Flexible Manufacturing System – Definition, Process and Features

A Flexible Manufacturing System(FMS) is a manufacturing system in which there is a certain degree of flexibility that allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. Flexibility is the speed at which a system can react to and accommodate change. To be considered flexible, the flexibility must exist during the entire life cycle of a product, from design to manufacturing to distribution. Flexible Manufacturing System is a computer-controlled system that can produce a variety of parts or products in any order, without the time-consuming task of changing machine setups. The flexibility being talked about is generally considered to fall into two categories, which both contain numerous subcategories. The first category, Machine Flexibility, covers the system’s ability to be changed to produce new product types, and ability to change the order of operations executed on a part. The second category is called Routing Flexibility, which Continue reading

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Source of Competitive Advantage

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means that a corporation should be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities and their environment; it may require a company to forgo some profits if its social impacts are seriously harmful to the corporation’s stakeholders or if its funds can be used to promote a positive social good. Tougher competition recently has compelled the firms to adopt something that is different from their rivals and has also put a pressure on the firms to examine their philanthropy and other social activities, by doing so the company can sometimes achieve a strategic advantage over its competitors. There is a business case for CSR but it is much less important or influential than many proponents of civil regulation believe, CSR is best understood as a niche rather than a generic strategy: it makes business sense for some firms in some areas in Continue reading

Objectives and Scope of Internal Audit

Internal audit is and self-governing assessment function established by the management of an organisation for the review of the internal control system as a service to the organisation. It separately examines, evaluates and reports on the sufficiency of internal control as a involvement to the correct, economic and successful use of resources Scope of Internal Auditing The possibility of internal auditing currently embraces wider concepts of community governance: risk and power – recognizing that organize exists within an organization basically to manage risk and advance valuable governance  . The most significant vary is that the internal auditors are estimated to modify their mindset: from faultfinders to advisers. Internal auditors should take care of the auditee as their consumer. As with a client, the internal auditor should obviously communicate with the auditee, engage management in the audit development process, consider organizational risks that are prospective areas of audit anxiety, work with Continue reading

Case Study: Pfizer’s Strategy Analysis

Business-Level Strategy Pfizer, Inc. has chosen the value creation alternative of differentiation. Differentiation forces Pfizer to increase costs, resulting in an increase in product price, and most importantly an increase in customer perceived value. Pfizer’s differentiation can be achieved by producing high-quality, innovative drugs which require extensive research and development as well as patent protection. For example, Pfizer spent approximately eight billion dollars on 100 research and development projects in 2018.  Furthermore, Pfizer, Inc.’s business-level strategy is known as broad differentiation. This strategy enables Pfizer to serve a large market while still creating value through its differentiation. A key tradeoff associated with a differentiation strategy, although creating a high perceived value of the brand, is the implementation of a high-cost structure. A high-cost structure demands that consumers pay premium prices for its products, which can be unattractive to some. It is near impossible to provide a low-cost yet differentiated product Continue reading

Case Study- “Entry of LIC into Banking: Is it a Wise Decision?”

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is a long-term player with long-term resources garnered at a low cost. It has chosen Corporation Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce, for investments in their equity shares. These two public sector banks have the distinction of turning out superlative performance. The business per employee and intermediation costs for these two banks are the lowest in the industry. So are there Non-Performing Assets. Corporation bank incidentally, is the only public sector bank, where the recent voluntary retirement schemes has not been implemented, as it does not have any excess staff to be sent out. In the Mangalore based Corporation bank are perhaps the biggest gambles over undertaken by the two giants. That, despite the state banks status as one of the best-managed bank in the country. Competition is intense in both domence at last count there were 19 public sectors, 34 private sectors, and Continue reading

Training and Development – Meaning, Definition and Need

Meaning of Training and Development Training typically involves providing the employees the knowledge and skills needed to do a particular task or a job through attitude change. It is concerned with imparting and developing specific skills for a particular purpose. For example, Flippo has defined training as “the act of increasing the skills of an employee for doing a particular job”. Thus, training is a process of learning a sequence of programmed behavior. This behavior, being programmed, is relevant to a specific phenomenon, that is, a job. The term development refers broadly to the nature and direction of change induced in employees, particularly managerial personnel through the process of training and educative process. National Industrial Conference Board has defined development as “Managerial Development is all those activities and programmes when recognized and controlled, have substantial influence in changing the capacity of the individual to perform his assignment better and in Continue reading