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Normally, when we think of worlds, the planet Earth comes to mind
Normally, when we think of worlds, the planet Earth comes to mind. What we don’t often remember is that the word world can mean more than the Earth. Webster’s New World Dictionary states that the true definition of the word world is, “some part of the earth, or an individual experience, outlook..” Keeping that definition in mind, it is true to say that the boys in Lord of the Flies were in their own world, so to speak. And it is also true that every world has its problems. A contemporary psychiatrist wrote , “The problems of the world – and they are chronicled daily in headlines of violence and despair – essentially are the problems of individuals. If individuals can change, the course of the world can change. This is a hope worth sustaining.” This quote can apply both to the larger world of the Earth, and the smaller world of the island.
On the island, the boys had problems from the beginning. Both Ralph and Jack wanted to be chief and when the rest of the biguns and littluns voted for Ralph, it caused friction between Jack and Ralph. Ralph tried to deal with this problem by appointing Jack the leader of the hunters and keepers of the fire. He had hoped this would repair any damage that had been done to their short friendship. Ralph was doing his duty as the chief and tried to deal with their individual problems. However, this solution ended up doing more harm than good. The friction between Ralph and Jack flourished throughout the book.
Jack soon became obsessed with savagery and killing pigs. The only
thing he cared about was meat. And Jack does kill a pig; however killing that pig sacrificed the fire and the boys missed a rescue
opportunity because the fire went out. But Jack doesn’t seem to care.
“Jack, his face smeared with clays, reached the top first and hailed Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear.
‘Look! We’ve killed a pig-we stole up on them-we got in a circle-’
They seemed to share one wide ecstatic grin. Jack had too many things to tell Ralph at once. Instead he danced a step or two, then remembered his dignity and stood still, grinning.
Ralph spoke. ‘You let the fire go out.’
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too happy to let it worry him.
‘There was lashings of blood,’ said Jack, laughing and shuddering.
‘You should have seen it!’ Ralph spoke again, hoarsely.
He had not moved.
‘You let the fire go out.’”
Jack doesn’t care that he screwed up; all that really matters to him is that he killed a pig. Ralph is very upset that Jack let the fire go out because being rescued is his top priority. Having fun is Jack’s top priority, and his callousness towards things Ralph sees as important adds to the friction building up between the two boys.
As the book continues, more and more Jack tries to assert himself as the chief. He comes up with wild games that the boys can play after the kill. He became the leader in the forest, where it’s all dark and scary, and Ralph was the chief on the beach where there was order. Even here, it’s evident that Jack is the type of ruler who wants an absolute monarchy – he likes to give orders, not take them. Ralph is a more democratic leader who listens to other people and takes advice. Jack offers protection and direction; Ralph offers goals, steadiness. Even at the basic personality level, there is a wide difference between Ralph and Jack. And most importantly, Jack is very ambitious. Jack wants power and to be chief. All of these differences and anxieties come to head after Simon, Ralph, Jack and Roger try and slay the beast. Jack says:
“‘He’s not a hunter. He’d have never got us meat. He isn’t a prefect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing. All this talk-’
‘All this talk!’ shouted Ralph. ‘Talk, talk! Who wanted it? Who called the meeting?’
‘All right then,’ he said in deep tones of meaning, and menace, ‘all right. Who thinks Ralph oughtn’t to be chief?’
He look expectantly at the boys ranged around, whohad frozen. Under the palms there was deadly silence.
‘Hands up,’ said Jack strongly, ‘whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?’
The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame…[Jack]licked his lips and turned his head at an angle so that his gaze avoided the embarrassment of linking with another’s eye.
‘How many think-’ His voice trailed off.
‘I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you. I’m not going to be a part of Ralph’s lot–’
He blundered out of the triangle towards the drop to the white sand.
‘Jack!!’
Jack turned and looked back at Ralph. For a moment he paused and then cried out, high-pitched, enraged.
‘–NO!’
It is at this moment that the group splits apart. Once they are not together and strong, chaos takes over. Jack becomes a tyrant, going more and more towards savagery, backing up his orders with physical abuse. Jack and his hunters kill two very good people and try to kill Ralph before all of this is stopped by the appearance of a naval officer. It is the problems that Jack causes that create the rift between the group of boys. Jack is the savage one, Jack is the problem maker. This whole book would have turned out differently had Jack thought about more than himself. If he had thought about the good of the group and what would benefit everyone, some of the problems would not have occurred.
