GOVERNMENT CLASS

THE DISCUSSION BOARD IS THE PICTURE .

THE INFORMATION BELOW IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE .

To get started with the discussion forums, first, click on the word “thread” to begin a new post. After your post, reply to one of your classmates by clicking on their discussion link and hitting the reply button.Discussion Board Participation- “Meet and Greet” and “Thought Sessions” (1 @ 40 Points and 2 @ 20 points each = 80 points) Read Carefully!You are required to participate in three online discussion board forums. The first “Meet and Greet” session, where you introduce yourself to the class, is worth 40 points. The other two are “thought sessions” that will be centered on a particular theme and are worth up to 20 points each (40 total points), depending on quality and length of the required posts. Participation in the thought sessions includes an initial posting by students specifically answering the question posed and at least one secondary post making a critical response to at least one other student’s post. The response to another student can indicate agreement or disagreement or other comment but must be substantive in explaining the reasons for the comments. The initial post and secondary response post will be weighted equally (up to 10 points each, for a total of 20 points) when grades are assigned. Therefore, to receive full credit for participation on each Thought Session, you must make two posts at a minimum, each post worth up to 10 points. The first post (your initial post) must respond to the original question, while the second post must respond to at least one of your classmate’s postings on the topic by the due date.Consider each post as a “micro” essay of several (two or more) thoughtful paragraphs including at least 5 or 6 sentences each. This is the bare minimum for any credit, however, and it does not guarantee full credit or even a passing grade. You may earn only minimal credit even if you meet this minimum quantity requirement, because quality is more important than quantity. However, any post consisting of less than 5 or 6 sentences in a single post will receive no credit at all. This applies to any reply posts as well as your initial post. Please check the Discussion guidelines and directions under Course Information tab. There you will find additional information, instructions, the grading rubric that will be used to score your posts, and examples of model posts from prior course participants who received full credit. Save your work before posting on discussion board. If for technical reasons your posts are lost, you can simply copy and paste your saved work to the discussion board again.Warning: For other students to have time to respond to your post, your initial must be made 48 hours before the due date. Because “thought Sessions” require an initial post and a response post by the due date, late discussion board postings cannot be accepted and will not be graded.

Draft a reply to another students discussion Board. This should be a detailed review of the students post. Here is the students original post you are responding too:

Discussion Board Forum #1

Corporations are constantly looking for a competitive advantage and one available course is incorporating a Lean methodology within the corporate initiatives. The Lean practice originated in Japan and is a broad concept that utilizes a plethora of tools including Just in Time (JIT) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) in an effort to increase process speeds, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce waste (Plenert, 2012,). One of the Lean “tools which has already proven theoretically and empirically successful for mid-scale production process is Value Stream Mapping (VSM)” (Rizky Wicaksono, Setiawan, & Purnomo, 2019, p. 2). VSM is a key Lean tool used by companies to fully understand a process and identify opportunities for improvement by recognizing non-value-added activities within that process (Plenert, 2012). Garza-Reyes, Kumar, Chaikittisilp, and Tan (2018) describe VSM as “a lean and visual-based method, which illustrates, identifies and measures waste that results from the incapability, inefficiencies and unreliability of money, machines, people, information, space, time, tools and material during a production process” supported by “flow diagrams and current and future state maps” (p. 171). The flow diagrams and mappings provide the visual identification of productive resources and activities, how they are utilized, and any wastes associated allowing quantification of process times, quick assessment of process state, and identification of improvement opportunities (Dinis-Carvalho, Guimaraes, Sousa, & Leao, 2019). Shou, Wang, Wu, Wang, and Chong (2017) describe the steps of the VSM as: 1) selecting a product family, (2) drawing the current state map, (3) drawing the future state map, and (4) achieving the future state (p. 3907). Rizky Wicaksono et al. (2019) further states that each process in the VSM should be extensively evaluated to be: “(1) valuable, (2) capable, (3) available, (4) adequate and (5) flexible in order to create lean thinking” (p. 2).

Due to the fact that VSM can provide the opportunity for organizations to minimize waste and improve overall efficiency, the implementation of VSM during the last few years has dramatically increased not only within manufacturing organizations but also in service and process industries (Andreadis, Garza-Reyes, & Kumar, 2017). A study by Garza-Reyes et al. (2018) indicated the VSM was the most extensively utilized lean method by companies with 75% of 250 global survey responders applying this tool to their processes. One of the most recent adaptions of VSM is to improve environmental performance through a focus in the reduction of energy consumption and environmental waste (Garza-Reyes et al., 2018). Other recent unconventional applications of VSM include streamlining construction supply chains, improving construction sustainability, and increased productivity in residential house construction (Shou et al., 2017). VSM has also been successfully implemented to improve heath care efficiency and customer care levels (Shou et al., 2017). As VSM can effectively applied in almost any process, Dinis-Carvalho et al. (2019) does however mention that VSM has some limitations that should be considered that include the “inability to represent different production flows, difficulty of being used by those who are not familiar with the tool, absence of graphical indicators for transport, queues and movements due to the layout, absence economic indicators, absence of layout representation, and not reflecting the bill-of-materials of the product” (p. 770). It is interesting to summarize and note that VSM is a great tool to identify waste and opportunities for improvement but it isn’t the tool to reduce that waste and other lean tools like JIT and TPS must be employed to achieve a decrease in waste and the desired process state (Andreadis et al., 2017).

