with no beauty (see figure 10). Stage 2 Companies and independent buyers go to these mines and buy the rough stones from the mine owners and take them to their premises for processing. These stones are then processed to make them a little bit more presentable so that diamond manufacturers can then buy them and further process them into diamonds. Diamonds at this stage looks like that in figure 11. Figure 8: Trapping stones to look for diamonds in an African mine. Source: Figure 9: A typical unprocessed diamond. Source: Figure 10: Unprocessed diamonds directly from the mine. Source Figure 11: Diamonds which have been slightly processed. Source: Stage 3 Sparkle buys the diamonds in fig. 11 and examines them with the use of a computer aided personalized software. After a series of checks, rejected diamonds will be sent back to the suppliers and the good ones will be cut into different shapes so as to give the greatest value. After cutting, the diamond goes through computer aided software to confirm its perfection and after this, it is polished and cleaned. Sparkle will also buy what the diamonds are going to be fitted on because people will scarcely buy a chunk of diamond. Diamonds are usually fitted on rings, pens, earrings, belts and many more (see figure 14). These things are usually bought from top manufacturers with good design and quality and they are usually very expensive. Figure12: Diamond cutting in Sparkle. Source: Figure 13: Diamond polishing in Sparkle Source: Stage 4 After polishing and the diamond have an unblemished shine, shape and color, it is then taken by the customers. Some of the customers ordered just a few and sometimes even just one special diamond while other big customers like jewelry shops order bigger quantities at ones. It is either Sparkle delivers the diamond to the place agreed by the customer or the customer comes to the organization’s site on an agreed date and after a phone call to pick up the diamond. The supply chain ends after the diamond has reached the customer. Figure 14: Finished diamond ready for the customer. Source: Figure 15: Diamonds bought by jewelry shops. Source: The Mine The Cutting Company Polishing Customers Jewelry Shops Manufacturing The Mine The Cutting Company Polishing Customers Jewelry Shops Manufacturing The supply chain of Sparkle is a good and effective. Its success can sometimes be attributed to the information technology they use. They use the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system which brings in data from all sources and this is used to know when suppliers have diamonds and the variouse categories, to know when jewelry shops are running short of iamonds, and many more (all discussed in chapter 9). Figure 16: Sparkle’s Supply Chain 9 Information Systems As seen in chapter 1, â€Å"Operation Management is the activity of managing the resources which produce and deliver goods and services† (Slack et al, 2010). For these activities to be properly managed, it needs the help of automated process and compu ter aided techniques. Information systems are found throughout an organization and if used well reduce costs and can be a source of gaining competitive advantage. 9. 1 Computer Aided Techniques Sparkle uses information systems in many ways in its business. Listed below are some specialized computer aided programs used. 1. They use Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) which gives an optimum layout of the cutting steps and their sequence (this is different for different diamonds). There are many diamond cutting machines and they all have different cutting styles and they are operated by specialist in the different cutting sectors. So the CAPP examines a diamond and gives different possible steps on which machine to use first and which not to use so as to minimize waste and give the diamond the best possible cuts so as reflect light in an optimal way. 2. They use Computer Aided Designs (CAD) to design the shape of diamonds on a computer and finished diamonds can actually be seen even before processing starts. If an error is made in the design, it can be corrected but this could have been impossible without CAD. 3. The also use Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) which takes the drawings and designs from the CAD and test them for perfection. Different test are administered and the flawlessness of a diamond can be confirmed even before manufacture. 4. Automated Material Handling (AMH) system is also used. Diamonds are very expensive and so care must be taken at each step. The AMH system improves efficiency in diamond movement, storage and retrieval. 5. The Laser Security System (LSS) is used where diamonds are kept be it rough stones, semi-processed diamonds and fully processed diamonds. Invisible laser rays crisscross the diamonds and it needs a password to be deactivated. Only top managers have the password and the password of each of them is different making it easy to know who accessed the diamond safe. If someone tries to pass through the laser rays, it can kill or paralyze them and the security alarm is automatically triggered and an automated call goes to the nearest police station. . Security Camera Systems (SCS) make use of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) at all times to monitor the whole building especially where inventory is held. 7. The Inventory Control System (ICS) gives detail information about each diamond rough, semi-processed or fully processed held in inventory at any point in time. Management must no go into the safe to see what t hey have in stock because the ICS does it all. This system is also used online to make customers see the diamonds, its specification and all other relevant information. Figure 16: The CAD system used to design a blue diamond. Source: Figure 17: The virtual version of the diamond in fig 16. Source: 9. 