In Baltimore Essays

In Baltimore Essays In Baltimore Essay In Baltimore Essay Question: 1. How does Southwest Airlines compete? What are its advantages relative to other airlines? 2. The plane turnaround process requires coordination among twelve functional groups at SWA to service, in a brief period of time, an incoming plane and match it up with its new passengers and baggage for a prompt departure. Please evaluate the plane turnaround process at Baltimore resource utilization, capacity, bottlenecks, information flows, etc. How is the process working? 3. Why is the opearational performance at Baltimore eroding? What issues do you identify that require action? . What would you recommend Matt Hafner do? Answer please see attachment: 1 The competitive advantages of Southwest Airlines are as follow: A. Unique operation system Unlike its industrial rivals who used the â€Å"hub and spoke† system, Southwest Airlines established its own point-to-point system instead. Even though economic theories tell Southwest’s system should be unworkable – the shorter the flight is, the higher the setup cost per seat mile, thanks to the well-known quick and efficient turnaround process, Southwest succeeded in creating a miracle. The point-to-point system not only enables Southwest to lower its costs and make frequent flights, but also to capture a niche market and compete with other transportation like trains and buses. This is because Southwest is able to provide passengers with short-hauling flights which can be substitutes to trains and buses. Consequently, it earns a considerable profit from the expanded market size. B. Low costs Southwest is operating at a lower cost when comparing with its competitors. It minimizes its cost in four main ways: . The quick turnaround process: Southwest focuses on turning aircraft around quickly at the gate to minimize an airplane’s time on the ground. They do so by the relational coordination of their operation agents, which would be further discussed in Q2. 2. The use of a single aircraft type: Southwest uses only Boeing 737 and standardizes the cockpit configuration. These minimize additional training requirements for pilots and routinize ramp operations, which helps to save training costs and speed turnarounds at the ate. 3. The use of less-congested airports: Southwest uses such airports to avoid disrupting flight operations in those busy and high-traffic airports. 4. Cheap oil price: Southwest constantly monitors fuel prices at different airports and load fuels from places with attractive price. 5. Other practices like offering beverages and snacks instead of in-flight meals, transferring no baggage to other airlines, and open and single class seating can also help lower the operating costs. C. A productive and loyal workforce Southwest places great emphasis on hiring team players willing to go beyond their primary responsibilities. They invest substantial amounts of time selecting employees for attitude, teamwork, and service orientation, resulting in a strong corporate culture of valuing excellent customer service. Meanwhile, Southwest also strives to build a loyal workforce. It treats its employees as family members and creates an enjoyable working environment. Employees’ opinions and suggestions are listened to and respected. 2. The plane turnaround process at Baltimore is quick and efficient due to (1) Process simplification and (2) Relational coordination powered by its operation agents. The process is said to be simplified relative to other airline companies because Southwest Airlines provides no-frill services – no in-flight meals and no transfer of baggage to other airlines. These lead to time reduction in the restock of provisions, cleaning of cabin area and handling of baggage. Moreover, Southwest also adopts the open seating system to encourage early gate arrival. The two practices thus speed up the turnaround process. In addition, Southwest has increased its staffing of operations agents to a higher level than the industrial average, allowing the operations agent to play a greater role than only managing the flow of information across functional boundaries. Each individual flight is assigned to a dedicated on-site operations agent, who engages in face-to-face contact with each functional team. In so doing, the operations agents are actually engaged in relationship building, developing relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect among fellow employees to facilitate the oordination of work. This relational coordination results in greater staffing productivity. As noted in the text, the whole process took 20 minutes for flight 110 but it already took 17 minutes to deplane and board passengers, which is considered as the major bottleneck. Yet, the Baltimore Airport would find it difficult to further speed up the process since it is not considered as good customer service to hur ry passengers, especially for the Southwest culture. However, what worth noticing is the overall service level. According to the case, the scheduled turnaround times had lengthened over the past eight years and misplacement of baggage could happen during a quick turnaround. These implicitly reflect that the low staffing level in Baltimore could not catch up with its current service expansion and limited its capability to shorten turnaround time. Therefore, we would attribute the major bottleneck to the size and average tenure of its workforce. 3 The reasons for Baltimore’s deteriorating operational performance are as follow: a. Limited facility: The gates in Baltimore were reaching capacity limits and its bag sorting area had already reached its full capacity. While the former implies longer boarding time, the latter leads to longer bag handling time, with both slowing down the whole turnaround process. b. Labour shortage: Efficient turnaround process relies heavily on its employees. The tight labour market, however, forced Baltimore to have a serious labour shortage at least in short term and lead to many mandatory over-times. As a result, it led to declining productivity and slowed down the turnaround process. Moreover, the experience of employees is also crucial. With high labour turnover rate and frequent hiring, Baltimore was having a comparably inexperienced workforce. This would affect the operational performance. c. Uncontrollable passenger connections: Southwest’s connecting flights were unevenly distributed and Baltimore was one of the stations that had the greatest amount of connecting flights. The numerous connecting flights made operations become more complicated and satisfying all customers become even more difficult. As a result, flights were frequently held up for connecting passengers. Two issues should deserve much attention. They include: a. Unsatisfactory customer services: Mishandled bags and passenger complaints in Baltimore were higher than the system-wide average and its number of passenger complaints was even the highest among all stations. Limited facilities and frequent flight holdings brought inconvenience and dissatisfaction to passengers. All these were definitely undesirable especially for Southwest which built its success on passenger’s trust. These problems should be tackled as soon as possible so as to re-gain passenger’s confidence and loyalty. b. Prolonged working hours: Labour is always the most valuable asset. The lower the productivity is, the longer time the whole turnaround process takes. Prolonged working hours adversely affected the morale of employees. It ended up not only worsening operational performance but also causing discontent among workers. If the problem remained unsolved, the operational performance would further deteriorate. 4. On seeing the service deterioration at Baltimore, Matt Hafner is actually making a trade-off decision between its service expansion and service quality. There are two alternatives: 1. As Baltimore is served as a mega-station in the East Coast, rapid expansion of flights is desired to capture strong demands. Matt should exert its bargaining power to urge for facility expansion of the Baltimore Airport to cater for future expansion needs and relieve the pressures for gates and bag sorting areas. Moreover, he should shorten the hiring process or lower the hiring requirements to recruit more staff to support the addition of flights. 2. Since the staffing level at Baltimore does not support its expected service level, Matt should slow its expansion pace down so as to maintain a high service quality and hence, protect Southwest Airlines from damaging its own reputation. However, it is advised that the first option could pose these substantial risks: A. Since it requires persistent over-time on its staff, the staff morale would definitely be affected, leading to a high staff turnover rate and also deteriorated service. B. Southwest has long been surviving without laying off any of its staff. Nevertheless, given the shorten hiring process, they may fail to screen out all undesired candidates. As a result, service quality would suffer. C. The rapid expansion also poses itself to high uncertainty. For example, the 911 incident, which happened just three months afterwards, could obviously tumble the flight demands. Therefore, any large-scale investment could adversely affect quarter earnings. Therefore, it is recommended that Matt should choose the second option – striving for a stable but progressive growth. By saying so, he could suggest lengthening the connecting time for the reservation system so that it relieves the staff pressure to rush for a quick turnaround and at the same time reduces the frequency of holding flights. In return, a higher service quality could be guaranteed. Meanwhile, it is also high time to promote its services through marketing efforts and public relations to re-build public confidence towards the Southwest Airlines.

