Sunday, January 26, 2020
Water Scarcity in Singapore
Water Scarcity in Singapore Student Name: Rosa Abstract This report mentioned about the water scarcity in Singapore. There are lots of water problems happened over the few past years. I have searched several websites and some scientific essays about the problem which is discribe as a serious water shortage in Singapore. The hypothesis is that they can improve the situation if they continue to follow their policy, and the final findings actually proved my hypothesis. At last, several solutions are compared and judged, such as using water from another city while developing the water system inside their country. Also, other ideas and factors are concerned in this report. Introduction This is a scientific report which is all about water scarcity in Singapore. It is a serious problem that their usable water is really in a shortage level. Every living life there lived on their limited water resources. These problems mentioned different areas in water chemistry, such as analyzing the elements in the water to make sure if the properties of those rivers are suitable for people to live. In China, it is common to see green water in the city, because of the impurities that came from the factories mixed in the water. (XinHua, 2011)Accorfing to the research, there are only 100 cubic metres available for each person in China. However, in rural places of China, this kind of position is even serious, these are all caused by the environment. To talk about water, aquatic ecosystem is a large factor of this area, it means the whole surroundings, including the living things and the environment in a particular place. Chinese governments had made countless laws to protect the water properties, and had encouraged people in those areas start to take actions to collect rain for desalinating. This way can actually improve the water problem but is not enough for people to use during time passed. From my point of view, the best way of dealing with this problem is to keep the strategy that they are using now, because it will be fine to keep the country going on. Methodology My research information is quite reliable, because they referred many websites from government, academic websites, and also from some famous universities. Several websites and essays are compared together in order to find the best information for my main topic. The causes of polluting water, the local situation of water in China and Singapore, the supply and the demand of water that each country faces, all the problems mentioned above are researched carefully. The reliability of each websites are checked, and the usable factors of information are selected, my hypothesis is supported by these information, so they yshould be brilliant ideas in this report. Findings According to the research I had done, water scarcity becomes the largest problem for the whole world. The increasing of population forces the government to solve water scarcity immediately. After mid-1960s, Singapore started to develop its economy, and this causes the large demand of water but citizens can not paid for it. Hence, this leaded to the water scarcity. Chew Men Leong said that Singapore mostly relied on water from Malaysia since 1927. These countries are always friends because of the relationship of water. Years later, Chew Men Leong indicated that their Singapore government should use the lands wisely and hurry up in the area of water reuse system. Then, they spent years of time working on improving the reuse system, meanwhile, they appeal people to save as much as they can. (INSEAD.edu) The biggest problems happened in Singapore are the reuse of water, and the supply problem. The website shows that it often rains in Singapore, but the lands in Singapore are too limited, there are only few lakes that can store water. Another problem is that the population in Singapore is continuing to raise, although the usable water is providing more and more by the government, citizens still do not have enough water to live. I have done same search on China, it is also a country that facing a serious situation with water scarcity, and there are some relations between these two countries. After research we can see that the government had transform water from Johor to cities in Singapore in order to improve the serious problem. Further more,from 2011, the technique of collecing water had helped Singapore increase 2/3 of their lands so that citizens have more lands to live on. Here listed the problems China has: (Graphic 1) Lagging water resource management reforms Lack of an integrated, efficient, and effective institutional system Weak water resource management Underdeveloped water rights system Slow establishment of water markets Overemphasis on engineering projects compared to management approaches Lack of a stable financing mechanism for environmental investment Insufficient attention to role of natural water bodies to support ecosystems (Glenshewchuck, 2010) Discussion Referred to the findings, the hypothesis is supported. What government did to their citizens is not enough for solving this water problem, because the information I collected had obviously shows that as the development passing, the population of people in Singapore had also raised a lot, and they are still worrying about the supply of water in their country. If this policy is used in