Supply Chain Automotive Industry Essay Example

Supply Chain Automotive Industry Paper Abstract While sometimes characterized as â€Å"stable† the World automotive industry continues to experience dynamic change—change that sweeps across national borders. These changes have struck in particular, the U. S and the Japanese automotive industries. To succeed, auto manufacturers must manage large and complex supply chains, spanning many geographic regions, and pursue opportunities in diverse national markets. While national policies play an important role in shaping the environment for local manufacturing operations and resulting products, cost competition increasingly drives the industry toward global product offerings. This report explores several important dimensions of the forces of change facing the U. S. and the Japanese auto industry. We will present a comparison between the Asian and North American automobile manufacturing practices and in particular, the two companies, Ford and Honda Motors. A comparison will be made between the two markets on how each handles product varieties, their delivery methods from the factory to consumers, as well as the markets channels used. A comprehensive study is made to compare the automobile product varieties in the two regions and explain how customer choices and the effect of competition have led to this diversification in the products. The importance of marketing channels has gone largely unnoticed. For this purpose, marketing channel strategies will be discussed in detail. The relationships among suppliers, customers and logistics service providers will also be analyzed, in other words, the sourcing and the in-bound supply strategies. North America Asian ? Ford Motors â€Å"Ford Taurus† ?Honda Motor â€Å"Honda Accord† Table 1: North American and Asian automakers to be analyzed in this project These two models have been chosen based on the annual report posted at the corporate sites for both companies. Honda Corporate site shows that Honda Accord achieved its highest sales recently. The choice of Ford Taurus comes from the many similarities it has with Honda Accord concerning its size, price and de mands. iii 1. Introduction U. S. Sales of Honda Automobiles (by Model) We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Automotive Industry specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Automotive Industry specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Supply Chain Automotive Industry specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Worldwide vehicle production ability is growing today more rapidly than it has in the last 20 or 30 years, and this has interesting implications for the world’s auto makers. Clearly most automobile manufacturers are very optimistic about the willingness of consumers to buy up this capacity. While environmental issues exist, they are not being factored into investment decisions about increases in car production capacity. At present, the world has the capability of producing 15 to 20 million more vehicles than it is currently buying. The last four years have been extraordinary for U. S. auto companies, earning them every year between 13 and 14 billion dollars. This is not bad financial performance for an industry that was viewed as dead in 1990, when both GM and Chrysler were on the verge of filing bankruptcy. This year again will be an outstanding year both for Ford and GM. In examining how the Japanese and U. S. auto industries have changed and adjusted to adversity, we find that the turnaround of the Japanese industry has had more to do with the value of the currency than it has had to do with fundamental change for several companies. While Japanese automobile companies have suffered fairly staggering losses over the last few years, both 2001 and 2002 showed improvement because of the stronger dollar. What happened to Japanese manufacturers during the bubble economy? First, all had huge, very unrealistic expectations about where the Japanese market was going. Japan is as saturated with motor vehicles as the United States, and yet during the last few years virtually every Japanese automaker built another factory to expand capacity and maintain market share. Companies rationalized this massive increase in capacity by believing that somehow their company’s market share would grow and another company’s market share would shrink. But that theory works only if there are other companies around willing to give up market share. This, of course, is no longer the case; the world has changed and it has changed very dramatically. ?1 In the case of the U. S. industry, however, substantial fundamental changes have occurred within the automobile companies themselves, allowing them to reduce excess capacity and in the process adjust their break-even points. Over the last decade and a half, for example, Ford has closed enough capacity and start to invade the Japanese markets. In terms of productivity in the factory, Japanese also have benefited from very close relationships with suppliers. In fact, they were able to get new cars on the market every four years, mainly because their suppliers were linked to the automobile company in familial relationships that entrusted the supplier to do a great deal of the engineering work for the manufacturer. In effect, the Japanese shifted a lot of their fixed costs onto their suppliers and became variable cost assemblers. That has been hard to replicate outside Japan because U. S. automobile companies were very highly vertically integrated. But companies such as GM and Ford are no longer as vertically integrated. The company is getting rid of this business, pushing the engineering responsibilities onto their suppliers. In sum, supplier relationships in the United States are firming up and look very much like the structure in Japan. Parts manufacturers now have specific expertise and technical capability to absorb engineering work from the auto companies. As a result, companies are now looking to five-year product cycles. Suddenly what factors things that have distinguished Japanese auto manufacturers in the past and enabled them to gain market share are being matched by U. S. and European companies. So what constitutes competitive advantage? For a long time the Japanese were able to offset their excess capacity