Superbad Movie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Superbad Movie - Essay Example Classic Hollywood movies were work of art that was devoted close to theoretical and critical attention of the movie plot and cinematic text and ideology. Genre analysis can be problematical though. What is called analysis or criticism is often little more than making note of superficial similarities or differences amongst films. This is true across film criticism in general. Rick Altman calls this approach to genre criticism the semantic approach—a focus on the more superficial aspects of films that fit into a given genre. A semantic examination would point out the character types, aesthetics, plot lines, etc., which are common to the films. The inevitable question that must arise from such an assessment is, â€Å"Why bother?† What good does it do to point out that noir films all make extensive use of light and shadow plot development for example, or that Westerns usually feature saloons? In this case genre analysis is no different from a similar analysis of a given individual film. To be valuable, genre analysis must bring deeper issues to the surface. In the context of this deeper, broader method of analysis, I think that genre criticism can be very useful. Qualities or incidences and similarities that seem insignificant in individual films can take on more meaning when connected with similar characteristics of other films in the genre—if we have shown the existence of the genre itself. So while the semantic approach is necessary, it is a means to an end—the end being the syntactic analysis which can then be taken up, and which can tell us something about the societies in which the films are produced and consumed. These high school comedy romance movies are new genre and all similar movies are based on almost the same story line. The existence of particular genres themselves is significant as well. Given that a group of films of this high school genre share a common lot of significant characteristics, we can and should then ask why this is

Different types of service organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Different types of service organization - Essay Example Service factory includes services that involve low labour intensity and interaction. These demand huge capital and are standardized. Airlines and motels are the examples of such services. Highly labour intensive services with low interaction fall under mass service. These require low capital and service is provided on a standard basis to all customers. Retail giants such as Walmart follow this formula. Service shops support high degree of customisation and low labour intensity. Hospitals take up this mode of service, by accruing advantage of abundant capital (Inman). Advocates, medical practitioners, engineers etc, who provide professional services, show high customer interaction and customization. They are labour intensive. The success of labour-intensive services depends on employee training and welfare (Lashley 245-251). Keeping abreast technology and sequencing delivery make capital-intensive services attractive. Mass service and service factory are differentiated by ambience, wa rmth and marketing strategies(Verma 121-123). Service quality, sensitivity and responsiveness, coupled with cost-cutting guide highly interactive services.