2 Pros and Cons of Information Technology (IT) IT is a very necessary tool in any organization be it a big or a small one. IT has advantages and disadvantages. They are listed in Appendix D including ‘Why IT cannot replace Human Beings’. 9. 3 Information Systems ‘Information system can be defined as a set of interrelated components that collect, process, store and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization’ (Laundon amp; Laundon, 2006). Most organizations use some form of computer-based technology to accumulate, organize and distribute information’ (Ted, 2011) and Sparkle is not an exception. They use a set of interrelated information systems. 9. 3. 1 Transaction Processing System (TPS) This system is used to account for day by day transactions of Sparkle. It records all sales, purchases, expenses, income, tax, bills paid, equipment bought and all other transactions performed by organization. This system is also used to account for employee’s attendance, absences, pay, overtime, bonuses, remuneration, and all other things concerning the employees. . 3. 2 Supply Chain System (SCS) This system deals with customers and suppliers. It monitors the stock in the jewelry shops so as to know when to give the shops an offer. It monitors the stocks which are demanded more and those demanded less so as to know when to produce. It tracks frequent and valuable customers and grades them into groups so as know how to give discounts. This system also monitors the stock in the cutting companies. It looks at the new stocks and compares price side by side quality so as to know which supplier to order rough diamonds from. 9. 3. 3 Knowledge Management System (KMS) In Sparkle, all manufacturing processes are recorded and stored in the KMS. Any ideas gotten either by inspiration, customer’s requirement, employees’ suggestions or business intelligence are stored in the KMS for future use. Sparkle is said to be very innovative and has this edge over its rivals because of its mastery of the KMS. When a new employees is recruited, he has 2 weeks probation where he is taught how to operate in the organization and how processes function. Before the implementation and use of the KMS, probation was 3 months so this system has greatly reduces learning time. 9. 3. Management Information System (MIS) This system takes all the information from the above systems and summarizes them into financial statements and reports. It is used by management to make decisions on how to run and control the business. 9. 3. 5 Decision Support System (DSS) This system looks like an advance of the MIS. It takes data from all sources (internal and external) and su mmarizes them for top management to make decisions on the long term plans of the organization. Information from this system appears as statements, reports, charts, graphs, ratios, statistics and trend analysis. . 3. 6 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) This can be called the overall system. It takes information from all sources of the organization and brings them together in one large database. From there, required information is taken out and implemented or used to make decisions in Sparkle. It should be noted that all other systems deposit their information in ERP. Figure 18: Example of ERP. Source: LSBF MBA Intake 14, SOM Lecture 3, Session 9, Slide 34. 9. 6 Intranet and Extranet Sparkle uses intranets to deal with its employees and management. Staffs all have a particular passcode which the use and your code depends on your position within the company. Some passcodes can access some areas which other codes can’t. They also use extranets to communicate and share information with customers, suppliers, some competitors and the government. This system is more secured and less vulnerable to attacks as compared to the internet. 10 Job Design It is said that the blood stream of any organization is money and I will say the skeleton holding an organization and making it stand up straight is its workforce. An organization manages resources so as to be able to deliver acceptable goods and services to its customers and one of these resources is its workforce. An organization’s workforce is its most valuable and the most complicated of all its resources because unlike other resources, humans have a mind of their own. To be able to deal with human beings, you must know what they like and this is different for different people but these needs though different are similar. In providing this, it motivates the employees and when motivated, they produce better output eventually yielding higher profits, quality and flexibility. 0. 1 Motivation Motivation is the urge to take action to achieve something or to avoid something (BPP, 2010). Motivation can either be intrinsic (wanting to satisfy an internal urge like being happy to be able to help others) or extrinsic (reliant on tangible rewards like money, fame and power). Continues in Appendix E. 10. 