at home with higher exports throughout the world but that export potential is no longer there, especially with regard to the developed markets of North America and Western Europe. And in most markets of the developing world, the growth of home auto industries has hampered the ability of Japanese manufacturers to shift surplus capacity away from Japan. Even though exports are up substantially this year because of the weak yen, they are no where near the levels of a few years ago and certainly not high enough to absorb the excess capacity. Another trend influencing the automotive industry is consumer preference for certain features. Consumers are choosing safety (e. g. , airbags, antilock brake systems) with amenities (e. g. air conditioners, powerful engines, power steering, and compact disc players) over vehicles whose primary appeal is size and interior space. Factors influencing customer choices are performance, suitability to personal needs, and family lifestyle, safety, comfort, and appearance. Consumers are showing a taste for the practical, as embodied in the Toyota Camry and the Ford Taurus, both top sellers in the medium price range. Japanese automaker s, however, have 2 increased market share in the United States through new â€Å"luxury† nameplates: Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura. In addition, previously â€Å"compact† models such as Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord have become larger and more luxurious. One of the most critical issues for the automotive industry today is competitiveness in cost, quality, and product offerings. Companies cannot survive in today’s market if they neglect any of these areas. Since that time, differences between the United States and Japan in productivity and quality have shrunk and effectively disappeared in new product development lead time, pointing to a dramatic overall improvement in the competitive position. Trends in the practices of the foreign competitors show an important part of the overall picture. Japanese trends show a strong emphasis on total product quality (e. g. , Honda, Infiniti), perhaps at the expense of lead time and development productivity (total engineering hours per development project). However, in part because of the rise in the value of the yen, the pendulum between â€Å"cost is no object† quality and cost-effectiveness is rapidly swinging toward the latter. Nevertheless, the Japanese demonstrate a strong command of the link between product design and lean production. The automobile is one of the most complex consumer products in existence. The automotive manufacturing process serves as the â€Å"moment of truth† for the entire design, development, supply chain, and manufacturing process. If the parts do not fit when the manufacturer attempts to put them together, the system has a defect that must be tracked down and eliminated. Thus, auto companies focus a great deal of attention on understanding and improving the manufacturing process. Across the world auto industry, the differences in regional averages in quality, productivity, and diversity are declining. Within regions, however, the variance in performance is high, with large gaps between the best and worst plants. Quality performance trends are similar to those for productivity. Much of the quality gap between Japanese companies and their American and European competitors has been closed. However, the variation among plants in each regional group is large. The greatest improvement is shown by European plants and by Ford plants in North America. While this improvement closed much of the quality gap with Japanese competitors, Japanese plants improved in Japan and in North America. The North American transplants have eliminated any gap in quality performance with their sister plants in Japan. As far as talking about the flexibility in manufacturing, the strategic advantages (the ability to assemble multiple product lines in a single plant) have been widely discussed over the past 3 decade. Companies that are able to produce a variety of products in their manufacturing plants have a number of advantages. Such plants are an important resource for a company with a product development strategy of high variety. In addition, flexibility enables plants to respond more effectively to changes in their competitive environment. The manufacturing plants with the highest levels of product variety have typically been those that produce many different models for export— Japanese plants in Japan and European plants. Ford plants in North America have typically been dedicated to one or a few models. The Japanese transplants started their operations in North America with low product variety while they established their production system philosophy and have slowly increased variety over time. The Japanese and U. S. utomotive industries operate differently. Japanese manufacturers typically ask suppliers regardless of location or national origin-to assume more responsibility for engineering design. In many cases, the Japanese automakers do not own patent rights to the designs for the parts they use, so that the parts suppliers must be quite specific. By contrast, American automakers usually provide d etailed designs and ask suppliers to bid on a part. We come here to the most important point in our project; the supply chain policies. The world’s automotive manufacturing sector consists primarily of about 20 very large multinational corporations. The automotive supply sector, however, comprises thousands of firms ranging in size from a few employees to more than 100,000. Drawing conclusions about such a large and diverse sector is much more difficult than for the manufacturing sector. Best practice in automotive supply chain management involves close, trusting relationships with long-standing suppliers that are intimately involved with the development and production of the components and subsystems they provide. In the past five years, Chrysler has aggressively incorporated those findings into its modus operandi, GM has largely rejected that hilosophy, and Ford has settled somewhere in between. On the surface, the advice to improve partnerships along the supply chain, drawn largely from Japanese practices, seems to have significantly helped Ford on its return to growth and