References

Andreadis, E., Garza-Reyes, J. A., & Kumar, V. (2017). Towards a conceptual framework for value stream mapping (VSM) implementation: An investigation of managerial factors. International Journal of Production Research, 55(23), 7073-7095. doi:10.1080/00207543.2017.1347302

Dinis-Carvalho, J., Guimaraes, L., Sousa, R. M., & Leao, C. P. (2019). Waste identification diagram and value stream mapping. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 10(3), 767-783. doi:10.1108/IJLSS-04-2017-0030

Garza-Reyes, J. A., Kumar, V., Chaikittisilp, S., & Tan, K. H. (2018). The effect of lean methods and tools on the environmental performance of manufacturing organisations. International Journal of Production Economics, 200, 170-180. doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.03.030

Plenert, G. (2012). Strategic continuous process improvement: Which quality tools to use, and when to use them. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Rizky Wicaksono, S., Setiawan, R., & Purnomo. (2019). Lean manufacturing machine using value stream mapping. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1175, 12118. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1175/1/012118

Shou, W., Wang, J., Wu, P., Wang, X., & Chong, H. (2017). A cross-sector review on the use of value stream mapping. International Journal of Production Research, 55(13), 3906-3928. doi:10.1080/00207543.2017.1311031

please response to 2 people Respond to at least 2 of your colleagues with a question, connection, or suggestion.please respond with 400 words 200 words for each response

tahnee

To help Mason get back on track, I would try to understand why he is having difficulty reading the examples and copying them down. Does he need additional guidance with decoding, etc., or can he not read the examples because he can’t see the board? Does he have difficulty copying the sentences because, again, he can’t see the board, or does he frequently lose his spot from looking back and forth between the board and his paper? If the purpose of the grammar warm up is to make corrections based on the grammar focus rather than a student’s copying ability, then I would likely provide every student with a paper copy of the grammar warm up, which would actually provide more instruction time that would’ve been eaten up by having the students copy the sentences themselves. Having a paper copy may help Mason stay focused without having to look up and down constantly. It may also be beneficial to Mason if he work with a partner to complete the task until he feels more confidant in his grammar correcting skills.

michael T

To get Mason back on track I would try several strategies. I would begin by differentiating the morning assignment. I would have the sentences already typed out for Mason so that all he needs to do is put in the correct punctuation marks. Also, I would modify the number of sentences that Mason must complete, i.e. 2 instead 3 or 3 instead of 5, etc. If he very active in the morning, maybe a structured walk or errand is warranted, where he can delver the attendance to main office or something of that nature. It will allow him to walk several minutes to get himself together so his prepared to focus on his morning work. Also, maybe there’s a space within the classroom that Mason can go to complete his work so that he is not inclined to distract his peers.

Scenario Summary

As a top human resource executive in a large, privately held company, students are responsible for compensation and benefits. The firm’s owners are satisfied with financial performance. The student intern’s boss takes little interest in specific human resource issues, as long as things are going well. The high quality of management in your firm is recognized. The intern student have been researching outsourcing opportunities and have found that the company could achieve modest savings by outsourcing compensation and benefits. Intern students would feel an obligation to consider this action, although fifteen employees may lose their jobs and their position would be diminished in importance as a result of the action. What do they do?

Questions

1. What are the ethical issues in this situation?

2. What are the basic arguments for and against outsourcing in this situation?

3. What do you think most managers would do? What would you do?

Respond to the following scenario with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. Be substantive and clear, and use research to reinforce your ideas.

Mary Francis has just returned to her office after attending preliminary discussions with investment bankers. Her last meeting regarding the intended capital structure of Apix went well, and she calls you into her office to discuss the next steps.

“We will need to determine the required return for our intended project so that we have a decision criteria defined for the project,” she says.
“Do you have the information I need to describe capital structure and to calculate the weighted average cost of capital (WACC)?” you ask.
“I do,” she smiles. “We can determine the target WACC for Apix Printing Inc., given these assumptions,” she says as she hands you a piece of paper that says the following:

• Weights of 40% debt and 60% common equity (no preferred equity)
• A 35% tax rate
• Cost of debt is 8%
• Beta of the company is 1.5
• Risk-free rate is 2%
• Return on the market is 11%

“Great,” you say. “Thanks.”
“Be sure to indicate how these costs of capital might be used to determine the feasibility of the capital project,” Mary says. “I want your recommendation about which is more appropriate to apply to project evaluation, too. Let me know what you think.”
“One more thing,” she says as she stands up to signal the end of the meeting. “You did a good job with the explanations that you provided Luke the other day. Would you have time to define marginal cost of capital for me so I can include it in my discussions with investors? You seem to have a knack for making things accessible to nonfinancial folks.”
“No problem,” you say. “I’m glad my explanations are so useful!”

For this assignment, complete the following:

• Describe capital structure.
• Determine the WACC given the above assumptions.
• Indicate how these might be useful to determine the feasibility of the capital project.
• Recommend which is more appropriate to apply to project evaluation.
• Define marginal cost of capital.