Kristen Cookie Company Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Kristen Cookie Company - Term Paper Example Computation of the company’s optimum capacity compared to its break-even point also revealed that the present production system cannot make the company viable because optimum capacity is almost equal to break-even point. Having identified the weaknesses in Kirsten Cookie Company, recommendations were made on how to eliminate the bottleneck in production and how to make the company more viable and competetive in general. I. Introduction Background information   Kristen’s Cookie Company is a company that I co-own with my roommate. We operate in an on-campus apartment with the university students and personnel as our primary market. The initial idea of the company is to bake fresh cookies to order, using any combination of ingredients that the customer wants. The cookies that were ordered will be available for pick up within an hour. Thesis of the case study   This study will investigate whether the chosen production process which is the made to order is the most profi table mode of production considering the kind of market that we have and the facility and opportunity available to us. During the course of its investigation, it is important to note that the organization is a start-up company and is operated and manned by its owners (me and my roommate) and as such, this limitation should be considered in the assessment of the organization to arrive at an accurate findings where realistic recommendations can be made where it is appropriate. II. Methodology SWOT Analysis SWOT provides an organization the environmental assessment of which it operates and thus provides the framework to determine the appropriateness of Kristen Cookie Company’s production process. It includes both the internal and external factors of an organization’s environment. The internal factors involve the internal capability of an organization as expressed by the strength and weakness of SWOT. The external environment of an organization is expressed in the opportun ities and threats of the SWOT (Beagrie, 2004). SWOT provides a reality check in determining the appropriateness of the elected production process in the initial phase of Kirsten Cookie Company. Strength Making cookies through made to order has a marketing appeal of having a product that is freshly baked right from the oven cookies. Compared to the make to stocked cookies, they are fresher and relatively tastes better. Producing cookies through made to order minimizes risk because the company keeps no inventory of its finished products that has the potential of incurring loss due to spoilage and waste when it is not sold before its expiration date. Weakness The make to order production of cookies limits the production capacity of the business according to the number of orders which are done in almost real time (one hour before the customer can pick up their cookies). It also does not optimize production capacity and makes the facility vulnerable to idleness during off season. It is a lso vulnerable to opportunity cost because the company’s commitment to sell freshly baked cookies which the customers can pick up after an hour of ordering implies opportunity lost with demands foregone during the day (the business only operates at night and has a commitment that customers can pick up their cookies after an hour of ordering). Given the capacity of its facility, the make to order production system also has a bottleneck in the baking stage where it will compile buffers as it takes longer to bake (10 mins) before the next batch will arrive (6 mins for the 3 trays to complete).

Physical Reality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Physical Reality - Essay Example As a matter of fact, scientifically speaking, my senses serve merely as extension cords to my brain. My senses cannot experience anything by themselves. It is my brain that decodes what is happening with my senses, and makes 'sense' out of that. Let us take a simple example to understand this. When I travel in a train, and look out of the window, my sense of sight tells me that all the trees and people are moving in the opposite direction. My brain, however, unscrambles the data received by my eyes, and informs me that it is I sitting in the train and the train itself, which move forward. And I am willing to listen to the message that my brain gives me, although it contradicts what my eyes 'see'. So it is my brain, and the way I look at the world, which dictates how I see and experience it, and which I term reality. (Note, that a child, whose brain has not been conditioned will insist that it is the trees and the people that are moving, and not the train!) There is no objective reality (as I stated earlier) even if for our arguments' sake we accepted that our brains processed data in identical ways (which they do not). For what my senses experience, and the data that my brain receives would differ, depending on the place where I stand when viewing phenomena. During a solar eclipse, if I stand in the umbra, I would claim that the sun is black, but if you stand within the penumbra you would see it as a sliver. So what we see or experience depends on where we stand, our perspective. My thought processes therefore gives me my reality, and my identity. ("I think, therefore I am" - Decartes )If we are asked the question, "which is softer, a starched linen napkin or a rose petal"(Chopra 186) we can answer this without having to actually find a napkin or a petal. The reason I am able to do this is because I have gone to a subtler level of the sense of touch, and am able to visualize that touch. Similarly I can go to subtle levels of the other senses (sights, smells etc.). Deepak Chopra states that this level of the mind is not the subtlest that we can reach. We can go deeper. When we meditate the visual image of the rose would become fainter on the screen of our mind, till nothing remains but the screen itself. "Then one would be at the true origin of the senses, the field of intelligence itself" (Chopra 186)There are several other dimensions of reality, apart from the 'physical', which, as we discussed earlier is not so objective a thing as we may imagine, but quite a subjective phenomenon. Time and energy are two of the other dimensions of reality. Think of time: what happens if we travel faster than the speed of light Reality as we know would cease to exist then, and we may travel into yesterday. Coming to energy - those who practice Reiki1 state that they experience the energy that they transmit and receive in the process of healing, as a feeling of warmth, or a tingling sensation. The fact that energy is a vital