profitability. At the same time, Honda insists on exerting extreme price pressure on its suppliers and aggressively negotiating division of the returns to innovations in supplied parts and subsystems. Automotive distribution and retailing were once given little attention because they were viewed as adjunct to the core business of engineering and manufacturing vehicles. However, in the past several decades, the pressures on the industry to make its factories and product development processes more efficient have spilled over into the distribution and retailing (post manufacturing) sectors—cutting profit margins and causing significant restructuring in the 4 distribution and retail industry base. This restructuring, although quite significant, has attracted much less attention than the manufacturing sector’s changes because it involves no dramatic dislocation of people, jobs, or economic base. These downstream segments of the supply chain are experiencing a shift from being capital intensive (focused on inventory investment) and people intensive (sales forces) to being more information intensive (having the right vehicle in the right place at the right time). Due to greater flexibility of labor and capital in the post manufacturing markets, this conversion from physical logistics to information logistics is shifting the power and leverage in the supply chain toward economic agents that are highly entrepreneurial and flexible. These economic forces have reduced the number of dealers in the United States (now approximately 22,000) and are expected to continue doing so. More important than the absolute dealer count is the trend toward segmentation of the many industries that make up distribution. Unlike the small group of relatively tightly organized supply chains, the post manufacturing sector is a much looser collection of organizations that are not so centrally focused around the automaker. The combination of high national productivity and the relative decrease in value of the dollar against the yen and the deutsche mark has made the United States a more attractive manufacturing site for foreign automakers. This development has provided a new source of investment, jobs, and training for Americans. Moreover, the transplant assemblers are significantly influencing the U. S. automotive supply base, both by encouraging traditional Japanese and German suppliers to set up transplant operations and by inciting the traditional U. S. suppliers to become more competitive. These improvements to the supply base, driven in part by the Japanese transplants, in turn benefit the American automobile manufacturing companies. The Japanese-transplant assemblers in North America have continued to expand their production and are now approaching a volume of three million cars and light trucks per year. The transplants represent an enormous positive economic impact for the United States, compared with having that many vehicles imported from Japan, for example. These investments have helped the Japanese companies as well, which would be in far deeper trouble had they not diversified their manufacturing base outside the high-priced labor and parts markets in Japan. The displacement of the automobile manufacturing industries employment and production with transplant production is more difficult to assess. In the main, it has decreased the financial and market dominance of the American auto industry, although none are currently threatened with survival concerns. It has also affected the geography of automotive employment within the United States. The combination of high national productivity and the relative decrease in value of the dollar against the yen and the deutsche mark has made the United States a more attractive 5 manufacturing site for foreign automakers. This development has provided a new source of investment, jobs, and training for Americans. Moreover, the transplant assemblers are significantly influencing the U. S. automotive supply base, both by encouraging traditional Japanese and German suppliers to set up transplant operations and by inciting the traditional U. S. suppliers to become more competitive. Japanese companies have constructed manufacturing facilities in many industries in the United States, including the automobile and electronics industries in recent years. However, it is the automobile parts industry that is currently perceived as being under siege. Nearly 50 Japanese automotive parts suppliers have constructed facilities here since 1979, most of them clustered around new Japanese automobile assembly plants in California, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Hundreds more suppliers are reportedly planning American plants in the next few years and local governments throughout the United States are competing vigorously for them. Local government officials view the Japanese plants as a major source of investment, employment, and tax revenues for their communities. However, despite the warm welcome given the Japanese parts manufacturers by local communitiesand especially by the unemployed in those communitiesthey are resented by some of their American competitors. A subgroup of American auto parts manufacturers feels it is being discriminated against by U. S. -based Japanese automakers that prefer to purchase some of their parts from Japanese suppliers. In short, the industry subgroup feels it is being discriminated against because it is American, not because it cannot produce auto parts as well as Japanese companies can. In America, Honda introduced just-in-time parts delivery and rolling-model changes, which allows production of the old model right up until production of the new model begins. This approach continues to put customers first. The truth is that the customers will not just drive Hondas – they will drive Honda with their expectations. Another Honda difference is their flexibility. Honda plants have always been able to build more than one model on the same line. Recently Honda implemented an even more flexible manufacturing system that increases the speed and efficiency when introducing new models. Honda’s New Manufacturing System does this by standardizing production capabilities among its plants worldwide. This makes the shift within a plant to new model production less complex and more cost efficient.

