Author: Custom Essay

For this final project component, you will use the skills you gained in this unit’s study activities to implement a Best Buy store locator application for Smart Homes using the Ruby language and the Rails framework. The Ruby on Rails Store Locator requirements are the following:

The Web application must use Best Buy’s BBYOpen API.
The Web application must contain the following two user interfaces:
The application must start with a Web page that allows the user to enter a zip code and a desired search radius in miles. Once the required data has been entered by the user, there should be a submit button to execute the search request.
Upon submitting the search request, the user should be presented with a Web page that contains a table of stores nearest to that location.
As an option, you may choose any mapping Web service (such as Google Maps) to display the search results onto a map.
Your completed Ruby on Rails Store Locator solution should do the following:

Demonstrate your ability to implement a non-trivial Web application using the Ruby programming language and Rails framework.
Demonstrate your ability to integrate third-party application programming interfaces to communicate with a Web service.
Demonstrate your ability to implement a user interface that accepts user input without erro

The goal of field observation is to obtain “thick descriptions” (as described by Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures) of a setting or group from the perspective of the participants, and to explain what you observe using insights from the sociological perspective.

Observe the activities at a public place for two hours. Choose a place where you do not need to ask permission to stay and will not get in trouble for observing what is going on. This can be a coffee shop, a farmer’s market, a mall, a religious service, a train station, a courtroom, etc. Avoid schools, hospitals, anything on a military base, or any other restricted place. Make sure to go at a time when there will be a lot of activity. Take some notes about what is happening: What does this place look like? How is it organized spatially? Who comes here? What do they do? How do people interact with each other? What kind of conversations go on? Are there any subgroups? How do people handle unexpected or upsetting situations?

Write a narrative summary of your notes describing what you experienced. Then, explain how each of the three sociological perspectives (structural-functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and social conflict) would analyze what you say. Your description of your observation should represent about 50% of your paper and your analysis another 50%, divided evenly between the three perspectives. At the end of your paper, discuss which perspective you think is the best suited to analyze your observation and why you think so. Whenever appropriate, link the information you present to concepts, theories, facts, and core values of “community and social justice” from the course.

You may use additional resources, provided they are appropriately cited. You are required to use the American Sociological Association (ASA) formatting style to format your paper and sources. Information on ASA is available in the course under Resources. For additional information on plagiarism, click here to view a 15-minute video lesson by Dr. Patricia Campion. You will be prompted to enter your SLU Portal username and password to gain access to the video. Once the video starts playing (may take a few minutes to load), forward it to Slide 28 titled, “Am I Plagiarizing? Why, or why not?” and view through Slide 195.

The paper will be a minimum of seven (7) pages in length and include a title page and a reference page, using a standard 12-point font. You may use additional resources, provided they are appropriately cited. You are required to use the American Sociological Association (ASA) formatting style to format your paper and sources. Information on ASA is available in the course under Resources

Your work on your strategic global marketing plan is complete. You now have a plan that will implement, manage, and support a global strategy, but it is far from organized. You e-mail Deborah to inform her that you are almost ready and that the project is nearly is complete. A little while later, the phone rings and you see Deborah’s name on the caller ID.

“Hi, Deborah. What’s up?” you ask.

“I’d like you to present to the advisory board next week,” Deborah says. “They are very curious about your findings and would like to know if globalization is a good opportunity for the company. The board wants to finalize their strategic plan, and this may be a key part of it.”

After you hang up, you begin thinking through the different items that you will need to cover. You want to finalize this project and have Deborah and the advisory board accept the marketing plan you and your team have developed. You know that the success of this project will lead to additional project management activities for your organization.

As you finalize the project deliverable, the marketing plan, complete the following:

• Is globalization a good move for the company?
• What is your rationale behind this decision?
• What geographic location should be a target for global expansion?
• What background information can you provide to support this decision?
• How will this decision support the overall goal of growth and expansion?
• How would you refute someone with the opposing perspective?

Congratulations on your recent promotion to engagement manager for a consulting company. Your new role will leverage your skills in supply chain management consulting, logistics, and procurement for various industries, which will offer many challenging opportunities.

The company is a 100-person consulting with a core group of four procurement specialists and a client base of one automobile parts supply chain. Its mission is to reduce delivery time, inventory cycle times, and costs associated with supply chain management for its customers.

Assignment

The company has been approached by a local hospital inquiring about the company’s ability to improve its logistics and supply chain while maintaining its customer value. It currently has a rudimentary, localized operation in place without an overall governance or strategy process in place. The company has requested an initial briefing on modern supply chain management techniques. Using course materials and other resources, develop a paper for the hospital management consisting of the following sections:

Define supply chain management.
Describe the essential components of a typical supply chain management process, and define the components using examples.
Define push, pull, and hybrid high-level; recommend one for the hospital, and rationalize your recommendation.

