Lab report introduction Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Introduction - Lab Report Example HindIII is commonly isolated from the Haemophilus bacteria d Bacteria. It has a polymorphic restriction site on the intron 19 of factor VIII gene. It recognizes rthe double stranded sequence of the DNA at AAGCTT and then cleaves after A-1 (Dubey, Hussain & Mittal n.d.).DNA is negatively charged. The working principle in gel electrophoresis involves the movement of the DNA sample in the agarose gel. The difference in the base pairs impact a difference in the molecular weight of the DNA and so when the current is introduced at the cathodic end of the electrophoretic chamber the DNA will move to the anode with the difference in weight causing the bands to be formed at different locations Francois 2010). Our reference sample (ÃŽ »DNA) has a restriction site for the enzyme and so presence of matching bands with our sample DNA will show the presence of the wild type gene. In the case of no match, then we will rule out the presence of the wild type gene to the presence of the mutant gene. The three samples will be run concurrently. The samples will be placed on the wells and when the power is switched on the movement will be monitored and images taken to do the comparison. With one sample being undigested and the other one digested we want to differentiate between the wild type and the mutant genes. With the wild type after digestion by the restriction enzyme HindIII the DNA is broken down and forms strands with 3236 base pairs and 1125 base pairs (Isaac & Stacey 1994). This implies that due to the digestion process the bulk DNA has been broken down into lighter fragments and so with reduced molecular weight it will move faster across the electrophoretic gel. The restriction process takes place at an optimum temperature of 370C. Dubey, A. O., Hussain, N., & Mittal, N., n.d., ‘HindIII-based restriction fragment length polymorphism in hemophilic and non-hemophilic patients,’ Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine, 1 (1), pp. 25-28, doi:Â  

3010 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

3010 - Essay Example tiple learning styles, (4) information is presented via multiple channels, (5) grounded in personal reality, (6) conveys a clear goal, (7) earn and build on respect, and (8) create a friendly learning environment. Competent faculties are required to facilitate this to ensure efficient professional development of employees. Having professionals working in a business facilitates ease in the working environment and assurance of quality performance which is primarily the goal of every institution (Ulrich and Brockbank, p.243). 2. The legal context of employment decisions. It has been said by Bohlander and Snell (p.96) that when the HR management and all its functions are acted in compliance with the law organization and companies become more unbiased and more effective workplace. Awareness to the provisions of the law is therefore valuable in HR management especially in choosing the manpower for the organization. This way, occurrence of costly and time-consuming litigations can be prevented. 3. Building an HR Strategy. HR managers are expected to act in two manners when it comes to making decisions for the company. First is that they are fairly familiar with the business to be capable of directing the business strategy to be taken. And they play reactive role to initiate critical thinking among the members of the organization to come up with proficient strategy for the problem at hand. This criterion is necessary for HR managers to perfect to be able to help the members of the organization in arduous decision making and strategic planning (Ulrich and Brockbank, p.224). 4. HR Organization. Like in any other group of management of business, creating a clear organization is essential. This precludes confusion of authority, responsibilities and roles of each member. Selection of HR organization is base on the business organization type (Ulrich and Brockbank, p.179) and only after its fulfillment will the real value of HR management be achieved. 5. HR Competencies that

The Project DB Essay Example for Free

The Project DB Essay Project Planning entails a lot of complexities most especially when the project at hand is quite complicated and limited in nature particularly in time constraints. Nevertheless, there are specific tools designed to facilitate manageable and easy project planning possible. Such tools may be classified according to the nature of the project handled. For small to medium sized projects, tools such as Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis, Program Evaluation Technique (PERT), and Planning Cycle may be used. While planning large projects may employ the use of the tools such as Planning Management Methodologies, Stakeholder Analysis, and Stakeholder Management.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Among these, the commonly used are the Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis, and PERT. All these three requires Work Breakdown Structure. Gantt chart (designed by Henry Gantt) is very useful in the sense that it is much easier to construct and understand. The activity in relationship to time is immediately obvious unlike the other tools. Its value is easily recognized as it is less complex to look at. While Critical Path Analysis or CPM and PERT are both powerful tools, the first one identifies which tasks should be done on time to complete the project on time, at the same time, identifies which tasks can afford to have delay yet still completing the project on time. Thus, CPM identifies the shortest possible time to complete the project, the resources needed, and the most efficient way of shortening the time. PERT is a slight modification on CPM. It makes use of quite skeptical view of time for each project stage. The optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely time is indeed helpful to prevent biases from unrealistically short time-scales assumptions. Hence, in my own point of view, I personally prefer to use CPM since it has a lot of advantages over the others considering that it can present the early and late completion of the project with respect to the time allotted to complete the project.    Works Cited Page    Project Planning Management Tools. 15 July 2008. Mind Tools Affiliate Program. 03 Aug. 2008. http://www.mindtools.com/critpath.html

Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing

Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing INTRODUCTION Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing are applicable for any nurse, from beginner to expert. They are often considered as the vital part of nursing. This assignment will discover ethical and legal implication of the nurse who disguises the information of the lethal ill patient at the request of his family. The family does not want the nurse to notify the patient about the lethal nature of his disease. The family also desires that the nurse should not tell the patient about the medications prescribed to him. Johnstone (2011, p 21) says that nursing professional is very uncertain. The nurse is always in dilemma whether she should cooperate with the family or not. Now the questions that arises here is that if the nurse does not disclose the truth to the patient then what would be the legal implications. Moreover, the nurse is uncertain whether she would go after the wishes of the family or not. In the following discussion, I will look at the ethical principles and legal implications of hiding information from the patient and administering morphine without his information or approval. PALLIATIVE CARE According to WHO, palliative care is defined as an approach that helps in improving the quality of life of the patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening disease. Patients need a palliative care to support their long and slow treatment procedure Tang, (2006, p. 360). It is focused on providing comfort and relief from the pain and the other distressing symptoms of a serious illness. It integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care. It offers a support system that helps patients to be lively as much as possible until death. It also provides a firm support to the family to cope up with the patient illness and also includes bereavement support for the family. Palliative care uses a team approach to handle the needs of the patients and their families. It is a team based effort of care giving and it is also responsible for initiating the concept of dedicated palliative care development team. The team includes doctor, nurse, massage therapists, nutritionists and pharmacists. A number of medical professionals from different fields of medical sciences are constantly working on developing and designing new measures to provide the best palliative care to the patients who are suffering from serious illness. All the principles of the palliative care must be applied from the time of diagnosis. Palliative care is often associated with terminal diseases like Cancer and AIDS but now the concept has been changed. There are various palliative regimes which are applicable for other diseases, such as cardiac or renal disease, so as to help the patient to cope with the suffering (Johnson et al. 2011). Sometimes, a term ‘Long term care’ is used to describe the palliative care. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES (Hodkinson 2008) state that â€Å"The therapeutic nature of this nurse–patient relationship is a central concept in nursing. The most important issues related to this bond are disclosure of truth, kindness and communication.† The patients who are suffering from terminal illness generally prefer to hear the truth but they wish it to listen to it in a receptive way (Maria, Ann Anna 2011). Autonomy The main principle of autonomy is that the patient should have adequate information about his condition so as to make a significant choice of treatment (Moulton King 2010). The nurse should properly converse with the patient and make sure that the patient is well aware of all available treatment options (Johnstone 2011). (Collis 2006) suggested that before disclosing the information to family members it is must to seek the patient’s consent. It expresses the respect for their autonomy. The nurse should consider patient’s autonomy before administering morphine. (Starzomski 2009) noted, â€Å"Patients and families from diverse communities have different beliefs about autonomy and may not envision disclosure of information in the same way as their health care providers. In these cases this is an area that needs to be carefully explored with patients to ensure their wishes are respected and they are included in the information process in the way that they wish to be.† In this scenario nurse should communicate with the family members in order to convince and find out their preferred way to disclose the diagnosis and prognosis of disease. Beneficence- The principal of beneficence as a ‘do good’ describes applications of interventions that are carried out by nurse and physician for the benefit of patient .It also include the protection of right of health service consumer (Staunton Chiarella 2008). Health professional should treat the person ‘autonomously’ and prevent him/her from harm and care provider should also aware of legal implication of action taken(Ulysse, Balicas Yiquing 2011). Telling truth is not harmful for patient it will cause the peaceful death(OSullivan 2009). The health professional should motivate the family introducing them the benefit of therapeutic discloser and harmful effects of concealing information e.g. administer medication without consent. Justice -Justice described as treat everyone ‘equally and fairly’. It is a primary phenomena in resolving ethical dilemmas .It required to be supplemented by providing good care to health service user (Botes 2000).In order to apply justice health professionals provide care evenly to all the patients in hospital not patient and family. Non – maleficience This principle is based on the phenomena of ‘does no harm’ for example in health care when privacy hard to maintain for research or study purpose then health professional ensure that they do not disclose the patient’s personal details .This principal helps in prevent the occurrence and possibilities of harm. Nurse should access the risk of interventions that she /he is doing.(Ford Reutter 1990) .It also refrain the nurse from the intentional commission of a wrongful act.(Carlson et al. 2010) In many communities for instance Muslim and Indian cultures diseases are perceived as a family matter. Decision making is also â€Å"family centered† so withholding truth is not rare practice. Therefore beneficence and non-malfeasance play vital role in their moral values as compare to patient right to consent in western countries (Pentheny et al ,2011). It is also encouraged that in case of a dilemma a professional should seek help from their regulatory body or councils which can guide them towards a legally and ethically rightful path Hui, (2010, p.76). LEGAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS Ethics and legal implications are very closely related with each other. Ethics deal with the standards of conduct and ethical judgement whereas legal issues deal with nursing practise which includes licensing, nurse practice acts and standards of care (Chaloner 2007). According to Criminal Code (Palliative Care) Amendment Bill 2003, â€Å"Section 282A does not address consent. The administration of medical treatment including palliative care is already governed by a legal regime. If a person has capacity to decide their medical care the patient will consent to their medical treatment. Unauthorised administration of medical treatment would be assault†. AMA Queensland emphasize that health professionals should respect the ‘autonomy’ terminally ill patients in order to refusal and acceptance of their medical treatments. Ethical and legal implications in palliative care are very significant because it is an end stage treatment where majority of patient are moving towards an impending death. It is a legal right of every Australian citizen to have complete and correct information about their medical situation. Because of this entitlement professionals delivering palliative care and family