3/26/2020 0 Comments Warehousing in Supply ChainWAREHOUSING IN SUPPLY CHAIN Introduction Warehousing is one of the most important and critical logistic activities in industrial and service systems. A few production philosophies, e. g. just in time (JIT) and lean manufacturing, propose and support the so-called ‘‘zero stock’’ as basic and strategic pillar. Also manufacturing requirement planning (MRP), the well known and widely adopted ‘‘push-’’ based full? lment technique, theoretically guarantees no storage quantities when the ‘‘lot for lot’’ reorder policy is adopted.Nevertheless, these special production systems do not operate in absence of warehousing systems that support and smooth the discontinuity ? ow of materials, products and components, at the input and at the bottom of a generic production stage. Warehousing activities and storage systems are necessary! This is true in many industrial and not industrial sectors: from automotive to tile industry passing from food industry, health care production systems, service sectors (e. g. banks, universities, hospitals), etc.Obviously, warehousing is the core activity of logistic providers, usually specialized in distribution activities including storage and transportation issues. In special sectors, like the food industry and the health care supply chains, warehousing means storage systems in critical operating conditions, e. g. controlled temperature and/or humidity levels, by the management of fresh and perishable products. The storage systems signi? cantly affect the level of quality of products, the customer’s service level, and the global logistic cost.Just an example: the food industry. Warehousing and transportation issues signi? cantly affect the level of quality of foodstuffs at the consumer’s location, especially when production plants and ? nal points of demand (consumers’ locations) are far away and frequently located in different countries. The mission of warehousing is the same of the discipline ‘‘logistics’’: to effectively ship products in the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantity without any damages or alterations.Important keywords in warehousing and storage systems are: safety, quality, availability, cost saving, customer service level, traceability, picking, automation, ful? llment, travel time, etc. With increased globalization and offshore sourcing, global supply chain management is becoming an important issue for many businesses. Global supply chain management involves a company’s worldwide interests and suppliers rather than simply a local or national orientation. This is the operational arena of warehouses in most complex production systems.THE ROLES OF WAREHOUSE IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN Warehouse play vital roles in the supply chain. The warehouse is not only a facility where a company can store their products, but the warehouse offers inventory management, physical inventory counts and shipping functionality. The warehouse charges their clients for a certain rate for the goods stored, the volume of the warehouse used and the services the client wishes to use. The company using the warehouse does not have to employ warehouse staff, does not require any inventory software or warehouse equipment.The owner of the warehouse is responsible for the costs and passes this on to their clients based on the rate they are charged. The warehousing functionality today is much more than the traditional function of storage. The main function that warehousing serves today are hold raw material at or near the point of induction into a manufacturing or assembly process. The work-in-process warehouses hold partially completed assemblies and products at various points along an assembly or production line. Besides, the finished goods warehouse hold inventory used to balance and buffer the variation between production and schedules and demand.For this purpose, the warehouse is usually located near the point of manufacture and is often characterized by the flow of full pallets in and full pallets out, assuming that product size and volume warrant pallet-sized loads. A warehouse serving only this function may have demands ranging from monthly to quarterly replenishment of stock to the next level of distribution. Edward Frazelle. (2001) claims that distribution warehouses and distribution centers accumulate and consolidate products from various points of manufacture within a single firm, or from several firms, for combined shipment to common customers.Such as warehouse may be located central to either the production locations or the customer base. Product movement may be typified by full pallets or cases or broken case quantities out. The facility is typically responding to regular weekly or monthly orders. Warehouse also receive, pick, and ship small orders for individual consumers. As a fulfillment warehouse and fulfillment centers. The local warehouse, distributed in the field in order to shorten transportation distances to permit rapid response to customer demand. Frequently, single items are picked, and the same item may be shipped to the customer every day.The value –added service warehouse serve as the facility where key product customization activities are executed, including packaging, labeling, marking, pricing and returns processing. According to Edward