Art Comparison Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Art Comparison - Essay Example In this essay, it will feature more from the Museum of Modern art where the comparison between the works will be mainly based on the style, content, artistic intention and the historical context. When these aspects are explained, it gives one a deeper meaning of the work art work and you stop viewing it with a surface eye. This is because ever art work has a meaning and a source of inspiration. Art work has been used to communicate and it has more than a thousand words. It is a simpler way to communicate and it leaves a greater impact than writing so many words. It is much easier to remember an image of an art for many years than to remember a piece of written work. Though there are many types of art like singing, drama, poetry, and dancing, this essay will be focusing on painting and sculpture arts. Most of the paintings were done using oil because oil was resistant to water, it was readily found, was flexible enough to take different shapes and colors. Therefore, this paper look at the comparison between Lucky Strike by Stuart Davis and OOF by Edward Ruscha artistic works and Marilyn Monroe, I by James Rosenquist and Woman, I by Willem de Kooning in this essay. Luck Strike is a painting that was done by Stuart Davis. Stuart Davis was an American who was passionate about art. This art can tell that the artist was appreciating the tobacco company in America. It also shows that he loved the products from his own country.2 It was during 1921 that the tobacco the top most products in America that Stuart Davis came up with this art as a gift to the American Tobacco Company. OOF was done by Edward Ruscha in the year 1962 but he refined it in 1963. It was a gift of Agnes Gund. â€Å"I was interested in monosyllabic word sounds that seemed to have a certain comedic value to them†, Ruscha said. He was in a joyful mood when he was designing this art and he wanted to pass the

Warehouse Management Essay Example for Free

Warehouse Management Essay Abstract: The study presented here considers arrangement and management policies to improve the order picking procedure in the existing company warehouse. The study was conducted in a timber goods production and trading company. The main objective was to reduce the overall picking time that is quite high due to the lack of proper management and the nature of the stored items. The first stage was to register the situation in the warehouse. The second stage involved the analysis of the obtained data, to identify promising modifications and quantify the benefits of adopting them. The proposed modifications were based on policies and methodologies suggested in the literature. After the company approved and implemented (some of) the proposed modifications, the final stage was to measure and analyse the achieved improvements. Keywords: warehousing, case study, facility layout, order picking time 1. INTRODUCTION Order picking (OP) appears as one of the most significant activities in a warehouse. The picking tasks may contribute by over 65% in the warehouse operating costs. In fact, the retrieval cost exceeds by far the storage cost of any given item (Coyle et al., 1996). The factors affecting the efficiency of OP typically include the product demand, the warehouse layout, the location of the items, the picking method in combination with the routing methods, the experience of the employees, and the extent of automation (Gattorna, 1997). Note that the high cost associated with the automation of the procedure forces the majority of companies to use manual operation, usually at the expense of efficiency and time. The case study is carried out in a timber goods production and trading company. We consider one of the existing warehouse facilities and we attempt to improve its performance. The performance measure is the total picking time, so our objective is to find ways to reduce it as much as it is practically possible and desirable. At the first stage involves the collection of time data, to target the improvement that may be accomplished from the transition from a totally disorderly situation to an organized and controlled warehouse environment. The second stage suggests, implements and studies alternative storage, picking and routing schemes, according to observations made during the first stage. During the third stage, a second series of time measurements is carried out to investigate the achieved benefits. 2. REVIEW OF WAREHOUSE POLICIES RELATED TO ORDER PICKING There is a variety of studies on methods, policies, principles and/or techniques developed to improve the overall OP procedure. The decisions usually concern policies for the picking of the product items, the routing of the pickers in the warehouse, and the storage schemes for the products in the warehouse. The research scope has been to investigate the effect of changes in these policies on the reduction of the overall OP costs and the increase of percent savings. Petersen and Gerald (2003) was the first to attempt a simultaneous evaluation of all the three policies, whereas the usual practice is to consider them separately. 