Free Essays on Home Networking

Home Network Design & Installation â€Å"The Complete Home Office† Introduction Today, many companies are taking advantage of current Information System technology by connecting a workplace to the home office. A carefully designed home office network can provide a secure connection to a common private network and the Internet. This will increase productivity in companies’ across the globe. Worldwide communication can be established between remote locations and main offices through phone lines, cable systems, satellite connections, and wireless technologies. The three phases in setting up a home network are: design, installation, and administration. In phase I, the design, system requirements are determined based on the applications and the required speed of the network. Once the system requirements are established, the network equipment is selected along with the computer workstations. In phase II, the equipment is installed and connected through the network. The home network can be connected through category 5 wire, existing phone lines, and or wireless transmitters and receivers. A firewall is connected between the home office and the outside world. The firewall will protect your network from hackers trying to access your network. In phase III, the computer systems are tested for correct operation in the network environment. This phase includes system administration for the network. A home office requires system administration similar to that in the work place. User accounts can be established to monitor and control access to workers or family members. The Benefits of a Home Office The numerous benefits for establishing a networked home office are becoming more apparent to the business world of the new millennium. Many companies are allowing certain employees to work at home. In a study by Sage Research, John Borden states that An amazing 75% of respondents agree that telecommuting allows their organizations to retain ... Free Essays on Home Networking Free Essays on Home Networking Home Network Design & Installation â€Å"The Complete Home Office† Introduction Today, many companies are taking advantage of current Information System technology by connecting a workplace to the home office. A carefully designed home office network can provide a secure connection to a common private network and the Internet. This will increase productivity in companies’ across the globe. Worldwide communication can be established between remote locations and main offices through phone lines, cable systems, satellite connections, and wireless technologies. The three phases in setting up a home network are: design, installation, and administration. In phase I, the design, system requirements are determined based on the applications and the required speed of the network. Once the system requirements are established, the network equipment is selected along with the computer workstations. In phase II, the equipment is installed and connected through the network. The home network can be connected through category 5 wire, existing phone lines, and or wireless transmitters and receivers. A firewall is connected between the home office and the outside world. The firewall will protect your network from hackers trying to access your network. In phase III, the computer systems are tested for correct operation in the network environment. This phase includes system administration for the network. A home office requires system administration similar to that in the work place. User accounts can be established to monitor and control access to workers or family members. The Benefits of a Home Office The numerous benefits for establishing a networked home office are becoming more apparent to the business world of the new millennium. Many companies are allowing certain employees to work at home. In a study by Sage Research, John Borden states that An amazing 75% of respondents agree that telecommuting allows their organizations to retain ...

Purdue Academic Integrity Seminar Questions Research Paper

Purdue Academic Integrity Seminar Questions - Research Paper Example [d] Some core values are broadly shared among people in diverse cultures, whether it is Chinese people in 3rd century BC, because human relationships bordered on same linearity, irrespective of people and time. 2. Alan Greenspan is being realistic about the possibility of "business ethics", that too in the current business environment, because ethics in business can protect the organization from external negative influences or criticisms. If an organization indulges in unethical practices in its functioning, it can be picked by external players like its customers, government agencies, watchdogs, media, etc., and that can result in failure of its products, deterioration of its brand or ethical image, thereby leading to its eventual fall. Greenspan validates this perspective by pointing out how economic transactions of organizations are bound by codes and laws, and how all the involved parties follow it to avoid dangerous repercussions. 3. To strengthen one’s self-control, individuals can take number of constructive steps. The first one is, clearly instilling in the individual’s mind, that their mind is totally in their â€Å"control†, and no external person or aspect could physically control it. That is, in line with the perspective of Roberto Assagioli, an individual should realize that although external persons could impact his/her mind through words and actions, they cannot physically ‘inject’ their words into the individual’s mind, and so it is in the control of the individual to allow only the thoughts that are favourable for him/her. The second strategy is, even if negative and unfavourable thoughts enter an individual’s mind, he/she should minimize the time those thoughts oscillate in the mind, and should eventually eliminate. The final strategy to strengthen self-control is, the individual should move on with their life by focusing on constructive and positiv e things, instead of allowing those negative aspects to