2 Empowerment This is the act of delegati ng work to employees making them feel more superior because of the added responsibility and new accountability. This is good motivation for many employees. ‘Job design is about how people carry out their tasks within a process. It defines the way they go about their working lives. It positions the expectations of what is required of them, and it influences their perceptions of how they contribute to the organization. It also defines their activities in relation to their work colleagues and it channels the flows of communication between different parts of the operation. But, of most importance, it helps to develop the culture of the organization – its shared values, beliefs and assumptions’ (Slack, 2009). In designing any job, the following have to be put into consideration. * Safety. Jobs should be design in a way that it will bring no harm to the employee be it physical, psychological, mental or emotional harm. Workers in the mines especially those in Africa are exposed to a lot of risk and still earn less than the minimum wage. The mine owners wanting to make more profits cut down on cost by reducing expenditure on employees’ safety. The employees of Sparkle all have safety equipment like hats and new ideas are being implemented to make the process safer. The organization has also fully insured its entire staff. * Legal and Ethical Issues. Jobs should be design in such a manner that those doing the job will not go against the law or their code of ethics. * Own time. Job design should create time for the employees to catch up on something other than work. For example visiting new places, being with their families or performing other social activities. Employees working in the mines have little of this, but Sparkle’s employees all have right to a paid holiday and taking permission to be out of work if the need arises. * Employee’s Ability. An employee’s ability to do the job or a range of task should be considered before designing the job. For example; only heavy built men carry cargo from the trucks into the warehouse because of their physical ability to carry heavy weight unlike their colleagues. * Wage and Benefits: In designing any job, the wage and benefits to be paid for the job should be considered if not the employee can be over-paid or under-paid for the job. 10. 3 Division of Labor Unlike traditional production approaches that stipulated that one person should know everything in the company so that he can serve any function, Henry Ford came in with the idea that one man should only know one thing and should be an expert in that thing. He suggested that with specializing in a particular function, the whole organization will be specialized and will give the best quality goods and services. So jobs should be broken down into smaller portions and given to different individuals who will specialize and bring forth quality cost-effective products. 10. 3. 1 Advantages of Division of Labor (Slack, 2009) * It is easier to learn. Short and simple tasks are easier to learn compared with long and complex tasks. This will be very advantageous when training new recruits because training will take a shorter time and it will be better mastered. Automating. Short and simple task are easily automated as compared to long and complex task. * Time. More time is spent on one long task compare to time if that task was broken down. This extra time is as a result of picking different tools up and putting them down, looking for equipment, thinking of what to do next etc. 10. 3. 2 Disadvantages of Division of Labor (Slack, 2009) * Monotony. The same small task will be repeated every hour, week, month and year. This will make the job boring and less fulfilling thus resulting to absenteeism, staff turnover and errors. Over-reliance. If one employee is absent, no other will be able to perform his duty and this may bring the whole production process to a halt. * No flexibility. Employees let to do one particular thing over the years turn to lose the skill of being able to learn another thing. So if the production process was to change, many employees will not be able to cope with learning how to perform a new task. * Physical Injury. The repetitive use of one part of your body let’s say arm or wrist will in the long run cause pain to that part. This is known as Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Sparkle teaches their employees a wide range of task during their probation but the employees are assigned to do just one thing when they fully start work. Teaching them a wide range of task is to expose them to the processes of the whole organization so that they can contribute ideas in the development of a department or process which does not involve them. Another reason for giving employees holistic training is to make an employee being able to do an absent employee’s work. This tactic was also implemented because the organization did not want an employee to feel indispensable. 0. 4 Job Design Approaches In coming out with a good job designing, the following approaches should be implemented:- 1. Job Simplification: The organization tries to the range of task and their complexities. Polishing diamond use to be a very complex task at Sparkle but with the introduction of DiamondShines TM a specialized software where diamond polishing is programmed with exact details. 2. Job Ro tation: This is periodically interchanging employees performing different task to do the task of the other. Sparkle does a lot of job rotation and this makes the employees’ job more exciting. Job rotation is successful in this organization because they train their employees to perform a number of task but if division of labor was strictly implemented, this approach could have been impossible because employee A will not have a clue of employees B’s task. 3. Job Enlargement: This involves integrating same level tasks to the ones already performed by the employees to make the job more exciting. This is not practiced in Sparkle. 4. Job Enrichment: This involves integrating different level tasks to the ones performed by the employees. The new tasks are usually higher level tasks giving employees more responsibility and decision making power. Sparkle once a week picks an employee randomly and gives him the power of a supervisory manager so as to see the changes and innovations he is going to bring to the organization. Sparkle also makes employees work in small teams and the organization creates a competitive strain amongst the teams. The competition amongst the teams brings a lot of hard work, efficiency and effectiveness.