2.1. Picking policies In terms of the picking policies, Ackerman (1990) divided OP into strict, batch and zone picking and proposed policies tailored to each case. In strict picking, a single order is assigned during a picking tour, leading to lower service times and higher customer satisfaction. The policy is ideal when the group of the picking products is quite small and easy to be found. Drawbacks of the policy include an increase in the overall transportation time and a cost penalty. Alternatively, the batch picking policy assigns to a picker more than one orders during a picking tour (Gibson and Sharp, 1992; De Coster et al., 1999; Petersen, 2000). The batch scheme may bring significant reduction on the total picking time, but introduces an additional cost for monitoring and separating the orders at a later stage. Zone picking assigns a picker to a designated picking zone, where the picker is responsible for those products that are in his/her zone of the warehouse. This scheme decreases the chances for destructions and mistakes, but a possible delay in a zone is a threshold for the entire picking procedure for a big order. Frazelle and Apple (1994) further divided zone picking into: sequential zone, batch zone and wave OP. Petersen (2000) suggested that in the sequential zone scheme the order integrity is maintained, in batch zone the orders are batched together and each picker collects the products within a zone, and in wave picking a group of orders is programmed in precise time period. 2.2. Routing policies Routing policies suggest the route for a picking tour and the picking sequence of the items on the pick list. The suggestions are based on decision-making technologies that range from simple heuristics to mathematical optimization procedures. Using mathematical programming tools Ratliff and Rosenthal (1983) found that optimal routing reduced the travel time, but the optimal routes were quite confusing routes and difficult to implement in practice. Hall (1993) and Petersen and Schmenner (1999) examined the efficiency of heuristic routing in minimizing the distance traveled by the picker. In practice, many warehouses use the traversal policy, where the picker must pass through the entire aisle and in order to collect the items. Petersen (1997) and Roodbergen and Koster (2001) examined the possibility of combined traversal and return routes to reduce further the travel distance. 2.3 Storage policies Storage policies remain the least investigated among the three policy categories. Random storage is the most widely used option, and Schwarz et al. (1978) examined its performance. Petersen and Aase (2003) claimed that random storage is by far the simplest option and requires less space compared to the more sophisticated storage policies. The simplest structured-storage schemes apply class-based and/or demandbased policies in the arrangement of the products. In class-based storage the products are classified, and items of each class are placed within the same area of the warehouse. In demand (or volume) –based storage the products are stored according to their demand (or their size) near the Pick-up / Drop-off point (P/D). Jarvis and Mc Dowell (1991) suggested that the optimal storage strategy is to place the items with great demand in the aisle, thus reduce the travel time. Gibson and Sharp (1992) and Gray et al. (1992) stated that locating high volume items near to the P/D point increased the picking efficiency. Petersen and Schmenner (1999) examined the volume-based storage policies and concluded that the method resulted to less time compared to other storage policies. Eynan and Rosenblatt (1994) claimed that the class-based storage required less data processing and yielded similar saving with volume-based storage. Tompkins and Smith (1998) suggested that the overall picking time could be reduced applying the Pareto principle on the storage arrangement. In a warehouse, a relatively small number of products constitutes the largest part of the stock and accounts for the largest part of the dispatches of the warehouse. Consequently, if high demand items are placed in near distance and grouped into classes, then picking time can be significantly reduced. The former is easy to apply by allocating a number of the front area piles to items of high demand or leftovers. In terms of more sophisticated storage options, Ven den Berg (1999) suggested a separation of the warehouse into a forward and a reserve area. The forward area was for order picking, while the reserve area was used for replenishing the forward area. The variety of different methods and techniques makes it difficult to identify the most appropriate policy to increase the overall performance of the picking activity. The decision on the appropriate principles and policies to be applied depends on the characteristics of the particular system, i.e. product and warehouse. By reducing the non-productive elements during OP, Gattorna (1997) presented a set of basic and general productivity improvement principles. 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDIED WAREHOUSE – INITIAL SITUATION The company considered here deals with wood production and trading, and uses 6 warehouses for the finished products. Each warehouse is further divided into individual sections where different categories of products are stored. Panels, i.e. sheets of compressed wood (chipboard) account for 80% of the total product sales of the company. The panels are covered with coloured melamine to imitate the appearance of various types of wood. The panel warehouse has over 6000 codes of stored products, distributed into 4 individual sections. The study considers one of these sections, where the number of codes is around 1000. The most frequent values for the size of the panels is 3.66Ãâ€"1.83m, and the thickness is between 6cm and 25cm. Instead of using shelves, the products are piled one on top of the other using small chocks between the packages. Great attention is paid to the alignment of the items in each pile, to avoid sheet warping. Warping can easily occur due to the small thickness of the packages and the large load they take. The studied warehouse section consists of three parts: two of