Principles of Database Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Principles of Database Design - Essay Example At the same time, it retains value system integrity and competitive advantage. The plan is a framework for continual operations under adverse circumstances such as crime or disaster. A disaster recovery plan is a document created to protect a business IT infrastructure in case of a disaster. It comprehensively specifies the actions a business should take before, during and after the disaster Disaster recovery plans take place as a compartment of defining the steps undertaken in business continuity planning. The physical and logical units in an IT environment that necessitate the application of business continuity procedures include internal and external disk storage, microcode and firmware, disk partitions and networking design. The database design principles employed in disaster recovery entail: creating baseline specifications for primary systems e.g. PBX system and secondary systems like call centre or voicemail, determining how and if the system would interfere with the existing systems, establishing who will be using the system and whether network assets are necessary, determining database security, change control requirements (Blokdija et al, 2008). A database-oriented product can be designed depending on the business continuity or disaster recovery activity to be performed- single location or system, maintenance, risk assessment and incident response plans.  E-commerce is accelerating the necessity of shorter recovery points and times and greater concentration on dedicated recovery solutions. Business enterprises are more systematized for business continuity planning as a result of greater risks. Many emerging technologies are designed to increase business continuity elasticity, reduce recovery times and reduce expenses. Manufacturers are introducing emergency backup programs into the market to facilitate an increase in CPU capacity during emergency conditions. The increases are stable and paid for per consumption.

Impact of Violence on Children

Impact of Violence on Children Violence is understood to mean â€Å"all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse† (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2011). â€Å"Physical violence is the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing death, disability, injury, or harm.† (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007). Nowadays, parents are as busy as a bee to bring home the bacon. This leads to the matter that children spend more time in pre-schools, schools or learning environments than anywhere else outside their houses. Thus, people who work in educational systems must take responsibility for safety and total development of children. However, are those educational environments as safe as parents usually think? In reality, UNICEF data points out that corporal retribution has been applied for 6 in 10 children from 2 to 14 years old (UNICEF, 2014). In the same trend, a lot of child abuse cases from baby minders have been reported on famous Vietnamese newspapers since 2008 although kindergarten is said to have best conditions for children growth. The news has caught attention from all social classes about the downgraded morality among a certain population of teaching staff working in pre-school level. It is an urgent problem which should be publicized to people to enhance their awareness about consequences that children have to be suffered like psychology problems. â€Å"All forms of violence against children, however light, are unacceptable.† (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the child, 2011) This essay will look into the physical violence against children from kindergarteners then suggest the solutions before evaluating the effectiveness of those. The rapid increasing of population as well as more people likely moving to the cities have created a lot of problems for society and one of those are schools for children especially for infants. Each locality has an average of 1-2 public nursery schools which is not a small figure but this number still meets only 40-50% of citizens’ needs especially in industrial parks or considerable resident areas. Thus, public pre-schools are overloaded. To be able to send children to those, parents must satisfy many conditions that school as well as ministry of education and training launch as city registration book, priority candidate, †¦ This becomes more and more tense when parents don’t have time for their kids because their jobs take up most of the time and they have to afford to live. Those people even don’t have a day off for themselves. Therefore, founding a private school is indispensable when teaching staff will respond those parents’ demands such as looking after children from 6AM to 6PM everyday or even more with moderate price level. Generally, this establishment has reduced the overcharged case mentioned above as well as the pressure that most of the families having infants suffers but the article inquiring about the violence against children in kindergartens recently has constantly raised anxiety of people from all walks of life about safety issues in these schools. The big headlines are set at the first page of the newspapers, even in foreign newspapers let people worry much about poor quality as well as the downgraded in morality of the teaching staffs in kindergartens. Taking care of 15-20 children in a day is a big pressure. Instead of improving quality, these people are chasing the profits and leaving their conscience so recently there have been a lot of violence against children cases investigated by police, journalists, reporters and even residents such as arresting the baby-sister who persecuted an 18-month-old to death (Tuoitre News, 2013), Maltreating preschool children (Tuoitre