members of the patient involves in legal and ethical dilemma. Where they are not sure which course of action would be appropriate in both ethical as well as legal manner. Due to these legal issues and emotional disturbances families of the patient and patient itself undergo a lot of stress and psychological trauma. It is also agreed by many experts of palliative care that increased stress would also impact the ability of the patient to cope with the trauma Oonagh (2009, p.123). In this case study patient is facing an impending death from cancer and terminal diagnosis of cancer which will brings her life to the end. This result in deteriorating in her physical health and she may ask question about her situation and prognosis of the disease. With an adult patient it is relatively important to understand the concept of death and disease and they can take a realistic approach towards it by spending their remaining time in a productive manner saying good bye to dear ones and taking care of all formalities before meeting a demises. (ACMA 2011). It is very complicated to reveal the information opposite to relative’s desires (Cavanna et al ,2009) In this scenario, the wishes of the family to hide information from the patient is not unusual.Ethically it looks wrong for a health care practitioner to lie to the patients regarding her medical situation and not inform her about her forthcoming death. There might be things which she wants to do before dying if she would have been informed. There is also legal implication with the fact that a patient is being treated without her consent and it is also violation of the law which gives a patient right to refusal for treatment on her body. For example many patients want to sign DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) forms to ensure that no attempts should be made to revive them if they are close to death. In this case study patient is being denied of this right as well Hanson (2002). If by family here it is implied that her legal guardian wishes to keep this information hidden from the patient, then according to Giacalone (2007, p.368) the nurse is not legally bound to honour their desires to do so would run counter to the law etc. Prima Facie it is a clear case of violation of constitutional rights of a patient if nursing professional does not inform the patient about her medical condition and learn her desire and judgment in designing and developing her future treatment and palliative care plan. According to Australian constitutional law the patient have the first right on information regarding his medical condition and it is on his discretion that with whom this information should be shared. If a patient expressively states that he doesn’t wish to share his medical information with his family then it is legal obligation of hospital and medical professional to maintain the wish of the patient. Law handbook Victoria recognizes another law governing certain aspect of hospital care and ethical issue. This law is known as doctor patient confidentiality law this state that medical practitioner doctor, nurse or a paramedical personnel cannot divulge information about his patient to a non related person or a person without patient’s medical attorney until and unless directed by the court of law. . This regulation ensures that dignity and privacy of the patient is maintained and there is no legal or ethical negligence from the doctor in the entire transaction Vickers, (2004, p.232). SOLUTIONS AND BEING ETHICALLY RIGHT In the past years, the physicians were very reluctant to tell the truth to their patients regarding their existing health conditions. On the other hand, in these times the patients do want their physicians to tell them the truth about the diagnosis and the medical therapies. According a survey conducted almost three decades ago, it has been cleared that 97% of the physicians felt that it is correct to tell the truth to the patients regarding all the relevant aspects of their illness which includes the nature of the illness and its expected outcomes. Sometimes it is seen that there is psychological impact on the patient’s mindset and it’s really hard for them to cope with such a stressful situation (Kendall 2006). In such a situation, palliative care specialists can be proved quite helpful as they can provide resources to help the patient and his family deal with emotions that come with a serious illness. They may provide counseling, organize family meeting or make refer rals to mental health professionals if needed (Bush Bruni 2008). However, if the conditions are presented in an undignified manner then it is possible that it may create a negative picture of the situation in the patient’s mind and in that case it is obvious that the sufferings and stress of the patient would increase instead of decreasing and the patient may lose the hope to live (Li et al. 2008). Tuckett suggests that it is necessary to understand the mental state of the patient before passing on the entire information to him. The final decision is made by the doctor and his medical team regarding the disclosure of the truth to the patient after analyzing all his mental status (2012). Even the court of law has approved this argument that if the doctor and his medical team prove with an evidence that the information would have a devastating effect on the patient then they have a full power to hide the information from the patient or they reveal the truth to the patient when they believe it is appropriate time to tell Seymour (2004, p. 165). On the other hand, it may be possible that the patient does not want to listen to the information regarding his health but in such a situation it is the duty of the physician to provide the basic information to the patient (council 2004). IMPACT ON NURSING PRACTICE When the medical practitioners communicate with the patients, being honest is a fundamental way to develop trust and respect for the patient. Patients show a great deal of trust in their physician and they may feel deceived if they discover that there is lack of honesty by the physician. But, sometimes a situation arises when the physician thinks that disclosure would create a harmful effect on the patient and it may be validated to hold back the truthful information in that case. (Robinson January-February) explains that sometimes holding back the truthful information from patient may lead to feeling of regret in the health care providers. It can also be one of the main reasons of moral distress on them. (Goethals, Gastmans de Casterlà © 2010) state that many a times the moral distress may lead to less involvement of nurse in his work. It can also cause some kinds of health problems which may eventually leads to resignation from job. Ulysses et al (2011) asserts that in health pra ctise the therapeutic nondisclosure may lead to frustration which in turn affects the practitioner’s responsibility towards his patient and his family. CONCLUSION Many types of complex situations are often faced by several nurses throughout their professional life. Some professionals consider such types of suffering more badly than death. It is totally unfair to withhold the truth from the patient about his existing health conditions, especially when the patient is capable enough to give the consent about various medications and procedures. According to the constitution of Australia, it is not at all acceptable to claim the life of a person for any medical reason and direct any medications without his consent. This case study has proved very beneficial in developing a very in depth understanding of the various medical laws and legal problems which are faced by the health professionals. It should be the duty of every medical professional that in any situation he should not break any of the legal obligations. It also provides detailed information about the various significant steps that should be taken to handle these types of ethical dilemmas.