Challenges and Opportunities to Chinas Banking Industry

Challenges and Opportunities to Chinas Banking Industry The banking industry in China has the platform for future growth opportunities but often come with strategic challenges. ACMR-IBISWorld forecasts that in the five years through 2021, total assets of the Commercial Banking industry in China will increase at an average rate of 11.9% per year, to $48.2 trillion by the end of 2021.1 Industry revenue is forecast to grow at an average rate of 5.4% per year to $818.5 billion in 2021.1 China has become the target of many foreign banks and financial institutions as a result of its huge market size. Other reasons include continuous deregulation, WTO commitments and the improving market conditions with strong fundamentals. However, there are also several main challenges that obstruct the industrys growth. Opportunities Opening Requirement: According to the China Banking Regulatory Committee, foreign banks accounted for barely 2.3% of total commercial bank assets at the end of the third quarter of 2012.1 However, in order for China to meet its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession commitments, they are required to further open its banking sector to foreign banks. The easing of restrictions provide an opportunistic window for foreign banks to grow or enter the market. Deregulation: Beginning in 2003, China has begun to allow qualified foreign banks to offer RMB banking services to Chinese enterprises. In addition, some restrictions on geographic distribution and foreign exchange services offered by foreign banks have been lifted. Banking services have been opened to overseas banks in 13 cities, up from only 2, Beijing and Shanghai, before Chinas WTO entry.1 Innovation: In 2006, China officially opened its banking sector allowing foreign banks to conduct RMB business, removing geographical and client restrictions.1 In 2009, new development opportunities for commercial banks opened up which led to many changes in terms of competition, technologies, product diversification and industry profitability. As a result, domestic banks face increasing pressure to upgrade operations management, internal controls and product and service innovation. Banks with a technological edge or process driven technology can begin creating a strategic opportunity to gain the competitive advantage and market share in China. Challenges Governmental Barrier to Entry: The banking industry in China is known to have high levels of regulation and policy. For companies looking to enter the China market, the requirements for obtaining a license in order to operate as a commercial bank in China are set up through the Financial License Management Rules and approved by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).1 In addition, Commercial banks in China are subject to the supervision of, and regular inspections by, the CBRC. In general, the application for preparing the establishment of a new branch by a policy bank, a wholly state-owned commercial bank or a joint-stock commercial bank shall be filed with and reviewed by the CBRC provincial office in the province where the proposed branch is to be established, and shall be subject to the final approval by the CBRC headquarters. Competition: Given the strict government controls and the high level of intervention in the industry, prices are quite regulated and product innovation and diversity are not the main basis for competition. In general, the approval requirements for new products are very strict. They are often the subject of complicated approval processes and lengthy approval times, and as a result are not main competitive factors. Chinas banking industry brings heavy competition as commercial banks generally offer similar products at similar prices providing difficult to gain a competitive advantage. Relationships: In China, the biggest competition has focused on client relationships with large customers, an important part of the business environment.1 Relationships are usually found using guanxi which is a combination of developing personal connections with customers as well as a network of close contacts.2 Given the low level of product diversification and similarity in services and prices, banks compete for specific and often the same customers in hopes of developing long-term relationships.