Gilles Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control Essay

Gilles Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control - Essay Example The authority announces various ongoing crises that need to be bring about reform within the space being considered. The individual needs to accept these mechanisms of change and the rules that go along with them. The fact that each individual passes through the systems as an independent variable that starts from zero only increases their control over the individual. It produces them even more as subject. While society is now more complex, and many people's lives are less obviously controlled than they used to be, Deleuze argues that the same systems are in fact in place. Thus while Nineteenth century people were controlled by machines such as clocks and pulleys, people are now controlled by computers in a more subtle and yet almost more pernicious manner. The easily identifiable "spaces" of school, factory, army that once existed have now been transformed into what Deleuze calls an "open circuit". This open circuit produces "coded figures" that are "deformable and transformable" - through entities such as the corporation individuals are rendered subjects wherever they go. They are controlled by the debts that they owe to these corporations rather than the physical walls of the factories that most people no longer work in. Control is no longer direct and obvious but rather indirect and diffused. As Deleuze puts it, with a hint of humorous irony, "we are taught that corporations have a soul, which is the most terrifying news in the world." It is terrifying because it shows that corporations have taken on a mystical place within society, and their power spreads like a virus through every one of its institutions. The individual cannot avoid being a subject if he/she chooses to have any contact at all within this society. Before there was a way of countering the control, of even rebelling against the raw control represented by the factor clock or the prison walls; but now the clock is found within the invisible, constantly running time of a computer and the walls have gone to be replaced by the diffused power of the modern world. Deleuze finally argues that the "control environment" of science fiction actually already exists, through the "human in a corporation, as with an electronic collar". This is an example of "the progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination." It is so powerful in defining the subject because it is so difficult to actual define and locate in and of itself. In the past a worker could walk out of a factory and, if he so chose, not return. The worker may leave his work today, but that would only be a way of transferring the sphere of power over him from one to another. Ultimately, Deleuze suggests that the modern form of control is like "the coils of a serpent", and these are much more complex than the "burrows of a molehill" that people once existed within. Thus the old industrial societies defined people as subject through a very obvious system that, while powerful, could be broken because it was so obvious. To stretch his metaphor, one only had to stick one's nose out of the molehill to see that there was a different world waiting upon our escape. But the coils of the serpent are everywhere, diffuse and yet omnipresent. Individuals may feel that they can define themselves as subject because

Annual report Project Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Annual report Project - Assignment Example The employees at the organization work with partners at the enhancement of the lives of citizens everyday globally. The latest financial annual report for the company is for the year 2013 and it has an ending date for the fiscal year as 29th December, 2013. The company’s core business is in the pharmacy health care provision business and currently it has an integrated offerings spectrum across the pharmacy care spectrum. Thus, it seeks at the effective management of pharmaceutical costs and improving the outcomes of the health care through a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) program. This is centered on the fact that most people are overwhelmed by the ever rising costs in health care; thus, becoming confused. For instance, in 2013 alone, the company’s business delivered an outstanding performance in the pharmaceutical segment through its key strengths such as in the sale of key brands like over-the-counter (OTC) medicine and a continual progress in the integration of the Synthes, Inc. into its Medical Devices and Diagnostics business. Largely, the company has three main business segments: Pharmaceutical, Consumer and Medical Devices Diagnostics. Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies has a wide geographical coverage that spans mainly in the US, but, it also has a global coverage centered on the achievement of global health standards. It has more than 275 companies that operate in more than 60 countries, in the world. In achieving this, the company has set itself as the largest and diverse company in the offering of medical devices and diagnostics, the sixth largest consumer health company and the fifth largest company globally in biologics. The name of the company’s accountant or auditor is known as PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as was appointed in the latest annual general meeting. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, as an independent

UK Precious and Non-ferrous Metals Market Size