Brain Drain Essay -- essays papers

Brain Drain One of the major concerns of today's companies is the shortage of labor, especially in management. The baby boomers are nearing retirement age in the United States and the birth rate is dropping. These circumstances, coupled with the booming economy are the main causes of the labor shortage. There is a high demand for labor but the once seemingly bottomless pool of employees and managers that companies drew from has started to dry up. What are the factors that contributed to the problem and how are today's corporations going to handle this problem? The type of labor needed in today's society has been undergoing a constant change. There is an increase in demand for workers but there is a much greater demand for educated white-collar workers, especially management material. Projections state that the growth in managerial positions will increase 20% by the year 2010 yet the population aged 35-50 will decrease nearly 10%. What these figures say is the already diminishing supply of executives is going to dwindle even more over the next 10 years. There is a shortage of blue-collar workers now and there will also be an even greater shortage of them in the future. In order for employers to find people who are willing to perform unskilled, repetitive jobs they are going to have to be willing to raise the level of compensation offered to employees. If McDonalds needs someone to flip hamburgers they better be prepared to pay double to triple minimum wage. There are a wide variety of employment opportunities and today's workforce can afford to be selective when choosing a job. The demand for employees is high while the supply is low. The figures on the change in average population ages and growth in industrialized nations is beginning to make the corporate world stand up and take notice. If the trends continue as they have been for the past thirty years, the shortage of labor is going to continually get worse with each year that passes. The predictions from the United States Census Bureau state that between 1990 and 2000 the increase of the American population over 60 will be 10.5% but in 2010 to 2020, the increase will be 32.5%. The change in the 60 plus population in the United States is projected to nearly triple in thirty years. Compare these figures to the increase in under sixty-year-old population. From 1990 to 2000, t... ... the economic obstacles caused by an aging workforce. The companies of today are aware of the constantly growing problem and are working towards a solution. I think that they are moving in the right direction. Offering flexibility in what was once a very rigid structured hierarchy is certainly a step in the right direction. People in today's world lead very different lives than they did 4o years ago. A rewarding profession is not exclusively defined by the income generated anymore, rewarding can also mean personally rewarding. A good employee doesn't necessarily work 40 hours each and every week, some work part time or are involved in a job-sharing program. In order to keep the workforce meeting the needs of the economy, the employer must continue to become more flexible and remain open to suggestions. Today's companies are on the right track. I believe that with proper management and forward thinking, we will be able to cope with the ever-increasing shortage of labor. Bibliography: Center for Strategic and International Studies Newsweek magazine Business Week magazine The Economist magazine St Petersburg Times Newspaper The United States Census Bureau