News, 2013), or The kindergartener taught her children by slippers, inox spoons (Tuoitre News, 2010),†¦ â€Å"Educating children must be with love. Violence like those will impact deeply to a child’s lifetime† – said Ninh Thà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬ ¹ Hà ¡Ã‚ »Ã¢â‚¬Å"ng – Member of the Standing Committee of Vietnam Protection of Children’s Rights Association. Violence against children in VietNam in private kindergartens is not just one individual’s responsibility, it’s an unit’s one. State of violence against children originates from many different purposes. Firstly, mentioning is the role and responsibility of parents. Some parents don’t care much about the study of their children. Using cost-saving, temporary reasons to choose substandard environment is unacceptable. This choice led to many unfortunate consequences. Furthermore, pressure that parents put in caregivers is too considerable. Their requirement is that their children must attain certain weight and height. Hence, caregivers must do everything to make children develop in the way that their parents expect so that they can keep their salary. Socializing pre-school policy has created good condition for establishing private schools satisfying minding children need of those families that don’t have enough terms for their adolescence to go to public schools. Howerer nowsaday, most pre-schools in Vietnam don’t meet the standard of material facilities or quality of teaching. Those places transform housing into teaching environment so they don’t have playgrounds according to regulations. Every classroom has about 30-40 children so it is difficult for every childminder to take care thoughtfully all of these adolescence. Hence, compelling children into order and discipline, teaching staff have to use physical methods. Furthermore, some caregivers choose teaching as a job to earn money not because they love children. Thus, violence is an action representing the powerless in teaching skill and lacking of scientific education methods. But most, one of those reasons is the downgraded morality among a certain population of teaching staff working in the preschool level. Deeply, it is because the law is not enforced seriously. Beside the level of law of residents is poor while children rights are publicized and executed. This incidentally led to violence against children cases. Consequences of child abuse are grave. They bequeath after-effects on adolescence’s brain and constitution. Physical impacts are the most obvious and may include serious wounds or deaths by homicide or suicide. Then, children can be retarded in the future. Durrant JE (2005) suggests that children who have suffered corporal punishment tend to take part in aggressive behaviour such as hurting their families or friends in future. They can’t control their action correctly. â€Å"When children grow up they keep what was done to them in mind and in the end they also do the same to those younger than them, especially at school. Some people become mentally disturbed.† Said a boy -14 years old living in Eastern and Southern Africa, 2005. Steven,D.(2014) states that abuse has a longlife effect on children’s mental and psychological development. Children who have suffered violence have 6% smaller brain than normal. Violence may lead to mental disorder or nervous disorder on children. Because the brains have similar patterns of activity to soldiers exposed to combat. Moreover, children may change their personality as taciturn, stubborn and strange activities. Steven also confirms that victim may find it difficult communicating and set up relationship. This may make things worse. UNICEF(2014) puts forward some strategies that are believed to reduce violence against children. The first method is enforcing laws and polices strictly. Government have the duty to forbid irrevocably violence against children by law.Children’s right has been publicized and executed for over 10 years. Child abuse cases such as PhÆ °Ãƒâ€ Ã‚ ¡ng Anh kindergarten or teaching children by slippers and inox spoons must be judged strongly in order to awaken who used or have intention of using corporal retribution. People who have any action violating children’s safety must bear full responsibility for any damage and expiate behind the court of justice. Punishment suitable to the offence may prevent violent tendency to zero. Secondly, carrying out data collection and research is an appropriate way to expand knowledge based on the issue. This process let researchers, psychologists find the far-reaching cause of the violence then solving the problem to the every roots. Furt hermore, releasing those documents will change people’s thoughts and action. They may have consciousness and be indignant of alarming child abuse situation. Last but not least, ministry of education and training must assume responsibilities that teaching methods and disciplinary punishment of all schools must not include threat, physical force, or humiliation . Administrators must ensure the implementation of related policies and procedures at the school level– specifically putting a stop to corporal punishment. Moreover, quality of teaching needs to be improved. Good teacher recruitment and training must one the most important strategies to reduce violence. All school staff must be well- educated and have good virtues. Those will create good environment – letting children be the center, listening to their needs and concerns and alleviating children’s opposing when adults compel them to do something that they dislike and deeply is violence. Related agenci es ought to make an examination of valid papers to ensure that no educational foundations are set up illegally then bring forward standards every school needs to execute exactly. If those agencies don’t manage this closely, state of violence still happens.

