Friday, January 31, 2020

Implementation of an IT Project †A First Hand Account Essay Example for Free

Implementation of an IT Project – A First Hand Account Essay With innovation of computers, the business world is changing very fast as seen during the last 3 decades. Due to the advances in IT and Communications technology, the world has become a global village. The business opportunities have multiplied due to opening up of global markets. But so have the challenges. No economy is isolated or transparent from rest of the economies. Industries are expected to offer custom designed products at most competitive rates in shortest possible time. Even the multinational organizations operating in many countries across the world have been facing these challenges. One of the answers to these challenges they have been relying upon is to introduce Information Communications Technology in their organizations and leverage upon them to meet these challenges. In this document, we describe a case of one company in a country. This company was a part of a US based multinational group which decided to implement Oracle e Business 11i suite at all its units worldwide so as to consolidate required information at its headquarters at US. To comply with the requirement, this unit also decided to implement Oracle e Business Suite at its plant offices. How this implementation was planned, what were the objectives, what measures were taken to ensure conformity with the project plan, how the changeover to new software was planned, how the business associates were affected and what steps were initiated to ensure that the envisaged benefits actually accrue, is described in this document. Also various activities right from the initiation of the project, the project organization, roles and responsibilities, communications and reporting with the principals are also described. Implementation of an IT Project – A First Hand Account : EXCEL Auto Components Pvt Ltd EACL (a hypothetical name) is a part of a multinational EXCEL Group having its headquarters in US and group companies located all over the world. The Group is engaged in manufacture of engines, compressors, generating sets automobile components worldwide. EACL is engaged in manufacture of Automobile and engine components. Much of the orders received by EACL being repeat orders, are based on exiting design and technology. Besides these, there are sizable number of orders based on the same technology but involve a fresh design and prototype development, before the commercial production takes place. EACL is a subsidiary company of Excel Industries Ltd EIL which the main company of the group within the country. EIL centralizes many activities of the group and looks after these activities of the group companies in that country. Information Communication Technology is one of such activities which EIL handles for all group companies in the country. EIL handles IT Infrastructure management, Software Applications Management and other related activities for all group companies in the country. Recently the Corporate HQ at US has announced a decision to standardize on Business Application Software, directing all group companies worldwide to implement and switch over to Oracle 11i e Business Suite within a period of 18 months. Accordingly all companies had implemented and switched over to Oracle 11i except for EACL where the implementation had to be called of for various reasons, lack of in-house IT staff being one of them. Later on it was taken up once again. This time EIL Looked for an IT Consultant to be placed on site with the total responsibility of implementing Oracle 11i, with the help of Functional Consultants from EIL and a cross functional team of users from EACL. A person was found suitable and was placed on site at EACL to handle complete, end to end implementation of this project. He was to report to Lies Program Manager and was to be assisted by a Project Team comprising of 6 Functional Consultants from EIL and 5 Key Users from EACL, drawn from relevant functional areas. While EIL consultants had prior experience of Oracle ii1 implementation in their own company, EACL Consultants did not have any experience even of other ERP Products or any other applications. They – like most other users of EACL, had an exposure limited only to Microsoft Office Suite. However, most of them were young, fresh Mechanical Engineers very enthusiastic about the project. Similarly for EIL also this was their maiden experience to implement Oracle 11i at a company other than their own company. So everyone was totally charged up to take up this challenge. The assignment was clear for the Project Manager. Oracle 11i e Business Suite comprising of Financial, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Order Management Modules was required to be implemented within a time frame of 6 calendar months with the help of the Project Team assigned. CEO of EACL was fully backing this project and he had publicly instructed two senior most managers at the site – Plant Head and Finance Controller – to ensure full support resource commitments to the project. The Project implementation required to covered Plant as well as a Marketing office located in two different cities. CEO was also located in the Marketing Office. Objectives : The Objectives set out for the project included 20% reduction in investment in Inventory due to savings in inventory carrying cost and improvement in the planning process, Reduction in throughput time by 20% (increase i production sales and improvement in sales margins), Fast Order Execution with 90% on time delivery. Another significant objective was Confirming to standardization as laid down by the corporate group so as to facilitate group consolidation of information. Besides, the changeover was required to be transparent to the outside world i. e. the Business Associates. Investment : Since EACL was already running a home grown ERP Product, it already had in place the Client PCs, LAN, connectivity to EIL where Oracle 11i server was located. Some augmentation of resources like PCs printers, up-gradation of the bandwidth was required. EIL had already accounted for and arranged for the Software Licenses for ERP RDBMS Products for all group companies in the country. Fresh investment called for was related to the Fees payable to the Project Manager and the visits by the EIL functional team for implementation. How well the project met its investment objectives and what mechanisms would you suggest to allow ongoing evaluation of benefits realization? The Project Objectives were met very well. A fresh Bill of Materials was designed for regular items to be produced. Items requiring design development were defined separately in BOM. While this introduced some redundancy in the BOM, this resulted into reduction of many duplicated items from the BOM and thereby, from the stock. This drastically reduced the