Operant condition Essay -- essays research papers

Several years ago, I was the marketing Manager for a new line of perfume, which had to be promoted, introduced to the consumer, and allow for succession in the market. By marketing the product the sales would either be high or low depending on the market responses. One way to ensure successfully marketing to the right consumers is through the use of Operant Conditioning. Operant Conditioning, also known as Instrumental learning is defined as a â€Å"learning process by which the consequences of an operant response affects the likelihood that the response will occur in the future†(Kozak, pg 22). Basically, Operant Conditioning is a stimulus response pattern that when reinforced will condition the individual response to a desired behavior. Our behaviors are altered to be desirable or undesirable through reinforcements, punishment and extinction. Overall, Operant conditioning is a voluntary response that precedes the stimulus and the reinforcement. According to Dr.Komisar Behavioral therapist at Long Island Jewish Hospital, says Operant Condition has been applied in many situations, such as teaching, clinical settings, and advertising, which have been proven successful in clinical trails. B.F Skinner and Edward Thorndike have developed two famous stream of research in this area. BF Skinner felt that the â€Å"term reinforcement was more desirable than the word reward†(Darcy, pg 215). â€Å"Reinforcement is any stimuli that strengthen the desired response† (Darcy, pg 223). For example, sometim...

meditech surgical case Essay

Introduction Meditech is a leader in the endoscopic surgical instrument market. The company manufactures and market low cost endoscopy surgical equipment to hospitals and independent surgeons. The company’s distribution operation is arranged and managed from a central storage warehouse that ships its products to domestic and international affiliates. The organization have been experiencing a good customer service experience in the past, however, lately customers have expressed concerns with the time products are being delivered to them. Due to the nature of the industry, the delivery of surgical equipment on time is extremely important. The on time delivery of products to its customers has become the main problem for the firm. Currently, Meditech’s customers are waiting over six weeks for products to be delivered to them. This current practice is not acceptable and must be addressed by management immediately if Meditech wants to stay competitive and keep its current market share. Statement and Causes of the problem Meditech’s main problem is that a bullwhip effect was produced due to organizational and supply chain problems. The method used by Meditech to balance customer demands with planned production is not effectively serving  its purpose. The catalogue of products being offered by Meditech continues to grow and replacing current items, making obsolete old products that are in their catalogue and current customer orders. Poor customer demands forecasting, long assembly lead times, and changing products are the main reason why inventory levels are not enough to satisfy customer’s demands. While the assembly lines try to keep with demand and company’s resources are getting exhausted trying to launch a new product, the distributors then will increase their product demand, which causes a bottle neck effect as it moves up the supply chain process. As the initial demand slows down there are still backup of high demand of inventory being produced. This cycle would repeat again as new products are being released to the market. Due to these problems, Meditech supply chain and management has created a poor customer service. Another problem of Meditech is communication. There is not enough communication between main operations departments in the company; this is causing information to become distorted as it makes its way through the supply chain line. The lack of communication and information increases the firm’s lead to demand variation as orders or demand is being process through the supply chain systems and departments. In consequence, distributors are feeling the effect by long waiting periods of time, thus this also causes them to place larger orders in an effort to help them compensate the waiting time. Panic ordering by distributors is caused by lack of communication and in turn leads into the problem of the bullwhip effect. Meditech’s current distribution system is inefficient and obviously is causing an inflated demand of products. There is not enough information being shared among distributors and Meditech’s operations. Each distributor receives orders from different regional warehouse, which makes it hard to see the bullwhip effect. The organization’s forecasting system is also confronting serious problems. The current organization’s forecast system is determined by marketing and finance departments on an annual basis. The annual forecast is then broken down into monthly and weekly forecasts and is frequently adjusted by Central Planners according