Frazelle. (2001) the figure below illustrates warehouse performing these functions in a logistics network. Unfortunately, in many of today’s networks, a single item will pass in and out of warehouse serving each of these functions between the point of manufacturer and the customer. When feasible, two or more missions should be combined in the same warehousing operation, and handling steps in the chain should be minimized.Current changes in the availability and cost of transportation options make combining activities in a single location and link skipping possible for many products. In particular, small high-value items with unpredictable demand are frequently shipped worldwide froma single source using overnight delivery services. Figure : the roles of a warehouse in logistics and supply chain management. Cliff Otto (2010) is of the opinion that Cross-docking as manufacturers seek ways to move products more efficiently and cost-effectively, many are ediscovering cross-docking—moving product directly from receiving to shipping with little or no inventory and minimal handling. The process is resurfacing as a way to take costs out of the supply chain, accelerate inventory velocity, and improve service levels. While historically used for durable goods, high turn rates and reduced handling make cross-docking an effective solution for everything from perishable products to high-value/high-security goods. The process helps get product to market quickly and economically while reducing the need for warehouse space and inventory carry costs.In simple words, warehouses are used by manufacturers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers, transport businesses, customs (exporters, Importers), etc. They are usually large plain buildings, equipped with loading docks to load and unload consignment from trucks. Based upon the size of the goods and volume of operation they also often have cranes and forklifts for moving goods, which are usually placed on ISO standard pallets. Warehouse is a facility where the supply chain holds or stores goods, until they are needed by the customers. Warehouse can be owned by manufactures, wholesalers, retailers to store the goods.In my opinion, the role of warehousing and storage has changed drastically as customer and vendor compliance issues have come to surface and a greater emphasis has been placed on operations and customer satisfaction. There are more demands and expectations in today’s industry. The management of warehousing operations requires a unique combination of engineering, IT, human resources and supply chain skills. Motorsense offers an integrated warehouse solution that incorporates all the above to give a cost effective solution with the added benefit of stock reworking, returns management, sub-assembly and repackaging.REFERENCES 1. Manzini, Riccardo. (2012) Warehousing in the Global Supply Chain. Bologna: Springer 2. Martin Murray. Public Warehousing In The Supply Chain. About. com Guide 3. Edward Frazelle. (2001) World-Class Warehousing and Material Handling. McGraw-Hill Prof Med/Tech 4. Radhakrishnan. (2010) Logistics – Warehouse Management (Part I). 5. David K. Ecklund. (2010) Warehousing Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Supply Chain Process. Supply Chain Management Review 6. G Raghuram. Warehousing to Supply Chain Management -Complementary or Supplementary. Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
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Aspects And Subcultures Of Digital Culture Media Essay Today digital trends are increasingly connected with the world of culture and arts, involving different aspects of culture, media and information technologies, and influencing new forms of communication. This course paper will review 3 fundamental aspects and particular subcultures of the digital culture. The term digital culture includes 3 main aspects digital culture in videogames, in music and in the Internet. It also includes the vast array of subcultures that have grown up in the last years around these aspects. These new trends have deeply modified all of our day to day activities. In the Digital culture: pragmatic and philosophical challenges Marcelo Dascal speaks about the changes that are transforming the nature of international communication and are modifying the way in which we carry out research, engage in study, keep our accounts, plan our travel, and so on. This article depicts the changes in todays digital culture and that is why it is the article this course paper starts with. The relevance of the issue is explained by the pace of technological evolution which is much more rapid than the cultural one. No one controls the direction that technological development is taking, it is directing us (Dascal, 2006) This phenomenon of the digital culture influences all the spheres of our life. Today people cannot imagine their lives without digital culture. In the work Youth culture, music, and cell phone branding in China (2005), Jing Wang admits that nowadays music, Internet and video games are all connected with each other. The article examines the place of music in an emerging youth culture. As for the games culture, this course paper will refer to Live in your world, play in ours (by Sheila Murphy and What is video game culture? Cultural studies and game studies by Adrienne Shaw. Besides, the