Autism Essay -- Health, Dolphin Assisted Therapies

In a deep, dark blue ocean, an astonishingly beautiful and colorful creature with a crescent moon body shape swims through shimmering waves of light. This mysterious animal goes to a seashore everyday to meet his life-long best friend who, unlike itself, has two legs instead of long, slippery, streamlined flukes. Now, they are sharing one of the best moments in their lives. This is the scene I have always seen in my dream whenever I wish to have a dolphin friend with whom I can freely swim and interact. When I see their eyes, it seems like dolphins are reading my mind, and I also feel like I can read their minds, too. It is uncommon for a person to get an opportunity to interact with that lovely creature and get a feeling of healing. However, some psychologists recommend children with autism to spend some time with dolphins because they believe that a dolphin has psychologically and educationally therapeutic effects. Considering the high number of autistic children in the United Sta tes, I want to delve into, not only how using dolphins in therapies for autistic children in the United States affects their educational abilities, but also how in some ways dolphin-assisted therapies reflect people’s greed to use an innocent creature for their own interest. What is autism? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, autism is defined as â€Å"a variable developmental disorder that appears by age three and is characterized by impairment of the ability to form normal social relationships† (Webster 65). Whenever I see the definitions of different disorders, I am always curious about the standards of different illnesses. For example, for autism, the definition says that autistic children commonly have difficulty in having normal social relation... ...om drowning† (Williamson 477). Likewise, parents tend to believe that dolphins would save their children from autism. However, does using an animal for our own purposes acceptable? Does DAT, in some aspects, reflect people’s greed to use an innocent creature for their own interest? Cathy Williams, in her article, suggests that â€Å"DAT can present a significant risk to the health and welfare of dolphins used in programs† because unlike autism children, â€Å"their conditions may be neither inspected, nor regulated† (Williamson 477). Furthermore, sometimes the stress of their confinement prevents them from behaving normally and it often makes them ill and results premature death. Dolphins have no freedom. Somehow they are brought to a place where they are â€Å"held in captivity† (Williamson 477). Do humans have a special right to do this to an animal without any permission?

Reconciliation Of Personal, Cultural, Organizational And Ethical Values Essay

The values and ethics people carry in their personal and professional life are important determinants of their growth and development. The eventual success of a person is realized through self understanding and actualization and not through relentless manipulation of material resources. Successful reconciliation of personal, organizational, and cultural values and ethics require a number of strategies, some of which are discussed below Communication: Communication is requires towards establishment of rapport with each diverse group. People within a large organization differ not only from their cultural, religious, and social orientations, but also from their professional orientation and interests. These differences widen when many different functional units of an organization, with their philosophies and approach towards work, are required to undergo technology amalgamation (Harris, 1993). These differences often lead to conflicts in the personal and cultural value system, which lead to conflict at workplace, distress in personal and professional life and issues in integration with the organizational setup (ibid). Communication is the key to resolve this deadlock, without causing any antagonistic and negative feelings. People should be aware that organizations are dependent on successful coordination among number of teams and people. Hence they should try to initiate measures that would avoid projecting any conflict or confrontation in interests within the organization. They should be sensitive to each other’s ethnic, social, religious and individual backgrounds and understand their views as sum of their personal growth Sometimes people resent opinions of others, involve their ego and stop to cooperate, coordinate or understand the need to assimilate their juniors and seniors to achieve organizational goals (Swanson, 2005). A successful communication strategy shall effectively address these problems at their inception point and ensure that they do not emerge as any significant stumbling block in ideological merging of various cultural groups (Rahim, 2001). Ensuring Interconnectedness Understanding the collective responsibility and appreciation of team work and group interaction is necessary in embedding the value culture that helps in the reconciliation approach. This would help people to come out of their individual shells and get integrated with their colleagues (Harris, 1993; Rahim, 2001). Understanding inherent organizational contradictions It is important to teach people about recognizing and respecting that contradiction occurs in other people, their experience and circumstances, their view points, their ideological background and their value based system. Understanding the role of crises A timely recognition that crises and conflicts are inbuilt of component of life and progress is achieved by incorporating them in the philosophy towards life should be able to show people that above all the things, they require harmony, and cooperation for things to successfully work (Rahim, 2001) Kinship with others The communication expert should specifically stress on building associations and help in realizing that every one is important and deserves equal respect from others. It is the first requirement of building strong and lasting bonds within any organization. When people are organized in teams, they share similar goals and they work towards joint growth and development (Harris, 1993; Rahim, 2001). Respecting the opposition. It teaches about taking opposition as constructive contradiction, instead of viewing it in negative perspective. A constructive opposition always helps in finding out mistakes in one’s own approach, rectify them and move ahead successfully. Negotiation: An important aspect of communication management is negotiation which has become important within organizational and social setups. As. Negotiation, requires interested parties