UK Precious and Non-ferrous Metals Market Size BASIC PRECIOUS AND NON-FERROUS METALS IN UK – ANALYSIS Headlines Basic precious and non-ferrous metals market size in the UK contracted by 7% in 2013 due to decrease in aluminium, gold, silver, platinum and copper prices 51% increase in industry’s turnover was driven by the growing demand from automotive industry accounting for 14% of B2B purchases and aircraft and spacecraft industry accounting for 8% In 2013 a new Scrap Metal Dealers Act has been introduced implementing more effective licensing for scrap dealers and extending the ban for buying scrap for cash in order to decrease the level of metal theft Basic precious and non-ferrous metals production in the UK is expected to grow by marginal less than 1% over 2013-2019 due to growing volumes of precious metals and increasing prices of platinum and palladium Market Trends The basic precious and non-ferrous metals market in UK contracted by 7.3% in 2013 to  £12.9 billion. The market shrunk due to the declining global prices of basic metals including aluminium, copper and precious metals. Motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers accounted for 14% of purchases in industry in 2013. The latter share experienced a 17% growth over 2013. In 2013 UK car production increased by 5% whereas sales grew by 10% respectively.[1] Higher vehicle production and increasing use of aluminium determined that aluminium accounted for the largest share – 32% of the UK market in 2013 totalling in  £4.1 billion. Its share increased by 22% over the year. Automotive industry gained from lower aluminium prices as it decreased by 8.7% to a US$1,847 per metric ton in the end of 2013[2]. Decline was experienced due to the surplus of global production as demand for aluminium in China and Eurozone has slowed down.[3] Market structure of metal ores has been changing permanently as demand of aluminium in UK automotive industry continued to increase. Automotive companies have been looking into ways to reduce CO2 emissions in order to comply with new EU standards. Aluminium is a solution to reduce vehicle weight and improve emissions. As a consequence in 2013 Land Rover announced construction of new plant for production of aluminium chassis that will cost GBP1.5 billion signalling new era for automotive industry raw material suppliers. Growing automotive industry in UK has positively affected the demand for platinum and palladiums as these precious metals are used in production of auto catalysts. The global price of the platinum declined by 10% due to the surplus in the market.[4] Palladium global price increased by 2% as palladium experienced a 7th year of deficit in the market.[5]Due to the improving economic performance in the UK and increasing customer trust, precious metals recorded a 36% drop in the value of its market size. Growing strength in equities decreased the demand for precious metals that has been viewed as a reliable substitute for the investment earlier.[6] Global price of gold bullion decreased by 26% to US$1,235 per troy ounce. The silver was no exception as the price fell by 36%[7] and reached US$19.6 an ounce.[8] Copper’s market size in UK dropped by 11% accounting for 15% of the total market size of the industry in 2013. Its value stood at  £1.9 billion. The fall was driven by the decline in international copper price that dropped to US$7,332 per metric ton in December 2013 recording a decline of 7.9%.[9] This was due to the slowdown in China’s economy and growing stocks of copper which reached their peak since 2003 in London’s Metal Exchange.[10] Aircraft and spacecraft industry accounted for 8% of the purchases in the industry after increase of 14%. The UK is the second largest civil aerospace sector in the world after the US exporting approximately 75% of its production.[11]Aerospace industry contributes 8% to the UK’s GDP on average. Therefore, in 2013 the Government announced a funding of  £2.1 billion towards saving over 100,000 workplaces in the aerospace sector boosting the aerospace industry and demand of metals generated by it.[12] In 2013 industry’s imports accounted for 86% of the UK’s basic precious and non-ferrous metals market. The value of imports grew by 26% and totalled to  £17.3 billion over the year. Precious metals accounted for 41% of imports and made largest share after a 51% growth over 2013. The main reason for growth was soaring 11 times higher exports of gold to Switzerland and China.[13] Production Trends Domestic production of basic and non-ferrous metals recorded a 51% growth over 2013 totalling to  £9.2 billion. Precious metals accounted for 44% of the turnover experiencing an astonishing 99% increase over the year. Aluminium also recorded a 30% growth in its turnover accounting for 18% of total industry’s turnover. Production of precious metals almost doubled and totalled to  £4 billion in 2013 due to the soaring exports of gold over 2013. In addition, the production was supported by growing automotive industry in UK and the world as platinum and palladium are used in production of auto catalysts. The growth of aluminium turnover was determined by increase in volume as prices of aluminium in global market declined by 8.7% in the end of 2013. The price decreased due to oversupply of aluminium as the demand growth in the main aluminium consumption markets, China and Eurozone, has slowed down. The increase was also driven by the growth of housing sector in the UK which in turn recorded an increase due to the government stimulus program and foreign investments. [14] UK’s metal recycling industry is the most advanced recycle segment in the country worth  £5.6 billion. Approximately 13 million tons of scrap metal is being processed annually[15]. In December, 2013 new Scrap Metal Dealers Act has been introduced replacing the one valid since 1964. According to it, more effective licensing for scrap dealers will be implemented and a ban to buy scrap for cash will be extended to decrease the level of metal thievery in the country.