How typical is England to Her Sons Essay Example for Free

How typical is England to Her Sons Essay How typical is England to Her Sons of the poems in this section of the anthology. Happy is England in the brave that die. This is a line from Happy is England now. In my opinion it sums up the section as a whole because it is stating that the people of England wanted the soldiers to fight and they respect the sacrifices the men have made. The whole section revolves about the acknowledgment of the deaths of the soldiers and also the acceptance of it. Personification is used in England to her Sons and Happy is England Now about England itself. It conjures u a motherly and maternal image of the Motherland towards the soldiers going out to fight. Moreover, it unites England and makes it seem everyone had a positive attitude towards the war when it is mentioned that happy is England now as never yet, which implies that the whole of England is proud and glad that the soldiers are going to war. Happy is England Now projects a very strong and patriotic message of making sacrifices and protecting this picturesque England with her hills, rivers and her chafing sea. It uses natural imagery to stir up a desire to protect the land where these soldiers were born and raised. Moreover, a sense of experiencing this Happy England caused by the sacrifice of war, is created by the intensified senses created in the last stanza where birds sing the sweeter in our English ears and nobleness that shines the purer in their English hearts. It would have created a longing for people to be part of this wonderful land, and therefore they would have wanted to have protected it. Symbolism also has a large presence in these poems and it gives the poems depth and more complexity. England to her Sons uses symbolism to create a sense of ownership of the soldiers, Sons of mine I hear you thrilling and it is also implied that she bore the children which the Motherland then sends to war. In Fourth of August, the symbolism is used to make the soldiers seem very young and naive, Spirit of England, ardent eyed which makes the soldiers seem very keen and apprehensive, but also innocent and defenceless. Finally, symbolism is used to create a religious link between the War and the destroying dragon which Saint George, who represents England and her Soldiers, slays to protect his people. The soldiers in this section are made heroes for being martyrs. This is shown especially in Fourth of August on the last two lines, We step from the days of sour division into the grandeur of our fate, which shows that the soldiers and people believed that it was a good thing to die for ones country. This is also emphasised again in England to her Sons, where it creates a great sense for the soldiers and England, as they accept the death of their sons, save a little space to weep. And the worst friend and enemy is but Death, is a reference to Peace, and it just emphasises that even though Death reaps them of their lives, it also enables them to come closer with their Maker, God. Overall, England to her Sons represent this section of the anthology very well, because it includes everything that this section is trying to convey to the reader. It shows the sacrifice of England and the soldiers who give their life, and it projects the religious message of God, who will send them to heaven for their good deeds. Moreover it glorifies death by using euphemism, And if He in wisdom giveth Unto His beloved sleep, to acquire an acceptance of the soldiers. Lastly, it also shows the undoubting faith that the people of England had at that time, as they all believed that God would protect them and guide them to winning the War.

The Missing Screw Essay example -- essays research papers

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James can be interpreted in two main ways; as a psychological thriller or a ghost story. In the book, the central character and one of the narrators, the governess, has convinced herself that the children, Miles and Flora, are seeing apparitions. Another explanation is that she herself created these images through her madness. The governess desires so much to be loved that she drives herself insane. The author also does a good job of convincing the reader that the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint are â€Å"real.† Yet, I believe differently. There are many clues that allude to the fact that the governess is having a psychological break down do to the fact that she is lonely and yearns to be loved. I will discuss the clues that lead me to this conclusion in this paper.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the beginning of the book, during her first interview, the governess’ job is described as, â€Å"a vision of serious duties and little company, of really great loneliness† (28). This quote proves to me that the governess’ job required very little social interaction. This gives her a lot of time for her mind to wander. Also during the interview the governess becomes physically attracted to the uncle. She uses words like handsome and pleasant to describe him. The governess is beginning to fall for the uncle, but when he leaves she finds herself alone again. There is no one around since she is so isolated at Bly. She now begins to create the first of the ap...