Submitting your assignment in APA format means, at a minimum, you will need the following:

Title page: Remember the running head. The title should be in all capitals.
Abstract: A summary of your paper, not an introduction. Begin writing in third-person voice.
Body: The body of your paper begins on the page following the title page and abstract page and must be double-spaced (be careful not to triple- or quadruple-space between paragraphs). The type face should be 12-pt. Times Roman or 12-pt. Courier in regular black type. Do not use color, bold type, or italics except as required for APA-level headings and references. The deliverable length of the body of your paper for this assignment is 2–3 pages. In-body academic citations to support your decisions and analysis are required. A variety of academic sources is encouraged.
Reference page: References that align with your in-body academic sources are listed on the final page of your paper. The references must be in APA format using appropriate spacing, hang indention, italics, and upper- and lowercase usage as appropriate for the type of resource used. Remember, the Reference Page is not a bibliography but a further listing of the abbreviated in-body citations used in the paper. Every referenced item must have a corresponding in-body citation.

A specialty memory chip manufacturer is located in Southern California with manufacturing plants located in the United States, Europe, Singapore, and Japan. Additionally, it has branch sales offices located in major metropolitan areas across the globe. The market for its six key products included original equipment manufacturers of personal computers, cellular telephone manufacturers, electronics distributors, and government organizations. The market environment for its products is extremely volatile with fluctuating demand and rapidly changing prices. The company uses short-term contracts (less than 1 month) and spot pricing for irregular customers. Internally, the operation is capital-intensive with depreciation running approximately $1.2 million per day (depreciation has an impact on revenue streams). The 6 key products had further specialized components, making the possible line mix total 24 distinct products. Further, the manufacturing process required high manufacturing lead times and various product yields. In the high technology memory arena, product life cycles were dramatically shortened because of rapid obsolescence. To coordinate the manufacturing activity, the company has an established process and system that helped optimize resource utilization, improve shop floor efficiencies, and manage customer demand.

The company is experiencing 10–15% growth in revenues and volume, primarily tied to increased worldwide demand, product type, and market variables. Most significantly, the company received a major preorder for a new cellular phone memory chip that is scheduled to come out in 3 months. This preorder is scaled for up to 10 million units, and management is concerned that the existing process and system may not be suitably optimized for this order. Additionally, the forecast in sales figures for all six key product lines is higher than it has been in the past. With the increase in volume, management is concerned about the quality management process as well—can the existing processes maintain the highest degree of quality needed?

As a new member of the production planning management staff, you will be expected to help develop strategies to support the expanded growth plans. Your team faces several fundamental issues. First, are the individual plant layouts conducive to the expanded growth expected by the company? Second, are individual plant layouts optimized for the most efficient performance and lowest cost? Third, is the existing supply chain interaction among all the various components optimized in the same manner individual layouts are expected to be optimized? Finally, your group must consider capacity planning and workflow to ensure the company can meet its contractual obligations with the maximum revenue and profitability. It currently uses information systems developed by the company to conduct production planning. You believe that a fully integrated enterprise resource planning tool or specific production planning software would better suit the company in light of its upcoming increase in production.

Using course materials and other resources, research and identify potential software applications with consideration for the following:

1) Should the company use an ERP package or specific manufacturing production planning utilities?

2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of each course of action?

3) Identify the candidate pool of software you considered for selection, select a single product, and justify your reasoning. Some of those for consideration may include the following: SAP, i2, Seibel, and SAS for the larger ERP/CRM/SCM vendors. Alternatively, Production Scheduling, RSS Solutions, Preactor International, or others.

Submitting your assignment in APA format means, at a minimum, you will need the following:

Title page: Remember the running head. The title should be in all capitals.
Abstract: A summary of your paper, not an introduction. Begin writing in third-person voice.
Body: The body of your paper begins on the page following the title page and abstract page and must be double-spaced (be careful not to triple- or quadruple-space between paragraphs). The type face should be 12-pt. Times Roman or 12-pt. Courier in regular black type. Do not use color, bold type, or italics except as required for APA-level headings and references. The deliverable length of the body of your paper for this assignment is 2–3 pages. In-body academic citations to support your decisions and analysis are required. A variety of academic sources is encouraged.
Reference page: References that align with your in-body academic sources are listed on the final page of your paper. The references must be in APA format using appropriate spacing, hang indention, italics, and upper- and lowercase usage as appropriate for the type of resource used. Remember, the Reference Page is not a bibliography but a further listing of the abbreviated in-body citations used in the paper. Every referenced item must have a corresponding in-body citation

Write a 1050- to 1400-word paper in which you include the following:

Explain why you agree or disagree with your results.
Develop strategies to advance your career using your strengths.
How can you use goal-setting to increase motivation and improve job performance?
How might your engagement as an employee and job satisfaction influence job performance?
Discuss at least 5 of the following motivational theories and explain how these can aid in job performance.
Extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
Acquired needs theory
Self-determination theory
Herzberg’s theory of motivation
Equity theory
Expectancy theory

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment

2page Word document, APA format (excludes APA cover page and abstract; include reference page as applicable)

Every network has a strategy for sharing information and resources. Common strategies include the terminal–server network, client–server network, and peer-to-peer network. The client-server network is the most common in many networks because of the relationships that it provides to network components and the Internet.

