Three factors that affect management’s decisions on the degree of centralization

Three factors that affect management’s decisions on the degree of centralization
Many factors are considered when deciding to what degree authority should be centralized. The cost of a decision, uniformity of policy, competency levels, control mechanisms and environmental factors all affect the how much centralization of authority is needed for an area of decision making. The cost of a decision determines how much authority one must have to make it. Uniformity of policy comes into play for leaders who need consistency. 
 
Competency levels refers to the need of decentralized organizations to have an adequate supply of competent leaders and employees. Organizations having a high degree of competency levels may be willing to sacrifice small costs associated with employee mistakes for the valuable experience it yields. Control mechanisms are used to gauge the efficacy of individual divisions of an organization. Finally, environmental influences or external factors such as regulations will have an influence on the degree of centralization or decentralization.


Advantages of the network design include bringing together the special knowledge and skills of others to create value rather than hiring employees to perform this task; bringing together people with different insights into teams that work exclusively on a given project; working with a wide variety of different suppliers, customers, and other organization. 
 
Disadvantages include that other organizations in the network can fail to live up to the deadlines that were established; managers must constantly monitor the quality of work provided by those in other organizations; and employees in the outsourced organization may not commit to the same values and sense of time urgency to which employees in the host organization are committed.



Organizational change approach used as a diagnostic tool in change efforts

Organizational change approach used as a diagnostic tool in change efforts
Survey feedback is frequently used as a diagnostic tool to identify team, department, and organizational problems. Because of its value in organizational diagnosis, it is often utilized as part of large-scale, long-term change programs in combination with other approaches and techniques. Survey feedback consists of 
(a) collecting information (usually by questionnaire) from members of an organization, department, or team, 
(b) organizing that information into an understandable and useful form, and 
(c) feeding that information back to the employees who provided it. Some or all of the employees then use this information as a basis for planning actions to deal with specific issues and problems. 
 
The primary objective of survey feedback is to improve the relationships among team members or between departments through the discussion of common problems, rather than to introduce a specific change, such as a new computer system. Survey feedback thus typically follows the action research process, and may help in the unfreezing step of organizational change by helping organization members to recognize issues and problems that need to be addressed. Students should be able to identify an example of a circumstance in which survey feedback could be helpful. 
 
One of the most obvious would be the classroom setting, wherein both the students' and the professor's responses to questions about the learning experience could be fed back to the group to facilitate identification of issues of concern to either or both parties, and thus used as a basis for collaborative problem solving. Numerous other examples from either the school or work setting could be equally appropriate.

3 things need to be accurately diagnosed before planned change can be successful

3 things need to be accurately diagnosed before planned change can be successful
Organizational diagnosis is the process of assessing the functioning of the organization, department, team, or job to discover the sources of problems and areas for improvement. An accurate, valid diagnosis of current organizational functioning, activities, and problems is an essential foundation for effective organizational change. Information needed to diagnose organizational problems may be gathered from questionnaires, interviews, observation, and company records.

Any planned change also requires a careful assessment of individual readiness for change. Two important aspects of individual readiness for change are the degree of employee satisfaction with the status quo and the perceived personal risk involved in changing it. When employees are dissatisfied with the current situation and perceive little personal risk from change, their readiness for change probably would be high. In contrast, when employees are satisfied with the status quo and perceive high personal risk in change, their readiness for change probably would be low. Employee expectations regarding change should be positive and realistic. If people expect that nothing of significance will change, regardless of the amount of time and effort they might devote to making it happen, this belief can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when employee expectations for improvement are unrealistically high, unfulfilled expectations can make matters worse.

Also, the organization's capacity for change must be accurately assessed. If the organization has few resources and its members don't have the time or opportunity to implement the needed changes, the attempt will likely fail.

Finally, potential resistance to change must be diagnosed. Individual may resist change because of their perceptions or personalities. In addition, habits, fear of the unknown, economic insecurities, and threats to established power and influential relationships may generate further resistance to change. Organizational resistance to change may be caused by organizational structure and culture, resource limitations, and interorganizational agreements. Force field analysis can help managers and employees diagnose and overcome resistance to change. Resistance can also be reduced through open communication and high levels of employee participation in the change process.

Method and Guidelines for Process Costing

Method and Guidelines for Process Costing
Lost units are always shown with other whole units under “Units accounted for” in the cost of production report.

Continuous Normal Loss
1. Lost units are not extended to EUP schedule.
2. All good production (both fully and partially completed) absorbs the cost of the lost units through higher per-unit costs.

Continuous Abnormal Loss
1. All units are appropriately extended to EUP schedule.
2. Cost of lost units is assigned as a period loss.

Discrete Normal Loss
1. Normal loss is appropriately extended to EUP schedule.
2. Determine whether ending inventory has passed an inspection point.
a. If no, cost of lost units is assigned only to the good production that was transferred.
b. If yes, cost of lost units is prorated between units in ending WIP Inventory and units transferred out based on (1) (weighted average) total costs contained in each category prior to proration, or (2) (FIFO) current costs contained in each category prior to proration.