China, it also can not solve water scarcity, especially when the population are too large, because this is the largest cause of a mass of water demand. As the hypothesis described, the government can do more to their country, such as develop more lakes for storage the rain, they had already set up a great water reusing and water desalinating system, and the weather there provides them enough rain each year, if they could use those rain, the problem must be reduced a lot. Water scarcity had disrupted peoples life in Singapore, and nowadays the problem is getting larger and larger, the governments also mad e laws to protect and remind people that fresh water is not countless. Believe that everyone in the world can see different types of advertisements both on the wall and television, they are all about telling people to save water, bacause as we know, there are only 2.5 percent of water can be used by human. In addition, we can easily find that there are some similarities between Singapore and China, although they are not in the same situation, even they are totaly different in the reasons of water scarcity, they are both need an integrated water system. They are both slow in developing water system. (Glenshewchuck, 2010) Hence, the protection and more strategies should be done by every individual in the whole world, Singapore can also use the strategies which China used, firstly compelete the policy of using water, reduce the price of water for poor peole rationaly, and then keep environment clean enough for people store water for reusing. In order to improve the environment, both of them had appeal people to keep rivers clean, and what they can do is to continue this action. Conclusions and Recommendation All in all, the hypothesis is supported by the evidences I provide before. Obviously, there are also a large amount of researches can be done, because the development is moving faster and faster, the demands are also becoming larger and larger, if they do not change this situation, it could be worse. However, there are only references from the Internet, but I think this is not enough, there should be more references from scientific books, because books are published to the public, they can not be changed by anyone. References The world bank. Dealing with water scarcity in Singapore: Institution, Strategies, and     Enforcement (2006), world bank [online.] Available from:     http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEAPREGTOPENVIRONMENT/Resources/     WRM_Singapore_experience_EN.pdf [Assessed on 5 October 2016] Hua, Xin. Beijing to fight water scarcity (2011), China daily [online.] Available from:     http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/08/content_13851695.htm     [Assessed on 5 October 2016] Liping, Jiang. How to combat water scarcity in China (2011), China.org.cn [online.]     Avalable from: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-03/03/content_22043145_2.htm     [Assessed on 6 October 2016] Glenshewchuck. Water scarcity- China (2010), world resources sin center [online.]     Available from: http://www.wrsc.org/story/water-scarcity-china-0     [Assessed on 6 October 2016] Tackling Singapores water shortage, INSEAD[online.] Avaiable from:     http://centres.insead.edu/innovation-policy/events/documents/Singapore-WaterShortage.pdf     [Assessed on 6 October 2016]
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Zara Supply Chain China
Case Study and Exercises Exercise #1 We were given the formula of distance , where D – Distance from location L (distribution center) to location I (consumption point); – X coordinate of the warehouse l (distribution); – X coordinate of the store i (consumption); – Y coordinate of the warehouse l (distribution); – Y coordinate of the store i (consumption). Consequently, applying these formula in the Excel we receive the following result: Then, multiplying the distance by the amount of demand and summing up for each relevant location, we get: Thus, the answer is LOCAY, because it has the minimal score. Exercise #2 Using provided formulas , where – X coordinate of the optimal location for warehouse; – Y coordinate of the optimal location; – X coordinate of store i; – Y coordinate of store i; – Load (or Demand) of the store i, we get And finally The answer is (8;11). Zara's Case Study Company Profile Zara is one of the largest international fashion companies with 1671 stores around the globe. It is a part of Inditex holding. Inditex is one of the world's largest fashion retailers, welcoming shoppers at its eight store formats -Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterque – boasting 5. 93 stores in 85 markets [www. inditex. com], [www. zara. com]. In 1975 the first Zara shop was founded in Spain. In 1976-1984 In-Spain expansion takes place. In 1988 it enters Portuguese market. Followed by US and France, it quickly becomes world-brand and until 2006 it had 52 countries which held retail operations of the company. Za ra concentrates on the three principles to satisfy the customer [http://ru. scribd. com/doc/27372254/Supply-Chain-Practices-of-Zara#]: Short lead Time which results in â€Å"more†fashionable clothes Lower quantities – scarce supply More styles, which create a greater possibility of attracting needed customers. ) Zara's designing process organized in a way such that the stores, which actually interact with the customers, communicate to the head office in Spain the needs of the customers and the trends in fashion clothes. Thus, making it possible for the company to react to market changes within 30 days [http://thirdeyesight. in/articles/ImagesFashion_Zara_Part_I. pdf], which makes Zara unreachable for the same-size competitors. 