Please answer the following questions and requirements to write your paper of 2–3 pages. As you answer each question, you must provide support or evidence that will enhance and empirically prove your answers. Academic IT articles or real-life IT findings that are not found in journals or other academic sources must be used to support your answers.

Using the library, Internet, or any other available materials, answer the following questions:

What is a client–server network?
What are the main features of a client–server network?
What are the advantages and drawbacks of a client–server network compared to terminal–server and peer-to-peer networks?

Adhere to APA formatting and reference guidelines when writing your response. Additionally, your response should be free of grammatical errors, use complete sentences, and give specific details to support statements.

Corona beer is the number one imported beer into the United States, and has developed into a global brand (General Distributors, Inc., n.d.). Corona created its competitive advantage through an innovative marketing strategy.

Like Corona beer, identify a recent example of a firm that was cited as having a competitive advantage due to its innovative marketing plan. Respond to the following:

• Discuss implementation activities that positively impacted customer satisfaction.
• Describe three advantages and three disadvantages of standardizing the marketing mix worldwide

Create a SWOTT table for clothing business. Your environmental analysis should take into account all of the following factors. Therefore your SWOTT table should include 8 external and 11 internal forces. Think of something for all of them….even Global. You may not intent for your business to go global…but I bet there are some global forces that may need to be aware of.

o External forces and trends considerations: (Opportunities and Threats and Trends)

Legal and regulatory
Global
Economic
Technological
Innovation
Social
Environmental
Competitive analysis

o Internal forces and trends considerations: (Strengths and Weaknesses)

Strategy
Structures
Processes and systems
Resources
Goals
Strategic capabilities
Culture
Technologies
Innovations
Intellectual property
Leadership

Part 2. Write a 1,400- to 1,750-word synopsis in which you do ALL of the following:

o analyze at least seven of the forces and trends from the list above. Be sure to identify the forces and trends that are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and/or trends.

o additionally discuss legal and regulatory forces as they apply to your business

o Critique how well your organization adapts to change.

o Analyze the supply chain operations of the organization.

o Identify potential issues and/or opportunities that may arise.

***** The words in your SWOTT table do NOT count toward the total word count.

Format your paper according to APA guidelines.

*** TIP – Keep in mind that Strengths and Weaknesses are internal forces…and Opportunities, Threats, and Trends are external forces. Consider how these affect YOUR company that you are creating for this class. I recommend that you create a table within your document (not a separate spreadsheet).

I have attached an example of a SWOTT table. The cells that are highlighted with color are the ones you should complete for that specific factor (S&W = internal OTT = external). Feel free to use this as your table…or create your own if you would prefer. DO NOT submit this table with the assignment instructions included.

Be sure to carefully read all the requirements for this assignment…there are a few that are often missed.

Remember….EVERY paper should have at least 3 good references (always reference your textbooks when you are explaining the main focus of the week…which this week is SWOTT…what is a SWOTT analysis…why is it important…etc.)

Be sure to review Tips for Getting Good Grades as your write.

Always include section headings and an Table of Contents.

Your textbooks have excellent examples of each of the individual forces….so refer to them…

Points will be deducted if:

…you do not include a cover page and Table of Contents

…you do not include section headings (please bold the headings)

…you do not include at least 3 references

…your references are not cited within your paper

…your paper is late

…you have spelling and/or grammar errors

…you don’t adequately cover the material from the assignment instructions

…your paper does not flow well (Business Plans are pretty standard, so when someone is reading your business plan they should be able to glance through it and find the information they are looking for. I have given you the instructions in the proper order they should appear in your business plan, so stick to that order)

How has social media affected are young women?

Provide an introduction.

Provide a purpose statement.

Provide viable research questions/hypotheses.

Generate a written research plan that addresses these questions.

What are your research questions? To what extent can you test them? How would you justify the viability of your questions?

What are your hypotheses? How would you test them?

Why would this design be the most appropriate for answering the research questions? Conversely, why would quantitative or qualitative on their own not be appropriate?

For a mixed methods design, which design is the primary one? Why is that appropriate?

What approach would you select for this study (experimental, survey, ethnography, grounded theory, etc.)? Why is that approach the most appropriate one for answering the research questions?

What theoretical framework or perspective would you use?

What is your target population? How would you identify and recruit participants? What factors would contribute to determining appropriate sample size? You will not need to calculate sample size for this assignment.

If appropriate for your plan, what instruments might you need?

What data collection procedures might you use? Why would those be the most appropriate methods to use? How would that data help to answer your research question(s)/hypotheses?

How would you ensure quality and reliability of data?

What are threats to validity? How might you mitigate them?

How might you analyze the data?

What are the ethical considerations related to the plan?