to trade proposals for settlement. Generally the process of negotiation proceeds through motives that are competitive, integrative, cooperative and composite (Levy, 1999) . The approach of communication in the entire process of negotiation is concerned with the messages that are transferred among negotiators and the concerned parties. Reconciliation of Ethics Business and ethics are always considered opposite to each other. The general conception of business is that it is a commercial activity with aims to earn maximum income and maximize profit where levels of deceit, subterfuge, and conceit are much higher than socially seen or found (Swanson, 2005). However, this concept of business is archaic and medieval. Today, most of the businesses have developed their own philosophies, which although not exactly philanthropic, but contains a broad social and human vision, and attempts to see business activities as integral part of comprehensive human functions. Modern business is as much based on cardinal principle of profit maximization as on the neo-thoughts of values, morals and ethics. The foundation of business world is on ethics of honesty and commitment where contacts are honored, promises are maintained, and rights of property are observed. Observing ethical values and practices indeed brings positive results as ethical companies face less problems, less litigation and less regulations (Guy, 1990). Corporate Values and corporate culture Ethics are not stand-alone concepts or abstract morals that are hung on wall for ocular delights. They are values and best practices that should be embedded in the working culture that corporations, in their attempts to promote business ethics and best practices, should ensure that their employees are well aware of the values and principles that the corporation aims to pursue. The concept of organizational culture has emerged as most enduring and successful business concept in the ethical dimensions (Bjerke,1999). Business managers, academicians, and corporate leaders all agree that organizational culture as a part of business strategy is crucialfor a firm to maintain and sustain the high standards of operation, decision making and future planning while ensuring expansion, innovation, and entrepreneurship (Oden, 1997). The role of organizational culture, in promoting ethical behavior and establishing organization wide accepted norms and working principles is paramount and it is recognized in the corporate quarters, that evolving a healthy organizational culture is probably the best method to create ethical, value based, principled and visionary business practices (Swanson, 2005). Modifying Organizational behavior An organization is a product of the values and ethics its employees carry in and employ to attain the organization’s goal. The eventual success of an organization is realized not through manipulation of material resources, but on the ability of the organization to understand the human factor involved with it. This led to the concept of the organizational behavior (OB) that studies the human behavior in the organizations to help employees develop a better work related understanding of their surrounding, their co-workers and eventually about themselves. Today organizational behavior is seen as an powerful tool that is necessary for one’s career development and success in a complex and dynamic organizational process. The essence of organizational behavior is people. It attempts to understand their aspirations, hopes, personal and professional ambitions, desire for accomplishments, all set in the dynamic context of globalization, modernity, diversity, pressure of managing home and work, electronic and communication revolutions and continuously changing aspects of business and industry that raise new and unpredictable challenges and responsibilities to the management and consequently to the workers (Harris, 1993). Organizational Culture. While the employees’ individual values and ethics define their personal approach to work and workplace, there are some shared values and modalities of behavior that each of them reflects when working together. This shared notion of values and ethics that endemic to an organization is called as the Organization’s culture. Basically organizational culture is defined as system of shared values, beliefs, actions and best practices that evolve within an organization and determine the behavior of each of its member. While organizational behavior may remain same across multiple organizations, organization’s culture is typically particular to the organization and no two organizations may share the exactly same organizational culture Managing Diversity An organization that doesn’t understands or values diversity, doesn’t understand its employees. Diversity is an inherent part of human society. It becomes more important when globalization has made organizational employees lineup multi-cultural, with people from different religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds and culture working together towards same goals and missions. Therefore it is vital that the organization values their diversity while integrating them as part of its own culture. Conclusion There is little disagreement on the challenges and difficulties in bringing about a complete reconciliation of all the elements discussed in this essay and some difference is bound to exist. However, the increasingly multi-cultured and multi-valued landscape of the world has its own coping strategies and requirements. Globalization has narrowed down the divides that formerly allowed separated existence. Today’s world is culturally congested and value crowded, where every person must create a harmony to maintain a secular balance and growth. References Bjerke, B. 1999. Business Leadership and Culture: National Management Styles in the Global Economy. Publisher: Edward Elgar. Cheltenham, England. Guy, M. E. 1990. Ethical Decision Making in Everyday Work Situations. Publisher: Quorum Books. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Harris, T. A. 1993. Applied Organizational Communication: Perspectives, Principles, and Pragmatics. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hillsdale, NJ. Levy, G. M. 1999. Resolving real estate disputes. Real Estate Issues; Chicago; Oden, H. W. 1997. Managing Corporate Culture, Innovation and Intrapreneurship. Quorum Books. Westport, CT. Rahim, M. A (2001), Managing Conflict in Organizations. Contributors: M. Afzalur: Quorum Books. Westport, CT Swanson, D. L. 2005. Business Ethics Education at Bay: Addressing a Crisis of Legitimacy. Journal Title: Issues in Accounting Education. Volume: 20. Issue: 3. Page Number: 247+.