Discrete Abnormal Loss
1. All units are appropriately extended to EUP schedule.
2. Cost of lost units is assigned as a period loss.

Normal Rework
1. (Actual cost system) Add rework costs to original material, labor, and overhead costs and spread over all production.
2. (Normal and standard cost systems) Include cost of rework in estimated overhead when determining standard application rate. Assign actual rework costs to Manufacturing Overhead.

Abnormal Rework
Accumulate rework costs separately and assign as a period loss.

Accretion in Successor Departments
An increase in units requires that the per-unit transferred-in cost be reduced in the successor department based on the new, larger number of units.

Gigabyte GSmart Simba SX1 is an outstanding Android phone

Gigabyte GSmart Simba SX1 is an outstanding Android phone
The World Health Organisation Fact Sheet 2011 states to facilitate a person using mobile phone 30-40 cm away from the body while texting and using internet will own summary exposure to radio-frequency fields than someone holding the handset close, the make public alleged.

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Theorems in linear programming

Theorems in linear programming
 There are two two linear programming Theorems : The trial and error and simplex methods are based on the concept of slack variables and theorems described below:

Extreme point theorem : It states that an optimal solution to a LPP occurs at one of the vertices of the feasible region. This should be obvious from the discussion on the graphical method. Now the vertices are defined by the intersection of equations. The first step of the method is, therefore, to convert the inequalities into equalities by the addition (or subtraction) of the slack (or surplus variables) depending on the direction of the inequality.

It is to be noted that the system of equations (A) above has more variables than the number of equations. Such a system of equations has an infinite number of solutions; yet it has finite and few vertices, the co-ordinates of which can be determined by applying the Basis theorem. 

Basis theorem : It states that for a system of m equations in n variables (where n > m) has a solution in which at least (n-m) of the variables have value of zero as a vertex. This solution is called a basic solution.

Extreme point theorem can be extended to state that the objective function is optimal at least at one of the basic solutions. Some of the vertices may be infeasible in that they have (-)ve coordinates and have to be dropped in view of the non-negativity condition on all variables including the slack and surplus variables.

Key points under Graphical Method of linear programming

Key points under Graphical Method of linear programming
(i) Formulating the linear programming problem, i.e.,expressing the objective function and constraints in the standardised format.

(ii) Plotting the capacity constraints on the graph paper. For this purpose normally two terminal points are required. This is done by presuming simultaneously that one of the constraints is zero. When constraints concerns only one factor, then line will have only one origin point and it will run parallel to the other axis.

(iii) Identifying feasible region and coordinates of corner points. Mostly it is done by breading the graph, but a point can be identified by solving simultaneous equation relating to two lines which intersect to form a point on graph.

(iv) Testing the corner point which gives maximum profit. For this purpose the coordinates relating to the corner point should put in objectives function and the optimal point should be ascertained.

(v) For decision – making purpose, sometimes, it is required to know whether optimal point leaves some resources underutilized. For this purpose value of coordinates at the optimal point should be put with constraint to find out which constraints are not fully utilized.

5 steps to follow under graphical solution to a linear programming

5 steps to follow under graphical solution to a linear programming
steps to be followed under graphical solution to a linear programming problem.

Step1. Determine the region that satisfies the set of given inequalities.

Step 2. Ensure that the region is bounded*. If the region is not bounded, either there are additional hidden conditions which can be used to bound the region or there is no solution to the problem.

Step 3. Construct the matrix E of the extreme points, and the column vector C of the objective function.

Step 4. Find the matrix product EC. For maximization, determine the row in EC where the largest element appears; while for minimization, determine the row in EC where the smallest element appears.

Step 5. The objective function is optimized corresponding to the same row elements of the extreme point matrix E.

If the slope of the objective function be same as that of one side of feasible region, there are multiple solutions to the problem. However, the optimized value of the objective function remains the same.

What are FMSs and CIMs?

What are FMSs and CIMs?
Flexible Manufacturing Systems and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

Many manufacturers have changed their basic manufacturing philosophy in the past few decades. Causes of  change  include:  (1) automated equipment and a  cellularplant layout, (2) computer hardware and software technology, and (3) new manufacturing systems and philosophies such as JIT and activity-based management.

Traditionally, most manufacturing firms employed long production runs to make thousands of identical models of the same products; this process was encouragedby the idea of economies of scale. After each run, the machines would be stoppedand a slow and expensive setup would be made for the next massive production run to begin. Now, an entirely new generation of manufacturing known as flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) is being developed.

An FMS involves a network of robots and material conveyance devices monitored  and  controlled by  computers  that  allows  for  rapid production  and  responsiveness  to  changes  in production needs. Two or more FMSs  connected  via  a host computer and an information networking system are generally referred to as computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). The dimensions  of  a  traditional manufacturing  system with  an  FMS. Although  an  FMS  is typically associated with short-volume production runs, many companies  have also begun to use CIM  for high-volume  lines.