2) Reducing the number of clothes manufactured in each style creates the â€Å"scarcity†which is applicable to fashion clothes. The less it is available, the more desirable it becomes. As a result, Zara discounts only approx. 0% of its products. 3) The stores are supplied with new merchandise twice a week, thus making them seem â€Å"new†every 3-4 days. On average, Zara creates around 11,500 styles per year [http://thirdeyesight. in/articles/ImagesFashion_Zara_Part_I. pdf; http://www. slideshare. net/koffman/zara-case-study-2780928#btnNext]. Moreover, m ost of the production facilities are located in Spain, near the headquarters, so that the company has more control over the operations, producing and distributing. Zara's characteristics of vertical supply chain Zara is a vertically integrated retailer. Unlike similar apparel retailers, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply-chain: It designs, produces, and distributes itself. The business system that had resulted was particularly distinctive in that Zara manufactured its most fashion-sensitive products internally. Zara did not produce â€Å"classics†, clothes that would always be in-style. In fact, the company intended its clothes to have fairly short life spans, both within-stores and in customers' closets. Retailers like the American chain ‘Gap’ and the Swedish retailer ‘Hennes ; Mauritz’  completely outsource their production to factories around the world and mostly to low cost Asian countries. In contrast, it is estimated that 76 percent of Zara's production is carried out in Europe which is within the small radius of its headquarters in Spain. In fact, almost half of its production is in owned or closely-controlled facilities. Another 24% are produced in Asian region [http://www. slideshare. net/anusaj/zara-ppt#btnNext] While this gives a tremendous amount of flexibility, it does contend with higher people costs – that of up to 19 times as much as Asian ones. The group also owns capital intensive facilities in Spain, which can do dyeing and processing of the fabric as well as cutting and garment finishing. Provided that, Inditex has an ability to adjust to the new trend or demand in a very short time. Overall Supply Chain is can be described as follows: Collect the information from retailing points. At least two times per week the sailing points should somehow conduct the information to the headquarters in Spain, providing information for the groups in charge to develop and decide on the range of clothes which will be demanded by the customers in the observed future. This work is done by approx. 200 people, which develop up to 1,000 styles per month [http://ru. scribd. om/doc/27372254/Supply-Chain-Practices-of-Zara#] The information is also received via sales reports from retail points. Thus it can be claimed, that Zara has invested a lot into IT, to make the up-to-date information flow possible. Decide on the needed clothes, distinguish trends. After depicting and sketching appropriate merchandise for the stores, they send the order to facilities, which are located near the head offic e. Moreover, it should be said that Zara somehow lowers its risks by purchasing uncolored fabric or even raw materials, thus making enhancing flexibility. The process organized in such way, that final product may be even painted on demand. However, only cutting of material is done within the company. Actual sewing is done by workshops, which are mostly located in Spain or Portugal. None of the workshops belongs to Zara. The company provides them with instructions how to do the work for its own needs. Zara being vertically integrated has its own distribution network, which allows the company to further control physical flow. Since the time has a great value for Zara, the newly produced merchandise arrives to the stores within 48 hours. [http://ru. cribd. com/doc/27372254/Supply-Chain-Practices-of-Zara#] An esteem of time, needed to pass from development of the product to actual shipping is around 7-10 days. [http://thirdeyesight. in/articles/ImagesFashion_Zara_Part_I. pdf] Zara's development in China First Zara's store was opened in Shanghai, in February 2006, and during the first day store has managed to generate 800,000 RMB of revenue . Within a year Zara opened 12 new stores across China, and accorfding to the latest data (31st of July) its chain had 114 stores within China (out of 355 operating in Asian region) [http://en. wikipedia. rg/wiki/Zara_%28retailer%29#Stores] in over 40 cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenyang and other. [http://www. chinadaily. com. cn/business/2012-09/06/content_15737684. htm] During 2011 Beijing Consumer Association was checking the quality of Zara's product. The result was that they accused company of selling lower quality products on chineese market. [http://www. chinadaily. com. cn/business/2011-04/26/content_12396211. htm]. However, the company doesn't seem to be damaged: no apologizes nor compensations followed. .On 5th of September, 2012 Zara opened its on-line shop in China.