Improving Quality to Improve Profits

Improving Quality to Improve Profits XXXXXXXX BUS 642: Business Research Methods & Tools Prof. Donna Wall September 10, 2012 ? Improving Quality to Improve Profit Public companies continuously experience pressure to increase profits for shareholders. One method of increasing profits is to reduce expenses. One expense Schlumberger management believes is totally within the company’s control is the first pass yield of their products. Specifically, Schlumberger management believed that raising the first pass yield of their product to at least 99% would result in at least a 1% increase in profit.As Fawcett & Calantone (2000) point out â€Å"quality’s relevance extends to its ability to reduce costs of defective work. Crosby estimated that the cost of quality are equivalent to 15 to 20 percent of sales revenue and argued that if quality were improved, total cost would inevitably fall, increasing firms profitability† (par. 22). As a result, Schlumberger management autho rized a study to validate their hypothesis and determine specific focus areas to place resources that will maximize the effort for achieving results.To start the validation, the research team decided to utilize the specific research process charted in Business Research Methods written by Cooper and Schindler. As Cooper and Schindler (2011) point out â€Å"good research generates dependable data that are derived by professionally conducted practices and that can be used reliably for decision making† (p. 12). Cooper and Schindler (2011) go on to state â€Å"good research follows the standard scientific method: systematic, empirically based procedures for generating replicable research† (p. 2). As a result, this particular study will follow the process of clearly define the purpose, provide process details, thoroughly plan the research design, provide high ethical standards, reveal any limitations honestly, provide adequate analysis for the decision makers, present findin gs unambiguously, justify the conclusions, and reflect the researcher’s experience. The first step in the overall process is to clearly defined purpose. To complete this step we need to answer the following questions.Question one is what is the management dilemma? Question two is what are the management questions? Question three is what are the research questions? And the forth question is what are the investigative questions? In this case, the management dilemma is how to increase profit margin. The management question is if we increase first pass yield to 99%, will profit margin increase by at least 1% given everything else stays equal? The research questions are what areas of the business should management allocate resources to improve first pass yield?The investigation questions are 1) what is the current first pass yield of our manufacturing facilities? 2) What is the first pass yield of each manufacturing facility? 3) What is the first pass yield of each product group? 4) What is the first pass yield of our incoming material from all suppliers? 5) What is the first pass yield of each active supplier? 6) What is the current profit margin? Next in the overall process is to create an operational definition for the study. In this particular study specific definitions are needed.For consistency, we will utilize the Association for Operations Management (or APICS) definitions for operating profit and first pass yield. APICS defines profit margin as â€Å"the difference between the sales and cost of goods sold for an organization. † According to APICS first pass yield is defined as â€Å"the ration of products that conform to specifications without rework or modification to total input. † This definition will be used in our manufacturing facilities as well as incoming material from our suppliers.Other terms that need to be defined for clarity include Schlumberger manufacturing assembly site facility, supplier, approved supplier list, and cu rrent active suppliers. Schlumberger manufacturing site will be defined as any manufacturing or assembly site Schlumberger owns. A supplier will be defined as any company delivering components, sub-assemblies, or final products that are not owned by Schlumberger. Approved supplier list will be defined as the list of suppliers approved by Schlumberger through the Quality Manufacturing and Safety (QMS) Audit and first article processes.Current active suppliers will be defined as any supplier that has supplied components, sub-assemblies or end products to Schlumberger within the last year. Part numbers will be considered active if Schlumberger has ordered or received a part number in the last year and has a forecast or purchase order placed for delivery within the next two years. Items that are considered out of scope for this study include software, services, facilities contractors, and transportation services. Any new products not released prior to the start of this study will also b e considered out of scope for this research.The primary method of gathering data will be to analyze and consolidate the raw information currently in the corporate databases. These databases include Approved Supplier List, eQuality, Incoming Inspection, Quest, and Finance. The research team does not plan to conduct any formal surveys at this time. The research team will consist of at least