Imagine if Jack had decided to accept Ralph as his chief for the good of the group. If he had taken it upon himself to be a good hunter and flame-keeper, the fire would have never gone out and the group would have been rescued. Piggy and Simon would still be living. The island would have been more than a dead rock. The psychologist said, “If individuals can change, the course of the world can change.” If Jack had changed, the outcome of the island group would have been
drastically altered.
I feel that the message in the book is that a society is never a sum of its parts. If there are savage people in a society, then the society will be savage. Maybe not outright, and maybe not right away, but the savageness is always lurking right beneath the surface. If a society was made up of all saints, it would be a purely good society where everything was beautiful (as Simon was) and nothing was vicious. If individuals would change, change their morals and their ethics, a society could become greater and stronger. However, if individuals refuse to change, society could degenerate into all violence and savagery, as it did in Lord of the Flies. If people are willing to change, the world (any world) will become stronger and “better”. And that is, indeed, a hope worth sustaining.
Normalization. To convert database tables to first normal for, you first of all attribute value in a relation has a single va
Normalization
Name:
Course:
Tutor:
Date:
To convert database tables to first normal for, you first of all attribute value in a relation has a single value only. Second is to ensure that all values for a given attribute are of similar dada types. Third step is to ensure that each attribute name is unique. Finally, you ensure that no two or more tuples (rows) in a relation are similar. All these steps ensures that the definition of a relation is met hence first normal form is achieved (Teorey et al., 2011, Singh, 2011).
To convert a database to second normal form, you list down the functional dependencies (FD) which may be FD1 and FD2 if a given relation is to be split up in to two relations. Then find out whether all non-key attributes are dependent on the entire key. If knowing one attribute in a relation can help you figure out other attributes, and then split the table further in to two relations. Then sample the data and functional dependencies for the two relations. You finally confirm whether the resultant two relations meet the definition of first normal form where each relation has well defined unique key field in addition to checking whether the relations meet the definition of second normal form where there is no partial key dependencies (Teorey et al., 2011, Singh, 2011).
To convert a database in to third normal form, you first check whether the existing relations are in second normal form. If they are, then check whether there is any transitive dependency existing between or among the relations. Next is to find out where there are anomalies in the second normal form relations. The split the relation in to functional dependencies, say FD1 and FD2, resulting to another two relations. Sample the data again and functional dependencies created. Finally, you check the resulting relations to find out if they indeed meet the definition of first normal and second normal forms. If they do, and there is no transitive dependency between or among the relations, then the relations are in third normal form (Teorey et al., 2011, Singh, 2011).
The illustration of bellow uses particular and course tables to explain why conversion of database to first, second and third normal form is appropriate in a college environment.
Particular (Name, course_Code->course_Number, department)
Course (course_Number, department->Lecturer_Room, Tutor)
In terms of first normal form, the two relations above must meet the definition of a relation as explained above in order for then to be safely stored in the database. In the second normal form, the two relations must meet the definition of a relation where each relation has well defined unique keys with no partial key dependencies. As an example, course_Number has partial dependency on Course_Code which in turn has a partial dependency on Name within particular table. A gainLecturer_Room has a partial dependency on department which in turn has a partial dependency on Course_Number within Course table. These dependencies must be removed in order to attain second normal form for easy creation of rules in the database for storage of student details. Assuming that the second normal form relation for the first relation is Particular (Name, course Code-> department), a transitive dependency is created between name and department which is again normalized too third normal form, resulting in to two other relations.
Denormalization table is accepted in situations where the process of updating a fact in the database is to be optimized by storing it in one place.. It is also accepted where performance is of the database is to be maximized as well as storing the past history. This can be justified in situation where accompany stores information of customers in project table and customer table where the company management may want to require customer name from the time a project was started. In this case, the database administrator will just maintain the current name only in the customer table. However he will have to add the customer_Name attribute to the project table in addition to the date itself when the name was valid. As a result more fields are added to the project table which optimizes future update process as well as maintaining past history of the customer in the customer table (Teorey et al., 2011, Bagui & Earp, 2011).
Business rules impact both database normalization and the decision to denormalize database tables in a significant manner in that normalization helps to create rules and patterns that can be applied to any changes in the database. This is very significant in business where the same rules are required to manage business changes in trends and patterns of seasonal sales. Denormalization helps to optimally update the day to day business transactions stored as facts in one place within the database.