Friday, January 10, 2020
IT Doesn’t matter Essay
â€Å"If a company needs evidence of the kind of money that might be saved, it need only look at Microsoft’s profit margin†Excerpts from a company’s strategy document †¢ †¦ the company will ensure that it will have at least 2 plug points in each room with AC connection. †¢ The switches will be white in color and will make a ‘click’ sound on pressing †¢ Press to hear the click sound Disclaimer †¢ We all agree to the fact that IT plays a crucial role in running an organisation. †¢ All that we are driving at is that the existence of IT does not grant a competitive advantage to a company, anymore In other words, IT lets you remain in the race, Winning is a totally different ball game altogether The (lost) Edge †¢ Can IT provide an edge for you? †¢ You only gain an edge over rivals by having or doing something that they can’t have or do. †¢ By now, the core functions of IT – data storage, data processing, and data transport – have become available and affordable to all. †¢ And hence they are becoming costs of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none Risk >>> Advantage †¢ When a resource becomes essential to competition but inconsequential to strategy, the risks it creates become more important than the advantages it provides †¢ Lets classify technologies into †¢ Proprietary technologies †¢ Infrastructural technologies. †¢ Proprietary technologies can be owned, actually or effectively, by a single company. †¢ Infrastructural technologies, in contrast, offer far more value when shared IT has all the hallmarks of an infrastructural technology. †¢ Its mix of characteristics guarantees particularly rapid commoditization. †¢ IT is, first of all, a transport mechanism–it carries digital information just as railroads carry goods and power grids carry electricity. †¢ And like any transport mechanism, it is far more valuable when shared than when used in isolation Hence the technology’s potential for differentiating one company from the pack – its strategic potential – declines as it becomes accessible and affordable to all. Mainframe timesharing local area networks Ethernet networks Internet †¢ Each stage in the above progression has led to Greater standardization of the technology and hence greater homogenization of its functionality. †¢ The benefits of customization would be overwhelmed by the costs of isolation. †¢ Because most business activities and processes have come to be embedded in software, they become replicable †¢ Both the cost savings and the interoperability benefits make the sacrifice of distinctiveness unavoidable The arrival of the Internet has accelerated the commoditization of IT by providing a perfect delivery channel for generic applications Signs that the IT has reached Saturation †¢ First, IT’s power is outstripping most of the business needs it fulfills. Second, the price of essential IT functionality has dropped to the point where it is more or less affordable to all. Third, the capacity of the universal distribution network (the Internet) has caught up with demand – indeed, we already have considerably more fiber-optic capacity than we need. Fourth, IT vendors are rushing to position themselves as commodity suppliers or even as utilities. Finally, and most definitively, the investment bubble has burst, which historically has been a clear indication that an infrastructural technology is reaching the end of its buildout. Do the Right Thing†¦ †¢  The operational risks associated with IT are many – technical glitches, obsolescence, service outages, unreliable vendors or partners, security breaches, even terrorism–and some have become magnified as companies have moved from tightly controlled, proprietary systems to open, shared ones. IT may be a commodity, and its costs may fall rapidly enough to ensure that any new capabilities are quickly shared, but the very fact that it is entwined with so many business functions means that it will continue to consume a large portion of corporate spending. IT buyers should throw their weight around, to negotiate contracts that ensure the long term usefulness of their PC investments and impose hard limits on upgrade costs. And if vendors balk, companies should be willing to explore cheaper solutions, including open-source applications and bare-bones network PCs. Most of the major business technology vendors, from Microsoft to IBM, are trying to position themselves as IT utilities, companies that will control the provision of a diverse range of business applications over what is now called, â€Å"the grid. †The upshot is ever greater homogenization of IT capabilities, as more companies replace customized applications with generic ones. Wal-Mart and Dell Computer are exceptions to this though. In2002, the consulting firm Alinean compared the IT expenditures and the financial results of 7,500 large U. S. companies †¢ The 25 companies that delivered the highest economic returns, spent on average just 0. 8% of their revenues on IT, while the typical company spent 3. 7%. †¢ Larry Ellison, one of the great technology salesmen, admitted in a recent interview that â€Å"most companies spend too much [on IT] and get very little in return. ††¢ The key to success, for the vast majority of companies, is no longer to seek advantage aggressively but to manage costs and risks meticulously. Thank You
Thursday, January 2, 2020
The Great Gatsby and The Wasteland Essay - 1229 Words
The Great Gatsby and The Wasteland Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby and Elliot’s The Wasteland are two stories that similarly express the modernist post-war disillusionment. Both stories comment pessimistically on the direction that our world is moving in from the post-war modernist perspective. Both men looked past the roaring twenties, and realized that this time period was actually a moral wasteland. The final paragraphs of The Great Gatsby sum up their mutual lack of faith in American culture to improve. Fitzgerald uses a number of both direct and indirect ways to comment on what has happened to America. The green light is a recurring symbol in this book that has many deep meanings. Beginning in the first chapter, when Nick compares†¦show more content†¦It shows that justifying this war is an act of futility. Elliot also presents a theme of regeneration and fertility, which symbolizes a longing for the past. In the opening of The Wasteland, April is shown as a time of revival after the bleak winter . Regeneration is portrayed as painful, because the new spring can’t measure up to the springs of the past. This is portrayed by Marie’s experiences from the past, which become painful when she considers that the time she lives in now is one of great political and cultural consequences. The final paragraph of The Great Gatsby and the final line in particular, effectively represent the views of Elliot and Fitzgerald. The final line, â€Å"so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,†embodies the essence of both stories. It expresses a lack of confidence in our society’s current condition, and a longing for the simpler times of the past. The final page offers much of Fitzgerald’s perspective, and it is wonderfully summed up in the final sentence of the book. 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