them have 12 front piles each and the third part has 6 front piles (Figure 1). The piles are 7m high and the products are stored in up to 4 depths of pile levels. The main aisle is used by the clarks to gain access to the front piles. The aisle is wide enough to allow the clarks to remove the items of the front piles and to retrieve items stored in the deeper levels. Each part of the section contains different groups of products. Customer orders are collected by the Sales Department and sent to the Traffic Office on daily basis. The loading plans contain information on the ordered items and their quantities, the customer placing the order, and the requested mode of loading on the lorry. In the course of a day, the Traffic Office prepares over 25 order plans. The plans are usually collected and loaded at the same time. Initially, the warehouse suffered from many problems that mainly affected the search and retrieval times. The picking followed the strict OP policy. Each pair of pickers (an operator and an assistant) undertook a single order-plan at the time. Orders from other plans were collected once the pickers completed their current plan, even if this required revisiting the same areas of the warehouse. There was no automated or optimal routing system used here, and the choice of an efficient route remained on the experience of the picker. The grouping of the products in the section parts was based on the type of their surface (e.g. porous or smooth), regardless of the kind of wood. This was the only storage rule, and then the items were stored randomly in the section parts. Tracing a product was relying on the experience of the warehouse managers and the memory of the pickers. From the point of management the process depended on the experience of the personnel, while even a simple WMS version was certain to improve the situation. Once the location of an item was specified, the retrieval time was affected by the size/weight of the products, and the mode of storage. For instance, if the ordered product was located on the second, third or fourth depth of pile levels, many items had to be removed until the product was finally retrieved. Then, the removed items had to be placed back to their original locations. 4. MEASUREMENTS AND PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS The time measurements were carried out twice. The first measurement (stage 1) presented the initial anarchous situation of the system (see Section 3). The second measurement (stage 3) showed the effect of the improvements suggested by the authors and adopted by the company. The picking procedure is divided into four phases, and the time measurements concern the: 1. the travel time required for the picker to reach the pick point, 2. the search time required for the products to be found, 3. the retrieval time required for the products to be retrieved, and 4. the return time required for the picker to transport the products to the order point. Each time measurement considered 15 order plans selected by the Traffic Office of the company in collaboration with the authors. The selected plans were representative and included a large number of products, so that the analysis of the obtained time schedules yields reasonable and reliable conclusions. The number of orders in the studied plans ranged from 5 to 17 per plan. To allow comparison between the picking times measured for items of different size, the results are presented as the measured time over the volume of the respective item, namely in minutes per cubic meter. 4.1. Stage 1: Results of the 1ST measurement series The results of the 1st measurement series are reported on Table 1. The time required to complete the picking cycle is 5.69 min/m3. In terms of the itemized times for travel, search, retrieval and return, we observe that finding and retrieving the products are the most time-consuming procedures. The search time is around 36% (2.05 min/m3) of the total OP time. The percentage is quite high and reveals the need for an automated system to control and monitor the placement of the stock. Tracing the products becomes an extremely difficult and demanding procedure relaying mainly on the experience of the operator and the assistant. Many years of work in this particular position and the ability to locate the items using visual contact are decisive factors. In many cases, finding an item quickly is merely a matter of coincidence or luck. Our results include cases where locating a stocked product took over 45 minutes of searching and the product eventually failed to reach the customer on time. Table 1: Final results obtained during the 1st and the 2nd measurements Phases Travel time Search time Retrieval time Return time Travel return times Total 1ST measurement before modifications t1 (minutes) % total 0.51 9.0 2.05 36.0 2.50 43.9 0.63 11.1 1.14 5.69 20.0 100. 2ST measurement after modifications t2 (minutes) % total 0.33 11.5 0.37 12.9 1.73 60.5 0.43 15.0 0.76 2.86 26.6 100. Relative time reduction (t1-t2) / t1 % 35.3 82.0 30.8 31.7 33.3 49.7 The retrieval time is around 44% (2.50 min/m3) of the total OP time. Most of this time is spent on removing products in the front levels until the desired item comes to surface. The multiple storage depths combined with the surface type-based storage makes retrieval the most time-consuming procedure. Note that the initial choice of storage policies was based upon empirical criteria since, without a systematic measurement and consideration of the real system. Typically, the travel and return times account for over half of the total OP time (Tompkins, 1998), and most of the research work in increasing the efficiency of OP has focussed on the assumption. This does not apply to the problem considered here, where the retrieval times are considerably higher due to the nature of the products. Supported by the results of Stage 1, the retrieval times can be reduced by rearranging the warehouse and applying storage principles as discussed in Section 2. 