course paper also relies on the work by J.A. McArthur A geek meaning of style (2008) that considers the culture today should be understood as an open and dynamic process that is based on interactive communication. It changes every minute. This means that digital culture is a living system that always changes. That is why it is interesting to discuss the so-called geek subcultures. The present research is a brief review of the articles and an attempt to define how the digital culture and subcultures are reflected in academic studies. This paper summarizes various aspects of digital culture in two steps. It defines three key aspects of the digital culture and demonstrates three main subcultures of digital culture. Aspects of digital culture In the study of digital culture one thing can be pointed out is the sociological aspect. Digital culture is considered to be a socio-cultural phenomenon. There are three main aspects in digital culture. These are video games, music, and the Internet. Video games It is possible to say that computer and man communicate. To the question How will man and computer work together? there is an answer: …through speech. (Dascal, 2006) Today there is a tendency for the newspaper articles to point out that video gamers are not necessarily who we think they are. As one article asserts, the stereotype of the gamer as a glaze, incoherent teenage boy is wrong (Shaw, A. 2010) What is video game culture? Cultural studies and game studies, p407). In the culture the gamer identity is defined by technical proficiency, geek cultural capital and maleness. While the games that they play make up a wide range of genres there is little diversity among the gamers themselves. According to the data, released by the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), 62% of PC gamers are male and 60% of those gamers are under 36 years old (Murphy, 2004). Dovey and Kennedy (2006) define video games culture by the way of the major discourses used by members of the video game development industry. Games culture is…a critical site, where discourses around technology, technological innovation, and technological competence converge with dominant conceptions of gender and race (cited in Shaw, 2010, p405) 1.2. Music Music is definitely an aspect of digital culture J. Wang claims according to a BRANDchild study nearly 50% of wired urban teenagers frequently download music from the Internet.(2005, p 187) Basing on this statistic data, no doubt it is important for the youth. We can even say that it has become a new way of communication communication through music. Today people all over the world buy music from iTunes and it is a major part of digital culture that is growing form year to year. The changes happen in music sphere extremely fast and the reason for that is the computerization of the modern world. Almost everybody has a computer and an Internet access, and therefore has unlimited (free or paid) access to music. Such an access is very convenient although uncontrolled. Besides, music has become mobile with the wide spread of portable phones and other gadgets. Mobile music is said to be the panacea that cuts across cultural borders, able to attract global cool youth. (Wang, 2005, p 188) Actually, the world youth prefer music, which is well-known in many countries, therefore music becomes international, no matter what language it uses. Gadgets are developing very rapidly, new mobile means and new opportunities for listening to music arrive. Music has become a field in which tastes and preferences have become more eclectic than ever before (McArthur, 2008) Transnational marketers consider music as the fastest way into the mind and soul of todays youths (Wang, 2005) It rarely needs to be argued that music is the global language of the Now Generation. Internet Of course, it goes without saying that Internet has changed the world we used to know. Today it is one of the main parts in digital culture. Such a global phenomenon as Internet culture has appeared thanks to development of the net and has become a social event in human history. The Internet today is not only huge quantity of computers, but also the improbable quantity of the people, for which network is an essentially new way of dialogue almost not having of analogues in the material world. (Silver, 2004, p 57) The Internet gave everybody a chance of self-realization in this vast space: digital youth subcultures can not be centered round musical preference. (McArthur, 2008) The Internet may be a new resource for the affiliation and expression of sub-cultural identity. It may serve as a place for sub-cultural development. Moreover, it is a place where some subcultures (such as hackers) are born. The use of the Internet as a resource for subcultures suggests that subcultures today are able to affiliate across location and time constraints. It is no doubt effective across time and space.