References
Teorey, T. J., Lightstone, S. S., Nadeau, T., & Jagadish, H. V. (2011). Database modeling and design: Logical design. Elsevier.
Singh, S. K. (2011). Database systems: Concepts, design and applications. Pearson Education India.
Bagui, S., & Earp, R. (2011). Database design using entity-relationship diagrams. CRC Press.
Noodles & Company’s Operations Management
Noodles & Company’s Operations Management
Name
Institution Affiliation
Noodles & Company’s Operations Management
Today, the business environment is constantly changing, with businesses also diverting focus on operations management. Operation management is the administration of resources and processes needed by a firm in the production of products and services (Barnes, 2018, p. 5). In the business world today, corporations are keen on operations management to achieve the highest level of efficiency achievable (Kenton, 2019). An excellent example of a business that relies mostly on operations management is the Noodles & Company. It attributes its success over the years to excellent operations management. The fast-food restaurant focuses on business operations and functions to ensure it achieves quality services and efficient service delivery to customers.
Noodles & Company
Noodle & Company is a fast food restaurant based in America, having its headquarters in Broomfield, Colorado. The firm currently serves 29 states across the US and also has its operations in Europe, Canada, India, Asia, and Africa. Since being founded in 1995, the company has dedicated a vast amount of resources and time to ensure that its operations management ensures that it serves quality fast-foods fast and efficiently (Noodles & Company, 2020). Such actions on focusing on operations management have enabled the business to achieve tremendous success, expanding its operations to new markets over the years. The restaurant’s operations management was developed by focusing on the restaurant’s competitive priorities.
Competitive Priorities
The operations management currently possessed by the restaurant was developed through the use of an operations strategy. The strategy leads to the specification of the needs of the restaurant’s strategy to its operations by focusing on the competitive priorities. According to Jitpaiboon et al. (2016), competitive priorities refer to the crucial dimensions that a firm’s operations ought to possess to satisfy customers. Competitive priorities can, therefore, be regarded as a guidance of the business’ operations, since the various aspects of the operations ought to focus on supporting the competitive priority (Reid & Sanders, 2019, p. 35). At Noodles & Company, there are various competitive priorities that its operations focus on, such as quality, delivery, and customer focus.
Noodles & Company’s Competitive Priorities
Foremost, the restaurant prioritizes on quality of fast foods it serves its customers. Quality is among the restaurant’s competitive priorities, and it gives directions to the restaurant’s operations (Collier & Evans, 2016, p. 54). Through having quality as a competitive priority, the restaurant achieves align its manufacturing and service processes to serve fresh quality hot dishes. The various operations from the counter to the kitchen to the dining area, are all aimed at ensuring the serving of hot quality fresh fast-foods. The restaurant was founded on the principle that the customers should not sacrifice quality when they require speed, leading to the next competitive priority of time.
The second competitive priority that the restaurant’s operations are aligned with is delivery or time. Noodles & Company was founded to deliver fast foods at a fast speed without compromising on the quality of the meals. Such actions demonstrate the employment of lean manufacturing which is aimed at the elimination of waste while adding value to consumers (Davim, 2018, p. 70). The waste resource being eliminated is time resource as meals are prepared fast. The restaurant aligns its operations from the counter to the kitchen and finally to the dining room to be efficient to ensure that customers receive their ordered hot fast-foods at approximately 6 minutes or less, eliminating wastage of time. The restaurant prioritizes the fast delivery of food to a customer since it creates better service delivery and also customer satisfaction. Therefore, through aligning the operations to be focused on fast delivery, the restaurant achieves to ensure customer satisfaction.
Another competitive priority of Noodles & Company is customer focus. The success of the company over the years is because of the operations being aligned with a customer focus. Customer focus is about the fulfilment of a customer’s needs and includes several services such as product support and customer information (Awwad et al., 2010). Noodles & Company have its operations management focused on customer focus. An excellent example of how the restaurant has aligned its operation to customer focus is in the lobby. From the moment a customer enters the restaurant, there are pictures to engage the customer to know their preferred food instead of thinking of the food they want. Such measures ensure the restaurant is focused on customers, which therefore contributes to the operations management effective.
Processes
Moreover, effective operations management is also concerned with effective manufacturing processes. In Noodles & Company, there are various processes adopted to ensure efficient production. The first process in the restaurant is the guest interaction which lasts about 30 seconds. The entrance of the restaurant has a menu that engages the customer to make them aware of the dish they desire. After knowing the dish a customer wants, they will go ahead to place the order. A card is given to customers which they place on their tables, waiting for their dish to be prepared. Once the order is placed, the dish is displayed on a monitor where the employees in the kitchen can then prepare the ordered dish quickly.