4.2. Stage 2: Proposed and implemented mo difications The scope here is to reduce the time spent to reach the picking area and the packaging point. Based on the analysis of the first measurements the following were suggested to the company. Introduction of a Warehouse Management System (WMS): The use of a WMS can facilitate and speed up the tracing of the products. This is expected to reduce significantly the search time that is over a third of the total OP time. Improvement of the picking policies: After introducing a WMS, it is advisable to change the method of OP from strict to zone picking. Application of optimal routing policies: In total, the travel and return time is only around 20% of the total OP time. A techno-economical feasibility study (in the form of an ABC analysis) can quantify how much of this can really be reduced by the choice of routing policies, and provide incentives to carry out the necessary modifications. Changing the location of fast moving products in the warehouse, to reduce the retrieval time for small orders. The number of the wood panels ordered is usually other than those contained in the panel lots. The initial policy was to leave the remaining items in their original locations until they were again in demand. The result was to have many broken lots of the same product stored randomly in various places and levels within the warehouse. The remainders of the product lots can be placed in easily accessible front piles assigned for this purpose. Extending the storage space to reduce the storage depths from four to two, to reduce the retrieval time. This however increases the fraction of the void over the total space in the warehouse, and creates a trade off between the time needed to access the products and the cost of extending the warehouse area. The company adopted some of the above suggestions, namely the installation of a simple WMS and a change in the location of its products, following an ABC analysis. The storage mode changed to demandbased, hence the fast moving products were placed closer to the section entrance to reduce the travel and return times. Also, two piles were allocated on each side section, where the remainders under 20 sheets would be placed (see the broken lot piles in Figure 1). The company did not switch to zone picking, because separating the items of the different order packs needs extra space. Also, the company could not consider our suggestion to reduce the storage depth levels, since this requ ired building an additional warehouse. 4.3. Stage 3: Results of the 2ND measurement series Once our suggestions were implemented, the second measurement series was conducted to evaluate the subsequent reductions on the total OP time. The results and the differences between the first and the second measurements are presented on the Table 1. The total time to complete the picking cycle is now 2.86 min/m3, thus a reduction of nearly 50% was achieved. More specifically, the search time is down by over 80% and is now nearly 13% (0.37 min/m3) of the total. This is because the item locations are registered and given to pickers along with the order plan. Further reductions could be achieved if the employed WMS specified the height along with the depth of the product location. The demand-based storage and the use of the two piles for the broken lots reduced the retrieval time by 30.8%, to 1.73 min/m3. There is also significant reduction (33.3% on average) in the travel time to and from the picking points, due to the new storage policies adopted. Despite the significant overall reduction on the OP time, the problem of item retrieval remains unresolved. In effect, the current retrieval time is 60% of the total OP time. Redu cing the storage depths is not considered presently, as it requires expansion of the warehousing establishments. 5. CONCLUSIONS This work presents a real case study to improve the performance of order picking in an existing company warehouse. The main objective is the reduction of the overall picking time. The work is divided into three stages. The first stage is to register the situation in the warehouse with regard to the required order picking times. The total time is divided into travel, search, retrieval and return time to allow a more detailed analysis of the situation. The analysis of the obtained data identifies promising modifications and quantifies the benefits of adopting them. In effect, the measurements indicated the need for more systematic management, storage and arrangement of the products in the warehouse, and more efficient routing. After the company approved and implemented (some of) the proposed modifications, the time measurements were repeated to see the benefits. Finally, a mean 50% reduction in the total picking times was achieved. There is still space for improvement, even given the reluctance of the company to carry out expensive modifications. Our future research considers the development of a simple warehouse simulation tool to apply different arrangement options and evaluate their performance, using the time data collected in this work. REFERENCES Ackerman, K. B., 1990. â€Å"Practical Handbook of Warehousing†, Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY. Coyle, J.J., Bardi, E.J., Langley, C.J., 1996. â€Å"The Management of Business Logistics†, 6th ed., West Publishing, St Paul, MN. De Koster, M.B.M., Van der Poort, E.S., Wolters, M., 