[16] Costs from mining of metal ore in the industry increased by 40% over 2013 reaching  £888 million. Costs grew due to surged demand of gold. Though electricity accounted for only 3% of the B2B costs in the industry, its share saw a 46% increase. As average price of electricity for industrial users grew by 4% over 2013, rise in costs was driven by higher quantity of metal refined. The average price grew by 6 cents (or 4 cents in real terms) accounting for 7.77 pence per kWh. From July to December the industrial price of electricity was the 4th highest in the EU15. [17] Labour costs accounted for a marginal 6% share of total costs in the industry after experiencing an increase of 17%. The increase was induced by the 12% increase in average annual wages in the industry as well as 5% increase in number of employees in 2013. Exports accounted for 85% of product output in 2013 and totalled to  £18.4 billion. It recorded an increase of 114%. The exports were concentrated with Switzerland being the main trade partner with 62% of total exports. The main reason for export growth was soaring 11 times higher exports of gold over 2013. [18] The main destination for gold was Switzerland where gold was exported to be re-melted and sold to consumers in Asia, namely China, India and UAE[19]. The industry of basic precious and nonferrous metals recorded a 126% increase in its profits which stood at  £537 million in 2013. The profitability stood at 6% of turnover. It was positively affected by increased gold exports. In addition, UK’s market players continued the reduction of their operational costs and improvement of competitiveness in the market through resource efficiency programmes and disinvestments in non-core businesses. Competitive Landscape The top 5 companies in the basic precious and non-ferrous metals industry accounted for 36% of total production in the UK in 2013. The leader was Johnson Matthey Plc – with 27% of production. The company was followed by other industry’s players accounting for a less significant share of production: Britannia Refined Metals Ltd (4%), VALE Europe Ltd (3%), Alcan Aluminum UK Ltd (1%), and KME Yorkshire Ltd (1%). Johnson Matthey Plc is a UK-based company that besides specialty in chemicals industry is engaged in recycling of precious metals, mainly platinum group. The company saw growth in all its divisions especially in department of emission control technologies as a new legislation to control emissions from heavy duty diesel vehicles has been introduced in Europe. Therefore, in 2013 the company expanded its production of diesel particulate filters in Royston, UK. Johnson Matthey Plc has also increased it manufacturing capacity of catalysts in Clitheroe, UK.[20] The company opened its new laboratory in Singapore as a part of strategy to expand its presence in Asia. As energy consumption increased by 6% over the financial year, by 2017 one of the company’s aims is to improve its resource efficiency. [21] Britannia Refined Metals Ltd, a subsidiary of Xstrata Plc, is a United Kingdom company engaged in lead and extensive range of lead alloys and silver production. Britannia Refined Metals Ltd facility is located 40 km east of London on the Thames estuary. Xstrata Plc completed the merger with Glencore International Plc in 2013. XstrataGlencore Plc future main projects are expected to be concentrated in segments of copper, nickel, zinc and lead thus providing the ability for volume growth in the upcoming years.[22] Vale Europe Ltd, a subsidiary of Vale SA, is a United Kingdom company engaged in the exploration and production of nickel in the United Kingdom. The company provides iron ores and pellets, copper, manganese, ferroalloys, aluminium, coal, fertilizers, cobalt, precious metals, and logistic services. In the United Kingdom Vale operates precious metals refinery in Acton, Greater London and nickel refinery in Clydach, Wales. In 2013 in order to improve its operations, the company started the partnership with geological research centre British Geological Survey.[23] In addition, as of 2013, the company announced plans to expand its operations in Brazil by adding 160,000 jobs and investing USD63.5 billion by 2016. Alcan Aluminum UK Ltd, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto PLC is a United Kingdom company, which is engaged in production of aluminium. Rio Tinto PLC operates smelters located in the United Kingdom in Lochaber and Lynemouth. The company was active in its global cost reductions through disinvestments therefore underlying earnings grew by US$ 392 million over 2013. However, recent proposals for warehousing rules from LME are expected to put a pressure on company’s regional earnings.[24] It has also informed about plans to invest C$14.8 million in a smelting site in Quebec, Canada in September, 2014. KME Yorkshire Ltd is engaged in manufacturing of various copper tubes like plain, plastics coated and special finish. The company has sold copper plumbing tubes manufacturing business in Liverpool, UK for  £18 million to Mueller Europe Ltd in February, 2014. After the deal, KME Yorkshire Ltd is expected to continue to handle all commercial activities of KME Group in UK.