one person from each of the potential stakeholders. These stakeholders will include Finance, Quality, Supply Chain Management, Procurement, Manufacturing, and Information Technology (IT).Schlumberger has several databases with significant raw data in each. The team realizes that obtaining and consolidating this information in a usable form might require the help of IT resources and potentially delay the overall results of the study. The research team plans to obtain the following information from the data available in the databases. The team will begin gathering data closest to the end customer and move upstream in the process flow to analyze the major process points along the supply chain.As a result, the team will review the current overall first pass yield for all Schlumberger manufacturing sites, each individual manufacturing site, and each product line. In addition, the research team will analyze the first pass yield at incoming inspection from the suppliers. This information will be analyzed at a global level, by supplier, and by Schlumberger manufacturing site location. The team will also determine how many suppliers are in the approved supplier database and compare this number to the current active suppliers.Since Pareto Analysis is such an important data analysis tool, this research team plans to utilize this approach as the primary method of organizing the data. As Karuppusami & Gandhinathan (2006) point out a Pareto Analysis is a QC tool that ranks the data classifications in the descending order from the highest frequency of occurrences to the lowest frequency of occurrences. The total frequency is equated to 100 percent. The â€Å"vital few† items occupy a substantial amount (80 per cent) of cumulative percentage of occurrences and the â€Å"useful many† occupy only the remaining 20 per cent of occurrences† (par. 2). Utilizing Pareto Analysis will provide an easy way to determine where to focus resources for maximum benefit. Analyzing the resource allocation and budget needs to support this study reveals we need a core team of six people, a budget of $350,000, and four months to present the teams findings. At least one team member will represent the following functions in the company. These functions include Finance, Quality, Supply Chain Management, Procurement, Manufacturing, and IT. The Finance Vice-president will be the champion of the study.Other employees will be involved as needed to complete the research. The budget includes salaries of the team members for four months, researching internal databases, potentially developing IT scripts to extract needed data and potentially visiting manufacturing facilities and suppliers to validate data or obtain additional detailed information. As in any research project, handling the study with the highest ethics is extremely important. As Cooper and Schindler (2011) point out â€Å"the goal of ethics is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffers adverse consequences from research activity† (p. 2). Cooper and Schindler (2011) go on to state â€Å"unethical activities are pervasive and include violating nondisclosure agreements, breaking participant confidentiality, misrepresenting results, deceiving people, using invoicing irregularities, avoiding legal liability, and more† (p. 32). Although this research team does not plan to conduct ‘official† surveys, the team will conduct interviews with various participants to verify the data. In each case, the research team will disclose the nature of the study before engaging participants. Although Schlumberger has a strict no retaliation policy in the company, the final research report will not include the specific employee names of Schlumberger or suppliers employees. The primary focus of the study will be following and presenting the data related to product quality and increasing profits. The research team will honor all nondisclosure agreements and report the overall facts honestly. Consistent with company and standard research policy, the highest safety practices will be used throughout the study.Consistent with the research approach, the research team analyzed the data for the company owned manufacturing sites, first. This raw data revealed Schlumberger has a total of twenty-seven company owned manufacturing sites located in nine different countries. To review the first pass yield of these facilities, the research team reviewed a total of 4,376 quality records posted during 2012. The overall first pass yield for all twenty-seven facilities is 82 percent. The thr ee facilities with the lowest first pass yields are all located in the Houston area.The three product lines with the lowest first pass yield are Pressure and Sampling (59%), Seismic (67%), and Drilling (71%). Next, the tea m began to analyze the information regarding our supplier performance. Based on the raw data, Schlumberger has a total of 5,778 approved suppliers. Of these suppliers 63% (or 3640) are considered active suppliers by definition. Of these active suppliers, twenty suppliers account for 61% of the line items delivered to the twenty-seven facilities. Three specific suppliers have the lowest first pass yield. These three suppliers are Freeport (46%), Harrison (61%), and Tenaris (63%).Based on public financial records, the current profit margin is recorded as $0. 