1999. â€Å"Efficient order batching methods in warehouses†, International Journal of Production Research, vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 1479-1504. Eynan, A., Rosenblatt, M.J., 1994. â€Å"Establishing zones in single-command class-based rectangular AS/RS†, IIE Transactions, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 38-46. Frazelle, E.H., Apple, J.M., 1994. â€Å"Warehouse Operations†, in J.A. Tompkins and D.A. Harmelink (Eds), The Distribution Management Handbook, McGraw-Hill, NY, pp. 22.1-22.36. Gibson, D.R., Sharp, G.P., 1992. â€Å"Order batching procedures†, European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 58, pp. 57-67. Gray, A.E., Karmarkar, U.S., Seidmann, A., 1992. â€Å"Design and operation of an order-consolidation warehouse: Models and application†, European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 58, pp. 3-13. Hall, R.W., 1993. â€Å"Distance approximations for routing manual pickers in a warehouse†, IIE Transactions, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 76-87. Jarvis, J.M., McDowell, E.D., 1991. â€Å"Optimal product layout in an order picking warehouse†, IIE Transactions, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 93-102. Gattorna, J., 1997. Handbook of Logistics and Distribution management, 4th ed., Gower Publisher Company. Petersen, C.G., 1997. â€Å"An evaluation of order picking routing policies†, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1096-1111. Petersen, C.G., 2000. â€Å"An evaluation of order picking policies for mail order companies†, Production and Operations Management, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 319-335. Petersen, C.G., Aase, G., 2003. â€Å"A comparison of picking, storage and routing policies in manual order picking†, International Journal of Production Economics, in press. Petersen, C.G., Schmenner, R.W., 1998. â €Å"An evaluation of routing and volume-based storage policies in an order picking operation†, Decision Sciences, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 481-501. Ratliff, H.D., Rosenthal, A.S., 1983. â€Å"Order-picking in a rectangular warehouse: A solvable case of the traveling salesman problem†, Operations Research, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 507-521. Roodbergen, K.J., Koster, R., 2001. â€Å"Routing methods for warehouses with multiple cross aisles†, International Journal of Production Research, vol. 39, no. 9, pp. 1865-1883. Schwarz, L.B., Graves, S.C., Hausman, W.H., 1978. â€Å"Scheduling policies for automatic warehousing systems: simulation results†, AIIE Transactions, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 260-270. Tompkins, J.A., Smith, J.D., 1998. The Warehouse Management Handbook, 2nd ed., Tompkins Press, Raleigh. Van den Berg, J.P., Zijm, W.H.M., 1999. â€Å"Models for warehouse management: Classification and examples†, International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 59, pp. 519-528.

Sigmund Freud :: essays research papers

What is the origin of your theories and what evidence do you have to back them up?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Sigmund Freud developed many theories in an effort to answer the mystery of a person’s conscious and subconscious. The evidence for these theories came through years of analysis of patients and himself. In fact many of his ideas and beliefs came from his own psychoanalysis. His invention of â€Å"psychoanalysis† ha allowed us to better understand the Oedipus Complex, dreams, and symptoms of hysteria.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Certain patients of Freud would display signs and symptoms of hysteria and instead of excepting a doctor’s diagnostic he would delve into their mind in order to find a resolution. After analyzing numerous patients he came to the belief that certain events are never forgotten. A memory that would possible cause this problem would not fade away but rather just burrow itself into the persons conscious. The only way these events could ever be reached would be when the conscious would release its barrier and this could be done under hypnosis. Once the event and it feelings were relived the symptoms were gone. Freud came to the conclusion that the symptoms were a way of the conscious discharging the â€Å"affect† of the memory. In time Freud came to realize that a more productive method of recalling the memories was through â€Å"free association† or just talking about whatever is in your head. When this was performed on patients and the feedback wa s studied Freud was amazed that an abundance of it dealt with sexual childhood experiences.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This type of feedback became common in Freud’s free association sessions. What the patient talked about was not perfectly straight forward it was instead disguised. This disguising was common because it was a tool used buy the conscious in order to protect itself. Eventually these childhood experiences developed into the theory of the Oedipus complex. This complex meant that since a majority of a small child life is spent with just two parents, he forms an attraction to the opposite sex and a resentment towards the father. The Oedipus Complex in fact had strong support from Freud’s own experiences. As a boy he had seen his own mother naked and had become sexually aroused. And also when his father died it stirred up memories of when he had hated his father and even imagined his death. He remarked, â€Å"I have found a love of the mother and a jealously of the father in my own case too, and now believe it to be a general phenomenon of early childhood, even if it does not occur so early as in children who have been made hysterics.