Cluster Computing: History, Applications and Benefits

Cluster Computing: History, Applications and Benefits Abstract This report will provide a detailed review of the cluster computing. In this report we look at the birth of cluster computing till the present and the future direction the technology is headed. After the literature review, we move on to the explanation of theories involved from the author’s point of view. The final section of the report covers the current trends and future evolution of the technology as perceived from the author’s point of view. The essence of the report would be a better understanding of the cluster computing and its many uses in today’s world. Introduction A computer cluster consists of a set of loosely connected or tightly connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single system. The components of a cluster are usually connected to each other through fast local area networks (LAN), with each node (computer used as a server) running its own instance of an operating system. Computer clusters emerged as a result of convergence of a number of computing trends including the availability of low cost microprocessors, high speed networks, and software for high performance distributed computing. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.[1] Computer clusters have a wide range of applicability and deployment, ranging from small business clusters with a handful of nodes to some of the fastest supercomputers in the world such as IBMs Sequoia. [2] Literature review In 1967 a paper published by Gene Amdahl of IBM, formally invented the basis of cluster computing as a way of doing parallel work. It is now known as Amdahl’s Law. It is a model for correlation between the expected speedup of parallelized implementations of an algorithm relative to the serial algorithm, assuming the problem size remains the same. [3] Types of Clusters Computer clusters are used in many organizations to increase processing time, faster data storing and retrieval time, etc. These computer clusters can be classified in three main types of clusters but these can be mixed to achieve higher performance or reliability. High performance clusters High availability clusters Load Balancing clusters High Performance Cluster: High performance computing sometimes refer to as high performance computing are used for computation-intensive applications, rather than handling IO-oriented applications such as web service or databases.[4] examples of HPCs can include the computational simulations of vehicle crashes or weather. Very tightly coupled computer clusters are designed for work that may approach supercomputing. The worlds fastest machine in 2011 was the K computer which has a distributed memory, cluster architecture.[5] High Availability Cluster: High availability clusters are commonly known as failover clusters. They are used to improve the availability of the cluster approach. In high availability clusters, redundant nodes are used which take over in case of component failure. It is used to eliminate single point of failure by having redundant cluster components.[6] High Availability clusters are often used for critical databases, file sharing on a network, business applications, and customer services such as electronic commerce websites. Load Balancing Cluster: Load balancing clusters, as the name suggests are the cluster configurations where the computational workload is shared between the nodes for better overall performance. One of the best examples of load balancing cluster is a web server cluster. It may use a round robin method to assign each new request to a different node for overall increase in performance. [7] Benefits of Clusters: There are numerous advantages to using cluster computing. Some of these are detailed below. Cost: Cluster technique is cost effective compared to other techniques in terms of the amount of power and processing speed being produced due to the fact that it used off the shelf hardware and software components as compare to the mainframe computers, which use custom build proprietary hardware and software components. Processing speed: In a cluster, multiple computers work together to provide unified processing, which in turn provides faster processing. Flexibility: In contrast to a mainframe computer, a computer cluster can be upgraded to a higher specification or expanded by adding extra nodes. Higher availability: Single component failure is mitigated by redundant machines taking over the processing uninterrupted. This type of redundancy is lacking in mainframe systems. Cluster Management: Message passing and communication The two most often used approaches for cluster communications are PVM and MPI. PVM stands for parallel virtual machine. It was developed around 1989 by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is directly installed on every node and it provides a set of libraries that make the node a â€Å"parallel virtual machine†. It provides a run time environment for resource task management, fault notification and message passing. User programs written in C, C++ or Fortran can use PVM.