Factors Contributing to the Growth of Enterprise and Small Business Essay

For example: – In USA small businesses represents 99. 7% of all employers, it represents 26% of America’s exports and they create 80% new jobs each year. Growth and success of a business can be measured on many different variables which also includes annual turnover, profit and employment growth. As in other businesses small businesses have been helped by factors which had contributed to its growth. Growth in small businesses has been aided by policy measures by the government which has supported these small businesses, the macro-economic factors, industry factors and firm-specific factors. Having the intention, the ability to setup and grow, getting the right opportunity, easy access to finance, favorable rules and regulations and market conditions which are aimed at small businesses have also led to the growth of these businesses. People are motivated to start their own business where they have greater control of the business, can stay independent , can manage the business in their own way, the financial freedom, the potential income they can earn as their aims are to reach the top of the table, the amount of financial gains they achieve and the joy of winning which is driving factors for the entrepreneurs as it helps satisfy their achievement instincts. Everybody wants to be their own boss and this is also one of the factors for starting up your own business. Lucy Martin, author of â€Å"Make it your Business† said â€Å"Whatever your situation, there is likely to be a combination of ‘push’ factors (propelling you out of current jobs and situations) and ‘pull’ factors (which attract you to self employment)†. Countries with low income or in developing countries more small businesses are being setup because of the push factor as there is a high number of unemployment and people are forced to start-up their own business. In high income countries or developed countries small businesses are increasing due to the pull factor as more and ore people are interested in setting up their own business go become independent. [pic] Sometimes businesses fail or people get frustrated and it is at this time that they need to remind themselves what motivated them to start their own business and this motivation and dedication has led to their growth and success. According to Schumpeter entrepreneur is an innovator as h e/she brings about a change and introduces new technological processes or products and brings in new ideas which are necessary for a business to grow. He also said that only certain people have the ability to become an entrepreneur and to perform extraordinary tasks. Small businesses are the ones that tend to grow faster than large businesses. They indicate higher number of employment growth. Small businesses accounts for more than 50% of the employers in European Economies. France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany and UK are the leading economies of the European Union where small Businesses have been thriving for the past two decades and where small businesses accounts for more than 50% of the total employment. In Greece small businesses accounts for as much as 86% of the number of people employed. In 1998, a charter for small business was adopted by European Council which has helped in the huge number of growth in small businesses. Banks are the main source of lending for small businesses and they depend a lot on them for support and cooperation. HSBC was one of the banks which started recognizing small businesses as one of main force in the economy. In UK small business employ about 12 million people so as to recognize and reward these small businesses HSBC launched an award in 1997 Known as â€Å"HSBC small business of the year Award†. HSBC started a new loan program called â€Å"SMALL BUSINESS LOAN† which was quick and easy to arrange loan facility for long term use and had many key benefits. Customers can choose to make their first repayment either one month after taking the borrowing or defer the first repayment until three months after drawing down the loan, Customers had the flexibility to choose the repayment period which was between 12 months and 10 years, the interest rate and repayments will be fixed for the life of the loan. HSBC recently launched a $5 billion working capital fund to ensure small businesses had access to credit during the current economic crisis. In 2008 alone more than 32,000 small businesses have switched to HSBC because of higher lending fees and banks reluctant to extend loans. Growth of small businesses depends on the type of business they are doing, location of the business (a retail shop should be better placed in the residential area) and most importantly the ownership of the business. Governments in some countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia) have gone as far as allocating lands to small business owners; small businesses are encouraged to setup as the government provides 5 years of tax free operation to businesses with potential growth and they provide financial assistance with low interest rates as well as assign a team to monitor the growth of the businesses. Rental and electricity charges are lower for small firms and the government is also getting small construction businesses to get involved in the construction industry by giving them subcontracts for some of the projects. In UK the government started a programme called â€Å"The Business Support Simplification Programme (BSSP)† which aims to make it easier for small companies and entrepreneurs to understand and access government funded grants, subsidies and advice with which to start and grow their businesses. Small Businesses were given incentives and taxes were lowered so as to help them setup. Setting up of this programme had a huge influence on the growth of small Businesses. In March 2008 the Government launched the Enterprise Strategy. The Strategy’s vision is to make the UK the most enterprising economy in the world and the best place to start and grow a business. It was designed to unbolt the entrepreneurship talents in UK, provide a boost to enterprise knowledge and skills, support new and existing small business getting access to funding for start-up and growth and decrease the burden of regulations in place particularly for small firms. The government wants a culture of enterprise and business innovation which will have a great effect on the economic growth. This new strategy has strengthened the Government upport to small businesses and has allowed SME’s to set up more easily and with a proper regulatory body monitoring the growth. Small Businesses are flexible, more focused, specialized and creative and these are some of the reasons why there is an increase in the number of small businesses . Flexibility is what drives some people to start their own business. For example: – (if a person is expert in any subject, field or have some extraordinary skills he/she can work as a consultant where the work timings are set by him/her self and the amount of time spent also). Growth in business demands creativity. It is what will separate you from the competition. A business had to be different as this is the best way to create awareness. Being different and greater creativity are also the factors which has influenced the growth of small businesses. Being innovative and inventing new things is also a factor which drives people to start their own business. People would have some different business idea of doing something in a different way and this leads to creativity and innovation. Small businesses are easy to setup as the cost of starting up is not very high. Government supports the setup of small business because they want to break the monopoly in the market and there will be a decrease in the number of unemployed as more and more people will become self-employed. Lower opportunity cost also attracts people towards entrepreneurship. Economies with high unemployment can be pushed towards entrepreneurship. Examples are Brazil and India. Some people would like to pursue a particular desire or hobby so they enter in to entrepreneurship, it can be leisure driven and it gives flexibility to the owner as there can be work-life balance. More and more specialized people are starting their own business in the field they specialize as they can deliver better services and products. Specializing in a particular product or service gives you the upper hand in the market you are in as you will have the skills and knowledge of the product you are manufacturing or selling. Specialization has also led professional people or extra ordinary skilled people in to starting up their own business. Gaining inspiration from famous entrepreneurs have also led to the factor that people are ready to start up their own business thinking one day they might be like Donald Trump, Hugh Heffner or Richard Branson. Becoming famous and wanting to be recognized in the world is also a strong feeling which had pulled people towards entrepreneurship as there is a strong desire attached with it to pursue their perceived goals. Gaining fame and recognition is one of the strong factors which have led people to start their own business. In general, I conclude by saying that small businesses have been growing because they thrive for independence and the owners usually have a feel good factor while running their own business. It gives them a chance to show the level of creativity in them as they won’t be able to do so while working in other companies. Small Businesses are the key to innovation and without their support the economy would fail drastically. Growth of Small Businesses can be affected due to the current economic crisis but government and banks should support and back small businesses to survive this crisis. Banks like HSBC are already committed to supporting small businesses in this economic crisis and as more and more people getting unemployed governments should give incentives and grants and promote the setup of new businesses and provide assistance and advice on main issues surrounding the small businesses. Small Businesses are not always successful but having proper business idea and creative mind plus knowledge of market will help the entrepreneurs in getting their business on the right track. As SCHUMPTER proposed that it was the exceptional creative drive of independent entrepreneurs that led to the introduction of radical new products and the creation of new industries. This radical drive to invent, innovate and create something which is new to everyone has been one of the major factors in the growth of Small and medium sized businesses (SME’s).