The second process is at the silver bowl station, which lasts about 15 to 30 seconds. Under the process, the employees pick the recipes required to prepare the ordered dish. The next processes are through the sauté line and lastly through the garnish station. The entire process is designed to ensure that the dishes are prepared within 5 to 6 minutes, ensuring that the customer is quickly served quality hot dishes. The figure below is a service blueprint of the restaurant’s processes.
3583305425154Preparations
00Preparations
3931277-68834701901633428300Orderr
00Orderr
1679944339769-38227063913Customer
0Customer
-8506032960948985163500Guest Interaction
Guest Interaction
462494141419731789134145371989130170962Silver Bowl Station
Silver Bowl Station
3435527170608Sauté Line
Sauté Line
4988147172971Garnish Station
Garnish Station
4816017259863Serving
00Serving
5560680216195
4065920150200Customer
0Customer
42212594349754936623193601Dining
Dining
Operations and Processes Design
Firstly, the restaurant has design its operations to be fast through the division of tasks. Right from the lobby to the kitchen, the staffs are divided, having various responsibilities to perform. Some employees are concerned with the ordering process, which is then reflected in the two monitors placed in the kitchen; on the sauté line and the garnish station. In the kitchen, staff are divided into the two stations. Such division of tasks enables the preparation of order dishes within four to five minutes. According to Khanna (2015), time as a competitive priority is concerned with on-time delivery which Noodles & Company is keen on. Therefore, through divisions of tasks, the restaurant enables on-time delivery of the dishes.
The other way through which the restaurant designs its operations and processes to achieve quality meals is on fresh produces. There is a prepped inventory which ensures that the restaurant achieves the use of fresh vegetables and produces. The prepped inventory is updated every mornings and evening, and thus facilitates the use of quality fresh produce that enables the serving of quality dishes. Consequently, the Noodles & Company can achieve its competitive priority of quality and customer focus.
Noodles & Company Fail-safe
Noodles & Company fail-safe its processes by having job aides at every station in the kitchen. Having the job aides at the stations as fail-safe ensures that the employees in the kitchen use the right tools for success. Fail-safes are processes or mechanism instituted in the operations to mitigate the occurrence of disasters (Lee, 2016). The right tools in the restaurant include the measurements of the ingredients, the amount of heat, and the recipes, ensuring the quality of dishes and service. Thus, through having job aides at every station in the kitchen as fail-safes mechanism facilitates the serving of quality dishes to customers, smoothening the entire process of meal preparations.
Customer Satisfaction
On the other hand, the fast-food restaurant achieves customer requirements aligning its operations towards customer satisfaction. Foremost, Noodles & Company can achieve the customer requirements by having all procedures and process aligned to meeting customer requirements. The other way that the restaurant achieves customer requirements and satisfaction is through the use of fresh vegetables and produce. Noodles & Company is focused on serving quality fresh dishes quickly through the use of fresh produce which it stocks in its freezers. The quick serving and preparations of dishes are facilitated by the way the ingredients are lined up in the kitchen and division of tasks, among others. Such actions are aimed at customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, Noodles & Company uses lean operations that facilitate greater customer satisfaction. Lean operations are the use of minimum resources to improve customer satisfaction (Modi, 2017, p. 245). The restaurant ensures that the customers wait only for approximately 6 minutes or less for quality dishes to be prepared and served hot. Such actions save time, therefore, increasing customer satisfaction.
Smooth Flows
Operations management is also concerned with service processes where it is essential to ensure the smooth flow of customers, goods, and information, which is vital to the restaurant’s success. According to Parker (2018), businesses today are developing service processes aimed at improving service delivery, and such service processes are evident in the restaurant’s smooth flow of customers, goods, and information. The restaurant first achieves smooth flow of customers through interactions such as menu which assists them to know what they would like to order. During ordering, a number card is given to them which they would place on the tables for identification. Additionally, after ordering, there are soft drinks displayed which customers can take as they wait to be served. The restaurant also ensures the smooth flow of goods through the first in first out (FIFO) rotation policy.
The other way that the operations support the smooth flow of information is through the use of monitors and card numbers given to customers after ordering. Employing technology in changing services processes is efficient in achieving improvements while supporting customer service. The monitors are placed in the kitchen to display the orders, facilitating a smooth flow of information. Smooth flow of both people, goods, and information are contributing factors to effective operations.