[8][9] MPI stands for message passing interface. It emerged in 1990s and supersedes PVM. MPI design is based on various commercially available systems of the time. Its implementation typically uses TCP/IP and socket connection. Currently it’s the most widely used communication system enabling parallel programming in C, Fortran, Python etc.[9][10] Task scheduling Task scheduling becomes a challenge, when a large multiuser cluster needs access to huge amounts of data. In a heterogeneous CPU-GPU cluster, mapping tasks onto CPU cores and GPU devices provide quite a challenge because it’s a complex application environment and the performance of each job depends on the abilities of the underlying technologies. Task scheduling is an active area of ongoing research and there have been proposals to build an algorithms which combine and extend MapReduce and Hadoop. [11] Node failure management Node failure management is a technique used to handle a failed node in a cluster using strategies such as â€Å"fencing†. It isolates the node or a shared resource when it detects a malfunction. There are two types of fencing. First is to disable the node and the second is to prevent access to resources like shared disks. [12] The first method uses STONITH. Which stands for â€Å"Shoot The Other Node In The Head†. This method disables or power off the malfunctioning node. For example, power fencing uses a power controller to turn off the faulty node. [12] The second method uses the resource fencing approach, which prevents access to resources rather than to turn off the node. For example, fiber channel fencing can be used to disable the fiber channel port. [12] 1137395 Muhammad Khurram Shehzad Trends The demand for powerful computers that can be used for simulation and prediction are of great interest to both the public and private sector. Last decade, was the most exciting periods in computer development. As a result of Moore’s law, microprocessors have become smaller, denser, and more powerful. The result is that microprocessor based supercomputing is rapidly becoming the technology of preference in attacking some of the most important problems of science and engineering. A recent report from Intersect360 Research highlighted some interesting trends in HPC. Below are a few of the highlights. [13] More Memory with Multi-core: While memory usage per core is nearly constant in years past, the broader adoption of multi-core systems is creating a demand for more memory. This can be expected but the report also warns of additional system costs as the need for more memory rises.[13] Processors per Nodes: According to summary of the report, two-processors per node is still the preferred configuration with 60% of the market, with just 14% opting for four-processor nodes. These ratios have stayed about the same over the past five years.[13] Future Outlook High Performance Computing (HPC) is expected to increase with which Big Data is analyzed to address variety of scientific, environmental and social challenges, especially on very large and small scales. In order of magnitude more powerful than laptop computers, HPC processes information using parallel computing, allowing for many simultaneous computations to occur concurrently. These integrated machines are measured in â€Å"flops† which stands for â€Å"floating point operations per second.† [14] As of June 2013, Tianhe-2 (or, Milky Way-2), a supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, is the world’s fastest system with a performance of 33.86 petaflop/s. [15] HPC is expected to move into â€Å"exascale† capacity by 2020, developing computing capacities 50 times greater than today’s most advanced supercomputers. Exascale feasibility rests on the rise of energy efficient technology: the processing power exists but the energy to run it, and cool it, does not. Currently, the American supercomputer MIRA, [16] while not the fastest, is the most energy efficient thanks to circulating water-chilled air around the processors inside the machine rather than merely using fans. Applications of the technology High-performance computing (HPC) is a broad term that in essence represents compute intensive applications that need acceleration. Users of application acceleration systems range from medical imaging, financial trading, oil and gas expiration, to bioscience, data warehousing, data security, and many more. In the information age, the need for acceleration of data processing is growing exponentially and the markets deploying HPC for their applications are growing every day. The HPC expansion is being fueled by the coprocessor, which is fundamental to the future of HPC. 1137784 Samra Mohammad 8Future trends, outlook and applications of cluster computing: Computer plays an important role in the information age. Different countries have undertaken thorough studies on computing to improve the information level. I may observe some current trends and speculate a bit about the future of parallel programming models. As far as we can foresee today, the future of computing is parallel computing, dictated by physical and technical necessity. 