International Supply Chain Management (Sourcing Strategies) Essay

International Supply Chain Management (Sourcing Strategies) - Essay Example As a result of near-shoring activities, enhancement of cultural affinity takes place which acts as a boon to the modern businesses with respect to their value chain activities. The cultural affinity being developed provides strong prospect for the long-term relationship development among the various entities of the supply chain. As a result of this, the supply functions of the companies enhance up to a considerable extent. Finally, it is worthy to mention that the new approach of near-shoring as a sourcing strategy offers cost advantages to the companies. The proximity of time zone allows the companies to reduce the extra amount of work required to match with the time of the entity in other ends of the supply chain. The cultural affinity leads to reduced amount of time spend upon the cycles required for reaching a consensus (Neoris Practical Visionaries, 2010). However, the activities within near-shoring strategy for sourcing are not without risk associated with it. Although it is be tter to go for near-shoring than off-shoring as according to the contemporary managers, near-shoring cannot lead the companies towards achievement of goal when applied alone. A combination of off-shoring, onsite and near-shoring would provide better result than being used alone. Thus, instead of determining the advantage of near-shoring over off-shoring, it would be beneficial for the contemporary mangers to identify the most effective combination through which goals can be achieved (Bell, 2005). On-Shoring Along with near-shoring, on-shoring has also been evolving as an innovative concept in the businesses where efficient supervision of supply... This essay stresses that the opportunity cost associated with outsourcing at times triggers the interest among the companies to remain preset to this process. This is because through outsourcing the production units can derive the advantage of lower production costs in the developing nations of the world which would not be possible with the process of in-sourcing. Another noticeable disadvantage of in-sourcing is that the focus of the company gets deviated from its core competencies because of in-sourcing. In-sourcing might bring about the necessity of concentrating upon certain activities like that of IT in which the company is not expert at. In such a situation, the time, the efforts and the resources that will be spend over activities other than the core activities would be considered as extra amount of cost This paper makes a conclusion that development of various combinations of the modern sourcing strategies would be essential. The companies can then adopt various means of assessing each of the combinations in a critical way. The combination that anticipates the most effective output for the companies should be selected. These actions of the companies in relation to the adoption of one best sourcing strategy are helpful for both the short-term as well as the long-term prospects of the companies. This is because effectiveness of the sourcing strategies leads towards enhanced competency of the supply functions of the companies which is a competitive aspect in the context of the modern businesses.

What to do with waste Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

What to do with waste - Essay Example To imagine, the amount of wastes being generated in hundreds of million to billion tonnes per year on a global scale should be alarming to the point we could not at all afford to neglect the issue and show meager efforts toward resolution of the encompassing matter. Actually, no exact statistical figures convey the immense number that must be dealt with since there are unreported cases of waste generation in several countries yet we can only be certain of the fact that waste quantities increase as they vary in direct proportion with human activities, material and energy consumption, as well as the widely experienced technological growth through time. The world has long struggled at managing waste disposals and treating wastes due chiefly to insufficient funds and appropriate fields of study that lack resources in terms of skilled researchers or interested experts who may be visualized together as solid passionate teams in creating ideas and innovating systems that efficiently address waste problems. Given this ever-worsening scenario, thus, we are brought to ask in serious enthusiastic tone â€Å"What do we and can we really do about our wastes on this planet in order to save mother nature, human health, and probably settle other critical concerns thereafter?† At one aspect, we can think of the fossil fuel crisis that affects almost everyone in the world and consider the equivalence fossil fuels make with contemporary wastes. By common knowledge, we are aware that fossil fuels are derived from organic remains of prehistoric plants and animals that undergo natural process of anaerobic decomposition. It normally takes 700 million years for decaying plant and animal matters to be fossilized upon exposure to extreme levels of heat and pressure. So how exactly would wastes, in relative measure, account for the risks of fossil fuel depletion? The point of advantage lies at discovering wastes as possible substitute for fossil fuels based on similar useful compo nents such as coal, natural gas, oil, or petroleum which may be recovered from a bulk of wastes’ organic composition. A successful content analysis must illustrate, by comparative studies, how wastes could feasibly become a good alternative for such non-renewable source of energy as their commonalities basically indicate that wastes are rich in carbon, hydrogen, and other elements capable of evolving heat energy upon combustive mechanisms. Once we have wholly figured such feasibility of producing energy with wastes through large volumetric yields of hydrocarbons, the next approach would be to come up with practical tools and methods relevant for the task. Hence, realizing the full potential of wastes in the context of possibly replacing fossil fuels should in part respond to the main query. Moreover, in the attempt to carry out energy conversions via exothermic reactions with wastes in solid and gaseous states, it would be necessary to establish medium to large-scale fuel pla nts just as what Dr. Martin Linck proposed to do in aiming for a 300,000-gallon per day production of fuel. An article written by Earth Times online columnist Dave Armstrong entitled â€Å"What to do with waste? Make our own fossil fuels!† notes Dr. Linck’s attendance and discourse during the 244th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia where a scientific breakthrough known as the Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion Process (IH2) was introduced. According to Armstrong, â€Å"IH2 was developed by Dr. Linck’s Gas Technology Institute (GTI) in Des Plaines – Hydrogen from the waste and many cheaper catalysts move the processes by which the ‘feedstock’ raw materials are converted into the oily products.† Apparently, in this setting, wastes enter a type of modern technology which would manufacture gaseous hydrogen and oils as ready-to-use fuels. At this stage, we may further extend thought to the probability of ad opting designs for fuel production at optimum level and we may to some degree be glad on