Do you agree with the statement that America has no culture?

Nowadays the world is a really small place compared to what it used to be before. Twenty first century brought many changes for our society and it had been marked by the rise of a global economy, the rise of the consumerism, mistrust in government, deepening concern of over terrorism and an increase in the power of private enterprise. With the fall of the Soviet Union the USA became the sole superpower, and although it is suffering from many domestic and foreign problems, it still has a huge influence on the world‘s matters .The same thing is with the culture.The term Americanisation has been used since 1907 for the American impact on other countries. I will write about negative and positive aspects of America’s culture and how it affects our world and how it was formed. One of the main things which form society is a culture. If we are talking about the USA, it is primarily Western, but influenced by the Native American, African, Asian, Polynesian and Latin American cult ures too. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and democracy), American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity.The United States has often been thought of as a melting pot, but now it trends towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl. Many American cultural elements, especially from popular culture, have spread across the globe through modern mass media .For example, Hollywood dominates most of the world's media markets. It is the chief medium by which people across the globe see American fashions, customs, scenery and way of life. The same is with music industry. Many U.S.-based artists, such as Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson are recognized worldwide and have sold over 500 million albums each. Moreover, America‘s corporate business is selling the ideas of freedom, choice, competition for all the world.Cocacola is the most rec ognised brand in the world and it is a symbol of Americanization and it‘s culture. Furthermore, fast food companies are also often viewed as being a symbol of U.S. marketing dominance. Companies such as Starbucks, McDonald‘s, Burger King and KFC have numerous outlets around the world. Finally, the USA had a lot of really influential poets, such as M.Twain or E.Hemingway whose works continue to be popular to this day. However, all  these things poses quite a few problems if we really want to understand if such thing as „American cultureâ€Å" exists.First of all, the global presence of America‘s influence in business, politics and economy. Multinational food corporations are „killingâ€Å" small business by having less expenses and hiring workers for a lower salary. Speaking about politics, the USA in the last 20 years has participated in more wars or conflicts more than any other nation. Secondly ,the globalisation, which America brings to our homes ,imposes some laws or certain ideas on citizens which might be harmful in the long term for nation‘s economy or it’s standings of values, and customs, which can not be changed if we want to have society with moral standarts.Finally, most of the media and production created by the USA has a really low art value or lack a deeper meaning, because the reason they are created is profit. And if you want to have a profit, you have to sell your merchandise, you don’t need anything really mind provoking. To sum up, I believe that American culture exists ,and there are many great things which were made or created in the USA, such as music or modern technology ,which we use everyday, but we shouldn‘t forget that this country also invented things like weapons of mass destruction and started many wars, because the USA is „the world‘s policeâ€Å" and they have to make sure there is peace in the world.