investment needed in Inventory. Items needed for development production were segregated such that production items do not get consumed in development vice-versa. The production cycle was mapped to a production process that had certain in-between milestones where items were issued and quality checks were performed. This resulted in reducing the number of days for which an item was stocked and also, control further movement of the semi finished product in case of a quality problem, such that the same could be reprocessed, rechecked for quality and forwarded only if the quality problem was resolved. Earlier the quality problem got detected only at the end of production cycle resulting in much more wastage of material, labor overheads. Marketing Manufacturing had more informed and accurate judgment of the cost and time estimates for a product at the time of accepting an order. Improved control over production process along with more accurate promise of delivery resulted in 90% on time deliveries. In case of a quality problem, only the immediately preceding steps needed to be repeated upsetting only that part of the process as against upsetting the entire process earlier. This also resulted in fewer rejections or defects in the production. Linking Sales Order right from planning stage till invoice dispatch advice virtually eliminated misplaced deliveries or wrong products being delivered. With more accurate accounting and posting of transactions, carrying out physical stock taking less frequently was also a possibility. All this was accompanied by a complete visibility over entire production process to the plant head. In this way, the project actually exceeded the anticipated benefits. Post implementation, certain benchmarks for performance were decided and periodically the cumulative actual performance was measured based upon these benchmarks. For example, Regular and extra hours needed for given quantum of production, reduction in inventory, on time delivery %, i. E delivery performance, value added during a period. Appropriate reports were designed and made available to the Finance Controller, Plant Head and the CEO. The effectiveness of stakeholder engagement activities during the project. Employees and Heads of all Departments including the Plant Head the Finance Controller were among the stakeholders. However, the main stakeholder was the CEO – he had sanctioned the investment, worked out what benefits to expect how, had a calculation of no of days within which the changeover had to be completed (termed Black Out period) and regular operations resumed on the new system. Business associates were not to be caused any disturbance due to the change over (excepting a blackout period of 5 days) and above all, a project of a given size and complexity affecting every employee in every corner of the organization had to be completed as scheduled with mathematical precision. The main stakeholder that is the CEO took a lot of interest and a keen interest in every aspect of the project. He participated in understanding, reviewing approving the requirements formulated, understood how the prototype presented offered to fulfill these requirements, he provided directions to the project team and other employees regards various activities related with the project, intervened whenever a help was sought in anticipation of a bottleneck or a deviation apprehended from the plan. He always had a positive contribution to offer in terms of identifying typical scenarios that might be encountered or regards the training of the end users or in ensuring 100% and timely attendance of the members in all project events. This propagated a clear message across that the project has to be completed, on time and with contribution from everyone with no exception and zero tolerance. He always supported implementation of new ideas like maintenance of Time Sheets for the Project Team or conducting tests to assess the learning of the trainees. He mandated the contribution to this project by an employee be counted during the periodic appraisals. In all his communications with the employees he never failed to stress the importance of the project, praising efforts of those who did well and pulling up the laggards, warning them to come up to expectations. He studied every fortnightly report with interest and took appropriate action based upon the same in time. He also attended every review presentation and tried to bring out the maximum from everyone. He ensured that not only he himself but also the Plant Head and Finance Controller provided immediate response to Project Team Members for any help or intervention desired. The same spirit was displayed both by the Plant Head as well as by the Finance Controller. They arranged for all required resources to be made available for the team. What provision was made during the development phase to facilitate roll-out during the implementation stage, and how effective this was ? Many provisions were made during the development phase to ensure a smooth roll out during the implementation stage. The provisions were related with the systems as well as with the operations. Systems : A training to the EACL Consultants was provided on the product right at the beginning of the project. Thereafter they were closely associated with the corresponding members of the CIL Team in related functions to learn from them. They were asked to take up the initiative to develop the Operational Manual for their functional area which was reviewed and finalized in consultation with EIL Consultants. They were made responsible for testing the prototype against the requirements by way of test data, preparing test data visualizing typical exceptional â€Å"scenarios† that might be encountered, carrying out an integrated testing covering certain transactions encompassing all functional areas and finally, the load testing to assess the capability of the infrastructure to sustain the number of concurrent users envisaged. They also imparted training to the end users so that they are better prepared themselves and develop a sound knowledge. They also assessed the performance of the end users by setting up question papers for these trainees. Hardware and Software requirements considering the eventual number of users was reviewed and necessary enhancements were carried out to make the infrastructure adequate for live run. Document forms and preprinted stationery in line with the standardization requirements were designed and procured in time before the switchover. Menu Access Permissions and Transaction Authorization Set Up was designed and set up in the software. Operations : There was a blackout period required to complete the processing in the old system, transfer the balances masters to the new system and resume operations in the new system. The CEO insisted that this must not exceed 5 days failing which the business may be adversely affected. As regards the