98 per share in Q1FY12 and $1. 02 per share in Q2FY12. This translates into $1. 303 billion in Q1FY12 and $1. 40 billion in Q2FY12. A one percent increase in profit would increase earnings by just over $13 milli on per quarter. To validate the first pass yield data, the research team visited four company owned manufacturing sites each in North America, Europe, and Asia. Two of the facilities visited in each region recorded the highest first pass yields in that region.Two of the facilities visited in each region recorded the worst first pass yields in that region. During these visits, the research team took a tour of each facility, conducted an audit of the quality records and interviewed key members of each manufacturing team including the Process Engineers, Quality Engineers, Incoming Inspection and Finished Goods Inventory Warehouse Managers. During the audit, the research team reviewed each facilities documented processes, actual processes utilized and the data recorded in the quality database.To the research team’s surprise, the methods utilized in each of the facilities were not consistent – either documented or in actual practice. The North American and European faciliti es utilized and practiced the definition of first pass yield consistent with the research team’s definition. However, the Asian manufacturing facilities did not record the actual first pass yield per our definition. Instead, if a product failed testing, the Asian facilities would retest the product. If the product passed testing during the second or even the third test and passed, they recorded a positive first pass quality yield.The finding of inconsistent data records in the Asian facilities weakened the confidence in the raw data analyzed previously. However, it did uncover an opportunity to strengthen the company’s overall processes. In summary, the raw data suggests Houston manufacturing facilities have the three low yields of the twenty-seven in total. However, these facilities might not be the lowest yields because the research team uncovered inconsistencies in the data collection definition and process between the Asian manufacturing facilities and the European or North American facilities.As a result, a further study is recommended of the Asian facilities to determine how significant the overall raw data is skewed by them utilizing a different process to collect and record first pass yield. At the same time resources should be placed in the Houston facilities to raise the first pass yield from the current low level to 99%. Since the data and process for collecting and recording the data for the supplier first pass yield is consistent, the research team is confident in the results achieved.It is the recommendation of the research team to focus resources on the three lowest yielding suppliers. These resources should conduct a more detailed analysis to uncover the Pareto Analysis of the top defects. Once the top three defects are determined, the root cause and appropriate corrective actions can be determined to raise the first pass yield to the appropriate levels. Reviewing the financial evidence suggests a 1% increase in profit is achievab le if the overall first pass yield of Schlumberger manufacturing facilities rises to 99%.To achieve this high yield levels quickly, the company will need a systematic and consistent approach across all facilities and suppliers. One such process to consider is implementing a combined Lean and Six Sigma continuous improvement approach in each manufacturing facility and with our suppliers. Since determining the cost of implementing Lean and Six Sigma process is out of scope for this research team, a further study would be needed to determine the cost of implementing significant process improvement verse the potential 1% benefit per quarter.Throughout this research the team worked well together. Having a process to follow made the overall activities much easier to accomplish in a systematic way. All members believed the success of this study was largely due to the planning at the beginning of the process. To keep the project on track, it was important to define exactly what activities w ere in the scope of the project and what was considered of of scope. When the team uncovered inconsistencies, in data collection or processes, we were able to document the information an continue progress toward the overall goal.Now that this study is complete the information will be recorded in our company Quest database for future reference. References APICS deifinitions First Pass Yield http://www. apics. org/dictionary/dictionary-information? ID=1543 Profit Margin http://www. apics. org/dictionary/dictionary-information? ID=3188 Cooper, D. R. and Schindler, P. S. (2011). Business research methods (11th ed. ). New York : McGraw-Hill Irwin Fawcett, S. E. , & Calantone, R. J. (2000).Meeting quality and cost imperatives in a global market. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 30(6), 472-499. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/232588532? accountid=32521 Karuppusami, G. , & Gandhinathan, R. (2006). Pareto analysis of critical success factors of total quality management. The TQM Magazine, 18(4), 372-385. doi: 10. 1108/09544780610671048. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/227643251/fulltext/13911EA989455E63FDD/3? accountid=32521