Townie by Andre Dubus III Essay - 1751 Words

All towns, cities, and areas have their own specific traits. Small towns tend to be more like a family, while big cities tend to be more passive. Then there are the small areas where people do not make much money and struggle to get by. These areas tend to be more violent and more influenced by drugs and alcohol. This is the area that Andre Dubus III grew up in, in his memoir Townie. His parents were divorced and neither of them made much money so he and his two sisters and brother ended up moving from one small crummy neighborhood to another. In these neighborhoods he would get involved in the wrong crowds and end up doing drugs, drinking, and fighting. This became a way to show power. The most powerful people were strong and always came†¦show more content†¦There was on man that was constantly attacking Andre when he was young. This neighborhood thug named Clay had decided that he was going to target Andre and beat him every time that he spotted him. Eventually Andre becam e so sick of this and didn’t have a clue what to do so he called his father. After that his father was able to talk to Clay’s father and have Clay leave Andre alone. After that negotiation Clay and his mother came running out of their house screaming. This and the fact that Clay hired a friend to try and beat Andre instead of himself showed Andre that the only way to settle anything in this environment was to use a fist. Eventually Andre decided that he need learn how to fight. This came from a need to prove himself. Not to anyone else, but to himself. He felt like he had let his family and himself down and he needed to fix that. This came to him after he witnessed his brother brutally beaten in front of him. He went inside and looked in the mirror and said to himself â€Å"I don’t care if you get your face beat in. I don’t care if you get kicked in the head or stabbed or even shot. I will never allow you not fight back ever again. You hear me? Ever. Not once, ever, again,† (Dubus 82). This was the real turning point for Andre. This was when his self-loathing had hit such a low that he had nowhere to go but up. This was when he started to train. This was when he started to become violent. He started by simply working out for