8.1New trends in cluster computing: These days, there is a new computing paradigm as computer networks called the Grid. It becomes very cheap and very fast .What is a Grid? It is a big system of computing resources that provides to users a single point of access and performs tasks. It is based on the WWW (World Wide Web) interface, to these distributed resources[17] The Grid technology is currently in progress intensive development. The Grid is also the first tools which are already available for developers. In this type of application, we can use a high-speed network in regarding the interconnection between the parts of the grid via internet. Nowadays , the Grid is agree to enable for scientific collaborations to share resources on an unprecedented level and geographically distributed groups to collaborate together in a manner that were previously impossible by using scalable, secure, high performance mechanisms for discovering and negotiating access to remote resources. 8.2Future: In the future, the increase of industry support for low latency clusters will help in availability and performance, but restrictions may require a departure from the current multicast-oriented data distribution strategies. However, latency and bandwidth performance will continue to improve in the Ethernet with a very low cluster with multicast support. 8.3Application and outlook: Obviously, cluster computing is quickly becoming the architecture of choice. One of the categories of applications is called Grand Challenge Applications (GCA). It are defined as fundamental problems in science and engineering with broad economic and scientific impact whose solution can be advanced by applying high performance computing and communication technologies. The high scale of complexity in GCAs demands enormous amount of resources needs, such as processing time, memory space and communication bandwidth. A common characteristic of GCAs is that they involve simulations that are computationally intensive. Examples of GCAs are applied fluid dynamics, environmental modeling, ecosystem simulation, biomedical imaging, biomechanics, molecular biology, and computational sciences. [17] Other than GCAs, cluster computing is also being applied in other applications that demand high availability, scalability and performance. Clusters are being used as replicated storage and backup servers that provide the essential fault tolerance and reliability for critical applications. For example, the internet, search engine, Google uses cluster computing to provide reliable and efficient internet search services. Conclusion Cluster computing offers a comparatively cheap, alternative to large server or mainframe computer solutions. New trends in hardware and software technologies are likely to make clusters more promising. Statement of contribution Member 1: Muhammad Khurram Shehzad (1137395), Abstract, Introduction, Literature review Conclusion as a Group and Trends, Future Outlook applications as individual. Member 2: Samra Mohammad (1137784), Abstract, Introduction, Literature review Conclusion as a Group and Trends, Future Outlook applications as individual. Member 3: Muhammad Faheem Abbas (1137391), Abstract, Introduction, Literature review Conclusion as a Group and Trends, Future Outlook applications as individual. References: [1] Bader, David; Robert Pennington (June 1996). Cluster Computing: Applications. Georgia Tech College of Computing. Retrieved 2007-07-13. [2] Nuclear weapons supercomputer reclaims world speed record for US. The Telegraph. 18 Jun 2012. Retrieved 18 Jun 2012. [3] Amdahl, Gene M. (1967).Validity of the Single Processor Approach to Achieving Large-Scale Computing Capabilities.AFIPS Conference Proceedings(30): 483–485.doi:10.1145/1465482.1465560 [4] High Performance Computing for Computational Science VECPAR 2004 by Michel Daydà ©, Jack Dongarra 2005 ISBN 3-540-25424-2 pages 120-121 [5] M. Yokokawa et al The K Computer, in International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED) 1-3 Aug. 2011, pages 371-372 [6] Evan Marcus, Hal Stern: Blueprints for High Availability: Designing Resilient Distributed Systems, John Wiley Sons, ISBN 0-471-35601-8 [7] High Performance Linux Clusters by Joseph D. Sloan 2004 ISBN 0-596-00570-9 page [8] Distributed services with OpenAFS: for enterprise and education by Franco Milicchio, Wolfgang Alexander Gehrke 2007, ISBN pages 339-341 [9] Grid and Cluster Computing by Prabhu 2008 8120334280 pages 109-112 [10] Gropp, William; Lusk, Ewing; Skjellum, Anthony (1996). A High-Performance, Portable Implementation of the MPI Message Passing Interface. Parallel Computing. CiteSeerX: 10.1.1.102.9485 [11] K. Shirahata, et al Hybrid Map Task Scheduling for GPU-Based Heterogeneous Clusters in: Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2010 Nov. 30 2010-Dec. 3 2010 pages 733 740 ISBN 978-1-4244-9405-7 [12] Alan Robertson Resource fencing using STONITH. IBM Linux Research Center, 2010 [13] http://www.intersect360.com/industry/reports.php?id=67 (Accessed 12/05/2014) [14] http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium/en/content/future-high-performance-computing-supercomputers-rescue (Accessed 12/05/2014) [15] http://www.top500.org/system/177999#.U3ORpPmSzDs (Accessed 12/05/2014) [16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Mira (Accessed 12/05/2014) [17] http://www.slideshare.net/shivakrishnashekar/computer-cluster (Accessed 14th May 2014)