Noodles & Company Layout
The layout of the restaurant is designed to facilitate a smooth and effective flow of operations. The positioning of interactions, including the menu, at the entrances, facilitates the choice of the desired dishes by customers. Instead of guessing which meal to take, the interactions facilitate the choice of the dishes smoothening the operations. Additionally, the positioning of soft drinks at the ready-to-drink cooler enables customers to conveniently choose their desired drink to take as they wait for their dishes to be prepared.
On the other hand, the kitchen’s layout is also designed to support the restaurant’s operations. The lining of vegetables, noodles, and other ingredients facilitate the easier and fast picking of ingredients. The restaurant has a specific line up where the vegetables flow, noodles, and sauté dishes. Such specific positioning of ingredients is vital as it helps the restaurant’s employees to prepare the dishes within the 4 to 5 minutes. The layouts adopted by the restaurant facilitates the services of operations to be smooth and effective. According to Slack (2018), getting the process details correctly is beneficial as it leads to effective operations. Therefore, the layout is a contributing factor that enables the effective operations of the restaurant.
Inventory Management
Noodles & Company manages its inventory through regular prepping. Inventory management is essential as it targets the equilibrium among customer service and investment (Ivanov et al., 2017, p. 347). In the restaurant, prepping is commonly used in the walking cooler where fresh produce and vegetables are kept. The vegetables are regularly prepped to ensure the smooth flow of goods and ensuring the use of fresh produce. Prepping is usually done in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Such inventory management is essential as it ensures quality dishes is served to customers, contributing to effective operations management.
Staffing Arrangement
For adequate and fast preparation of dishes, the restaurant employs the use of division of tasks. Back in the kitchen, the employees are divided into various roles with some being in the sauté line and others in the garnish station. The staffing arrangement at the restaurant is based on capacity management, where the restaurant exploits its prospective activities, achieving better results (McVay et al., 2017). Therefore, the productive capacity management of employees through the division of tasks enables the restaurant to achieve higher success.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In Summary, the Noodles & Company achieves its competitive priorities of quality fast-foods timely and ensures customer focus through having its operations being aligned to the priorities. Such measures by the restaurant have seen it grow, reaching new markets while ensuring customer satisfaction. The restaurant’s processes from guest interaction to the garnish station are all designed to ensure fast serving of quality fresh dishes. Noodles & Company’s operations management is, however, effective and requires little or less improvement. The operations of the restaurant can be improved by focusing on the counter by adding more counters to ease the flow of the line when ordering. However, the operations at the restaurant are effective in ensuring fast quality serving of fast-foods.
References
Awwad, A., Al Khattab, A., & Anchor, J. R. (2010). Competitive priorities and competitive advantage in Jordanian manufacturing. Journal of Science and Management 6(1), DOI:10.4236/jssm.2013.61008.
Barnes, D. (2018). Operations management. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Collier, D. A., & Evans, J. R. (2016). OM. Cengage Learning.
Davim, J. P. (Ed.). (2018). Progress in lean manufacturing. Springer.
Ivanov, D., Tsipoulanidis, A., & Schönberger, J. (2017). Global supply chain and operations management. A Decision-Oriented Introduction to the Creation of Value.
Jitpaiboon, T., Gu, Q., & Truong, D. (2016). Evolution of competitive priorities towards performance improvement: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Production Research, 54(24), 7400-7420.
Kenton, W. (2019). Operations management. Retrieved on June 17, 2020, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operations-management.asp#:~:text=Operations%20management%20is%20the%20administration,the%20profit%20of%20an%20organization.
Khanna, R. B. (2015). Production and operations management. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..Lee, W. D. (2016). Fail-Safe 101: An introduction to failures in leadership and management. Spectrum Group.
McVay, G., Kennedy, F., & Fullerton, R. (2017). Accounting in the lean enterprise: providing simple, practical, and decision-relevant information. CRC Press.
Modi, A. A. (2017). Essentials of operations management. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..Noodles & Company. (2020). About Noodles & Company. Retrieved on June 17, 2020, from https://www.noodles.com/about-noodles/
Parker, D. W. (2018). Service operations management, second edition: The total experience. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Reid, R. D., & Sanders, N. R. (2019). Operations management: an integrated approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Slack, N. (2018). Essentials of operations management. Pearson UK.