Graphics Design Firm Marketing Plan Essay

Executive Summary: The Metolius Agency is a Graphic design and visual communication firm based in new Concord, New Hampshire. Operating from a small office the company will be targeting a consumer base of 5-15 year old companies and provide them with unique perspectives on corporate identity and visual communication. For the first 7 months Keivs will be handling the firm’s affairs alone after which he will hire an assistant to help him in design and administration. The competitive edge Metolius has is Keivs’ knowledge of not only creative but also business skills that will make it possible for the company to attract its business-oriented clients because of a practical backing to their creative approach Overtime the company will grow due to its low overhead, creative and practical designs attracting increasing consumer attention, reaching profits in the first 9 months and generating $27,347 by the third year. Objective: With a realistic mission statement that focuses on delivering above expectation to customers and good customer relationships, the main objective of the firm is to s to position The Metolius Agency as a creative, unconventional, and innovative graphic design and visual communication firm in the Concord, NH area. In addition Metolius will set its marketing objectives to: a. Increase visibility in the market. b. Generate 30% new business through referrals each quarter, after year one. c. Strengthen brand equity through informal polling during networking activities. The financial objectives will include: a. Maintain positive, steady, growth each month. b. Reach profitability by the end of year one. c. Continue to decrease the variable costs associated with serving a project. Situation Analysis: The Metolius Agency requires a good analysis of both the = market and itself to serve its customers better. The information gathered by the company about the market shows that the potential market is divided into small and medium companies and has shown a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 7.65% over 4 years (2002-2006). The graphic design industry reached $812 million in 2000 and it is predicted that for the next five years it will grow at 5.6%. The increasing desires to appear professional and use the Internet have been attributed to this growth in the industry. Also contrary to the decade old market trend of advertisement agencies offering full service with minimal or no outsourcing, the Metolius agency will concentrate only on their specific skill sets. The company plans to provide customers with a wide selection of its designs and services, better accessibility by centralizing service provision, impressive customer service and competitive pricing. The services offered will be charged by the hour and $75 will roughly be the charge/hour demanded by Metolius. Through SWOT analysis it has been established that the strengths of the company are focus, elegant office space and amalgamation of the business with the creative sense, and the main opportunities for the firm are a growing market, growth based on technological advancement and also low co-relation with downfalls in the economy. The struggle to be cutting edge, to inform the customers and remove time for marketing activities have been identified as weaknesses, and local competition (i.e. large agencies, freelancers and Kinko’s), easy to use software that allow potential clients to cater their own needs and a demographic change due to shift in local industries are the main threats to the firm. Marketing Strategy: A graphic firm relies on referrals and efficient networking and not advertising to generate sales. Based on the market research of several focus groups and a research project completed by three University of New Hampshire graduates, Metolius has devised a 3 point marketing strategy, consisting of networking, client referral, targeted customer acquisition to gain visibility and increase sales. The networking will involve using Kievs’ personal and professional contacts to arrange meetings and get customers. Client referrals will come from the customers and the chambers of commerce who will be impressed by Kievs’ work. Kiev will also be shortlisting companies and finding ways to approach their decision makers and close a deal. Also putting content of all releases on the internet and management of search engine submissions will be done by outsourcing the work to specialists at an internet and e-commerce consultancy firm, â€Å"1st-at-the-top.com†. The firm has identified its market to be the small and medium scale companies in Concord that have been operating for 5-15 years. Metolius will position itself as a focused and innovative graphic design and visual communication firm in the market by dwelling on Kiev’s diverse background of business and creativity. Marketing Mix: The Metolius Agency’s marketing mix is comprised of approaches to pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, and customer service. * Pricing: The pricing scheme will be based on per project fee that will be calculated by the hours required for a project plus any other additional costs. * Distribution: The distribution of services will be either via the central office or via the Internet. * Advertising and Promotion: The most successful activities will be a comprehensive networking campaign, as well as a targeted customer acquisition system. * Customer Service: In order to ensure long-term profitability, all expenses will be born for customer service to achieve total customer satisfaction. Financial Projections: Metolius requires monthly revenue of $8760 to break even. It is forecasted that in 3 years time (2002, 2003, 2004) the company will grow sufficiently such that the total sales revenue will roughly double to $145,392 and the total expenses even though will rise they will get smaller in comparison to the Revenues by as much as 1.5% and become 4.35% at the end of the third year. Therefore it could be concluded that the business will always be yielding and fast growing. Review and Control: The following areas will be monitored to gauge performance: – Revenue: monthly and annual. – Expenses: monthly and annual. – Repeat business. – Customer service. This will be done by setting up a start and end date for a jobs, assigning the budget for the job and the job to a manager and department so that it can be monitored. Marketing Organization: Initially Kievs alone will head and manage the marketing function till he hires an assistant for help in the 7th month. Contingency Plan: The difficulties and risks posed to Metolius and the worst case scenarios must be addressed in the contingency plan. Problems with generating visibility, landing large projects for increase income and increasing competition are some of the difficulties the firm will face. The worst-case scenarios will be if the firm can’t achieve profits and must liquidate assets to cover liabilities.