(McArthur, 2008) Subcultures Gamers Video games have produced a variety of subcultures. Some authors look at games as a social practice. For example, T. Taylor (2006) describes an outline gaming culture as a social practice and a shared identity created in the game space. (cited in Shaw, 2010). In the gamers culture, subcultures are marked by their look, specific linguistic jargon, and a sense of solidarity. Gamers often wear clothing that reference specific games, comics, television shows, or movies that are not widely known outside of a small following (Shaw, 2010) One of the biggest subculture of video gamers in the world is the World of Warcraft Community. As Hackeleman (2011) claims: As game developers have strived to create engaging environments and immersive stories for players to experience, independent machine producers have taken an unofficial and sometimes controversial role by expanding the game universe from a different perspective: tinkering with the game engine itself. The demand for this type of user generated content has risen as the addictive qualities of games like World of Warcraft have stimulated the creation of vast social networks and thriving online communities that provide gamers with the ability to stay connected while outside the virtual space. (2011, p 2) To understand the size of the community one can look at its Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/warcraft) where 1,430,549 people (assessed on April 26 2011) claimed their affiliation with the game by following the games group page. According to the official website, more than 11 mln people play World of Warcraft around the world (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com) That is a size of a big city and if we bear in mind that they meet offline, buy different objects form each other and have their own language, they are a real culture, which is only one example of the video game culture. Many other communities of video gamers (such as Second Life, Sims Online, Grand Thief Auto Online) have their own subcultures which include almost 300 mln people playing online (based on estimate provided in Yahoo Answers). In different countries people have different attitudes to this. According to my observations, in Russia most of these players are thought to be computer geeks because they are different non-gamers and communicate with other gamers much easier. But when looking at the worlds most advanced video game culture South Korea … it is stressed that Koreans are very different from Americans because they treat pro-gamers as heroes, unlike U.S. sports culture that values real athletes. (Shaw, 2010) Music fans The next digital subculture which is considered is connected with the aspect of music. Studies of youth subcultures during the past 30 years have typically coincided with studies of popular music preferences. (Bennet, 1999, cited in McArthur, 2008. p. 58) There are many different music genres, which vary respectively to the style of music. For example, there are widely known rappers and rockers, but in modern world we commonly associate them more with their look and outfit, than the music genre. Those features, which show belonging to certain music style, allow to identify the typical representatives of different music subcultures. That means that there is not only music it is backed up with the different types of culture. One of the most influential musical subcultures existing nowadays is punk. From the Wangs point of view there are 2 types of punk-lovers: originals and wannabes. First group focuses generally on the punk music itself, while the other is more concerned about the fashion code, and punk music is simply part of their lifestyle. This process went further so much that it has become common to treat punk as a sociological rather than a musical phenomenon from start. Punk is often considered as implementation of youths rebellious moods, but often their interest in punk culture symbolizes the search of band that will help them [students] say I am unique without making them look weird or socially unacceptable. According to Jing Wang, there is a so-called punk syndrome, which refers to the mentality, culture, lifestyle of punk-lovers. The typical representatives of this subculture are angry young high school kids, and the music is their way to show disobedience or the way to cope with the pressure they receive at school. In his article Jing Wang talks about several high school kids, who managed to pull through their entrance exams with the help of punk music. The anger of music, played with drums, bass guitars and songs performed in the aggressive or even shouting ways affects enormously peoples emotions. Online communities An online culture has developed as online social relationships have deepened and matured (Silver, 2004) The net is an accessible and user-friendly area in which subcultures can form, meet, and interact both in online and offline mode. Different groups of users appeared: anime geeks, hackers, flooders and etc. The Internet provides an opportunity for would-be members of cultural groups to seek out people who have similar thoughts to them. As Parker (1989) claimed computers have become a part of the genesis of a new crime from that has added computer programmers, computer operators, and electronic engineers to the traditional categories of criminals. (cited Turgeman-Goldschmidt, 2005). Hacking is a widespread international phenomenon, and hackers actions occasionally reach the media headlines. They are one of the most interesting subcultures that appeared on the Internet. According to Turgeman-Goldschmidt (2005, p 8) the hacker community is clearly male dominated and hackers are typically young adults. Moreover most hackers have no previous criminal record, are