to market trends. Meditech has realized that leads to forecasting problems when they try to introduce new  products. The organization realizes that they are unable to effectively predict demand for new products, which causes large demand fluctuations and backorders. Decision Criteria & Alternative solutions + Recommended Solution, Implementation and Justification Meditech can try few alternatives process to reduce demand variation and the possibility of panic ordering. The company should improve how customer ordering is processed, they should more effectively share demand information, and increase lead times on new products. The forecast methods needs to be upgraded to reflect current needs, the company should also introduce vendor managed inventory and an e-commerce web site to share information with its customers. All of these functions should be centralized and shared among all of the supply chain channels that are involved. With improvements in forecasting it would be much cheaper and more efficient with the introduction of new products to stock finished goods inventory based on projected forecasts. By pushing is anticipating the fluctuations in demands that may be caused with the introduction of a new product. Meditech will now have products available exactly when the customer needs them, and will no longer be forced into back order. A push strategy will also allow Meditech to be more confident in their inventory policies and should allow them to lower their current inventory policy to a level that is more economical and feasible. Q1) Meditech’s problem in introducing new products. In manufacturing ALL products. Meditech introduces 1 new product per month on an average. Most of the new products are only upgrades of old products. This considerably reduces the life-cycle of the products. Majority of Meditech customers are Material Managers whose primary focus is on cost and delivery schedules but not on innovative product features. Though no major problems arise  products int  from assembly line perspective, signs of cognitive dissonance may arise in customers. No attempt is made by Meditech to understand the Demand Dynamics along the product lifecycle. Qualitative factors that have been identified as critical success drivers for a new product launch are time-to-market relative to competition or product diffusion. But Meditech does not launch new products relative to competition and by constantly pushing new innovations into the market it does not allow its products to diffuse effectively into the market. Every new product launch requires a lead time of around 5-19 weeks (excluding design phase lead time) which is very high. With every product launch, pushing the product into the market becomes the primary consideration of the sales force thereby neglecting customer service for older products. These constant launches have led to: †¢Ã‚  Supply side shortages †¢Ã‚  Delayed deliveries (6 weeks) †¢Ã‚  Low customer service †¢Ã‚  Low customer satisfaction †¢Ã‚  Inaccurate forecasts †¢Ã‚  High FG inventory levels The product portfolio of Meditech comprises about 200 separate end-products and the number is increasing. These wide ranges of products make Meditech rely heavily on suppliers wherein the lead time is 2-16 weeks. So practising JIT, which would be very effective for Meditech, becomes impossible in this case. Meditech organizational structure has a long scalar chain. Information dissemination becomes difficult here if there are too many products in the portfolio. Q2) Cause of the problems, systematically and organizationally ISHIKAWA FISH-BONE DIAGRAM WAS USED TO DISSECT THE CAUSE AND EFFECT Q3) Why is customer service manager the first person to recognize the major issues? The scalar chain from Customer Service Manager to the Customer Service Representative is only of two steps. The representatives work in direct contact with dealers and affiliates and are often in direct contact with hospital personnel i.e. their consumers. A general rule of thumb is â€Å"If you want the best feedback, ask your consumers†. This network would have proved effective for feedback-information flow. Mr. Dan Franklin himself held many meetings with hospital material managers. This brought forth the level of dissatisfaction amongst his customers, Meditech’s poor service levels and improper delivery schedules. Q4) How would you fix these problems? The foremost thing we would do is implement an ERP System costing around $100,000. This would help in better data storage & warehousing, analysis and forecasting. We would reduce the frequency of new product launches. We would prefer a leaner product portfolio. We would lay emphasis on better forecasts with a shorter horizon of 1-2 months. We would maintain a safety stock so as to provide a service level of 95%. We would work to reduce the assembly cycle time from the current level of 2 weeks. We would look for new and better supplier relations to reduce the supplier lead time from the current level of 2-16 weeks. References 1. (Bass 1969, Krishnan 2000) 2. (Porter 1985, Kailash and Lilien 1986)