[25] Prospects Basic precious and non-ferrous metals production in the UK is anticipated to increase by less than 1% over the period of 2013-2019. The growth will be mainly driven by 1% increase in production of precious metals. Anticipated growth of platinum and palladium prices is expected to boost the industry further. Production of precious metals will decline by 14% in 2014 as mainly production of gold stabilizes after a surge. The industry will revert back to normal level after a gold bullion demand shock originated in China. The decline will be reassured by 2.5% in gold price, 19% silver and 12% decrease in platinum price. Vehicle production is expected to grow by 2.6% in 2014 due to increase in quantity. Consequently, demand of metals will increase with aluminium in the lead. Growth of aluminium demand will also be driven by tightening CO2 emission requirements and increasing demand of fuel efficient vehicles. Though, demand of fuel economy might slightly decline as fuel prices decline in second half of 2014 but regulations will still require a decline of emissions. Automotive industry will slightly boost precious metals segment as demand for platinum and palladium grows. Aircraft industry in UK is expected to decline by 2.6% in 2014 causing lower demand of aluminium. The increasing use of composites instead of aluminium in manufacture of airplanes will further deteriorate aluminium market causing a total of 10% decline in aluminium production in 2014 despite increasing demand from automotive industry [1] [2] France 272 [3] http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-05-20/news/39393012_1_aluminium-production-tonnes-10-6-kg [4] http://www.kitco.com/news/2014-05-02/Platinum-Price-To-Average-1457Oz-In-2014-Palladium-793-GFMS.html [5] http://www.lppm.com/statistics.aspx?comm=ptt=dailyy=2013 [6] http://www.cnbc.com/id/101253055#. [7] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-surges-20-silver-rebounds-after-dismal-2013-2014-01-02 [8] http://moneymorning.com/2015/01/02/silver-prices-this-year-fell-20-heres-why/?gated_signup=truegateType=2 [9] France 272 [10] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/copper-prices-falling-on-china-slowdown-europe-concerns-1-.html [11] http://www.theengineer.co.uk/aerospace/in-depth/reasons-to-be-cheerful-about-the-uk-aerospace-sector/1017274.article [12] http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/07/apc-20130712.html [13] https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/uk-gold-exports-022020142 [14] http://www.out-law.com/articles/2014/january/uk-construction-industry-optimistic-of-growth-in-2014-but-experts-warn-of-unsustainable-recovery/ [15] http://www.local.gov.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=7ca891f9-228e-47b9-a561-d6953d660597groupId=10180 [16] http://onlinenewsroom.co.uk/bmra/uncategorized/metals-recycling-industry-welcomes-%E2%80%98new-era%E2%80%99/ [17] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296011/QEP_March_2014.pdf p.9,29, 34 [18] https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/uk-gold-exports-022020142 [19] http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/19/uk-gold-uk-exports-macquarie-idUKBRE97I0PQ20130819 [20] http://www.advfn.com/news_Johnson-Matthey-PLC-Half-Yearly-Report_60113845.html [21] http://www.matthey.com/documents/pdfs/2013_14/annual-report/jm-ar-2014.pdf p.3,4,12,13 [22] http://www.glencore.com/assets/investors/doc/reports_and_results/2013/GLEN-2013-Annual-Report.pdf p.198,46 [23] http://www.vale.com/en/aboutvale/across-world/pages/default.aspx [24] http://www.riotinto.com/annualreport2013/performance/aluminium.html [25] http://www.kme.com/en/pressrelease/detail/1030

Wolff’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening Essays -- Chopin Awakening

Wolff’s Critique of Chopin’s The Awakening The critical case study to the novel establishes a definition of a type of critical response, and then gives as close an example that fits that mode of criticism—BORING! First, the book has these forms of criticism laid out contiguously, as if they occurred only spatially and not temporally. This flattened and skewed representation of critical approaches, taking an argument out of its context (an academic debate) and uses it as if it were a pedagogical tool. Just as criticism in many ways takes the life out of the text, by dissecting it and making it a part of an argument, the â€Å"model critical approach† takes the life out of criticism. It is interesting to see how the different Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism are altered by the text they are describing. For example, I have one volume on Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and another for Great Expectations, both of which demonstrate the extent to which the object of critique affects the critique itself, such that â€Å"deconstruction criticism† in an intellectual vacuum is something different than when a scholar tries to apply it to a particular text, altering both the text as well as the principles of deconstruction. The Awakening gender criticism takes on a different feel from Great Expectation gender criticism even though they are informed by the same principles, because gender in the early Victorian Dickens is different than in the turn of the century American Chopin. In this way the criticism co-constructs with the primary document something different than both the criticism and the original text. Such a syntheses have produced exciting and inn ovative ideas, refreshing and reviving works from the tombs of academia. Unfor... ... is also a politics involving real becomings, an entire becoming clandestine. (A Thousand Plateaus 188) Finally, the sea is a common trope for mother, and maternal—that from which life springs. We are presented with Edna running away from Protestant society (the dynamo, the father) to Catholic Creole society (the earth-goddess transformed into the Madonna). She runs away from her father, and there is no mother for her to run towards except the archetypal sea. If these mythic formations say anything, the novel says something about Edna’s own lost mother. Is the tragedy of the book that this mother is never found even though Edna followed the trail to the musty scent? Is the tragedy of the story Edna’s mother died giving birth to Edna, leaving Edna with only one memory of her mother—the musty scent of childbirth? Does this inform her attitudes toward motherhood?