White and nonviolent, and come from middle- to upper-class backgrounds. The subculture can be divided in several communities of different type hackers. First ones hack the computer system to achieve fame jokers. Not likely to cause serious harm to the system, and express themselves making various humorous captions, viruses with different visual and sound effects (music, shaking or turning the screen, drawing all sorts of images, etc.) Next community type is professional crackers they carry out hacking a computer system to steal or substitute information stored there. They are characterized by systematic and organized action. The last ones are called vandals they carry out hacking a computer system to its destruction: delete data, create viruses or Trojan horses. But no matter what their type of hacker community is according to Taylor (1999, cited in Turgeman-Goldschmidt, 2005) there are six motivators for hackers : feelings of addiction, urge of curiosity, boredom with educational system, enjoyment of feelings of power, peer recognition and political acts. During his research Turgeman-Goldschmidt (2005) gives an explanation to each motivator in the hacker subculture. First of all, he says is the feeling for addiction to anarchy and anarchy is extremely entertaining. Secondly, their curiosity for hackers lies in the desire to learn and know as much as possible. Overall, it is stated that original hackers mostly do it not for revenue, but for the idea of free knowledge. They fight against Microsoft and help Linux in any way they find. They are trying to change the world the way the can, fighting with globalization, starting wars against the multinationals, and just by helping to find bugs in the anti-virus software. The considerable group of hackers regularly organizes hacker conventions. It operates a conference in Las Vegas which is annually visited by several thousand participants from all over the world from the U.S. to Australia. Each year the World Congress takes place in Germany is the of hackers, under the auspices Computer Chaos Club. CCC is a three-day conference on technology, society and the future of mankind. (Coleman, 2008) During these meetings hackers even manage to create their own outlook, own language, and made their own bible. For the hackers … hacking is a new form of entertainment based on the play-like quality that characterizes the use of digital technology and is a new form of social activity. Hacking can be considered a new form of entertainment that could not have existed before the development of an adequate technology. (Turgeman-Goldschmidt, 2005) Today hackers became a wide dangerous subculture. Conclusion Digital culture is a largely modern phenomenon. It should be understood primarily as part of general culture, one of the most important aspects of cultural activity in general. There are many other subcultures in the digital culture, but my research is focused primarily on three most popular ones. These three subcultures demonstrate aspects, which are more or less typical for other subcultures, associated with digital culture. As for my experience, during the research I have found out a lot of new about aspects and subcultures in general to particular differences inside different type of subcultures. In general, it was unexpected to learn that every subculture consists of those who are original and those who are posers. Every subculture does have a group of people that are a part of it only because they adore how people of this subculture look like not even understanding the main idea of it. This can be proved by a subculture I have analyzed in my course paper punks. I did not know that there are so many posers that just like the outlook, not knowing the history, nor understanding the main idea of the subculture. Besides, I have never heard of the attitude towards pro gamers in South Korea. They are thought to be almost national heroes there. The interesting fact is that every year they have a championship, in which anyone can participate. It is as popular as watching the hockey matches in Russia. Special TV channels translate news for gamers and computer geeks, youths and aged watch the championship matches together. In result the winner gets a major gift from the sponsor (which reaches $500,000) and incredible respect. The amount of money for winning the tournament motivates people to play professionally from early childhood. As a result, different kind of gamers all together are a tremendous size subculture in South Korea. In Russia digital subcultures are just getting born because our Internet and technology evolution is several steps back from the United States of America or South Korea. But I am sure that in several years we are going to have our own specific subcultures that would be interesting to analyze. Drawing to the conclusion, it is necessary to remember that this issue is extremely complicated and it worth more research. It is always interesting to analyze people, there communications, and new subcultures that reflect current situation in the country. That is the reason why I plan to keep on my research work in a slightly different way after I finish this course paper to analyze the digital subcultures in Russia and their influence on businesses for the next course paper.
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