provisions made in operations, certain actions were planned to be taken and completed before the commencement of the blackout period e. g. clearing deliveries against all sales orders. Certain actions were suspended for the duration of the blackout period i. e. placing fresh purchase orders or accepting deliveries. All Business Associates were informed about the changeover and the black out period preceding it to enable them to plan their activities accordingly. A detailed meeting was conducted between the Project Team, Finance Controller and the Plant Head along with all Departmental Heads and an elaborate plan of action naming the concerned responsible person was chalked out well before the beginning of the black out period. This eventually resulted into a smooth changeover with no adverse impact on the Business associates – all within a black out period of 3 days against the 5 days planned. How effective were the governance and reporting arrangements, particularly in assuring delivery to time, budget and quality, and how were key stakeholders involved – both formally and informally – in these arrangement ? There was plenty of information maintenance and reporting but the tempo set by the project never made it look like a burden. Plenty of reporting was carried out to different groups in different ways. Firstly the Project Team was made to sit close to each other to facilitate communication between them. There used to be a meeting among the team members everyday where required information on current status against the plan was exchanged. In addition, the Team Members submitted a Time Sheet giving hour wise break up of total activities planned for the day and actually carried out This constituted a critical input regards the progress of work and helped in promptly identifying potential bottlenecks and deviations for initiating suitable action. In addition, there was a meeting every day between the Project Teams of EACL CIL even if they were not at the same location. The Project Manager had a daily round of appraising the Program manager about the status of activities. In addition, Project Manager maintained a day wise information on different event / developments in the project and periodically shared the same in confidence with the Program Manager by way of an informal reporting. A weekly progress report was submitted by the Project Manager to the CEO, Plant Head, Finance Controller, Program Manager, Infrastructure Manager. Both the progress along with the anticipated bottlenecks along with remedial action planned were reflected in the report. Periodic Presentations were delivered to CEO in presence of all Departmental Heads including the Plant Head Finance Controller wherein the progress, forthcoming activities and anticipated problems and their solutions were discussed. A Centralized Project Database was maintained by IT Group at US for all IT Projects initiated worldwide. Periodically at the end of every milestone all relevant documents as prescribed in the Project Methodology were submitted to this database. This was followed by a presentation made to the Steering Committee Members comprising of senior personnel from EACL, CIL US HQ. Only upon receiving approval for a phase, the next phase was entered into. Daily interactions with Project Team with the help of Time Sheets led to assessment of the progress. Interactions between two Project Teams brought out further tasks to be initiated and provided an idea about the time estimates and criticality. Reporting to Program Manager, CEO Steering Committee resulted in receiving guidance regards the project and eliminating the bottlenecks and problems. Presentations with CEO ensured cooperation from all Departments. Thus every formal or informal communication or reporting had served its intended purpose. Besides this, there always was a freedom to make a need based call to anyone with appropriate response and action sure to come by. While the project involved a lot of work, called for detailed planning and close monitoring and had many complexities, it was also not without the lighter moments. Following every milestone, there was required to be a get together of the Project Teams and he Departmental Heads where a lot of formal and informal interaction used to take place making its own contribution to the success of the project. Scheduling such a get together following each milestone was also a part of the project plan and a subject of Project Review ! The project management methodology used and its contribution to the success (or otherwise) of the project. The Project Management Methodology followed was one that was developed by the IT Department of the Corporate IT Group itself and broadly, it was a prototype oriented methodology. It was a tried and tested methodology already put into practice at the group companies within the country. Among the very first activities in the project was to depute the Project Manager for undergoing a training on this methodology and specifically, the documentation which was standardized across all companies in the world within the group. This methodology made everything so simple to understand and help ensuring that once we start religiously practicing the methodology, we did not miss out on anything in the course of the project. Particularly noteworthy in the methodology was a process of IT Requests Management. It handled the entire process from initiating an it request to providing all required details about it to seeking and enabling required authorizations, assigning the work till completion, testing certification of the results, configuration management and finally, approving the satisfactory completion of the IT Request by the request initiator. Entire process was handled by a software, which facilitated electronic approvals to the requests. This process accepted only those IT Requests which were backed by relevant details, having appropriate authorization from the concerned departmental heads, feasibility assessment by the Functional Technical Consultants, approval by the IT Program Manager assignment of the same to functional / technical consultant for compliance. Once completed, the relevant software was tested on a separate system, approved by the IT Program Manager and only thereafter the software was allowed to be transferred to the production server. Finally the initiator of the request was required to confirm that the request has been complied with to his satisfaction – a precondition for treating it to be completed. Thus Change Management was appropriately controlled in the project. The Documents to be maintained for the project related with the quality aspects, risk assessment and mitigation, investments, benefits anticipated, project plan, impact on IT Infrastructure currently in use, manpower currently deployed so on – in short, touching all aspects that are concerning the project. The Group IT Dept at US had a Project Document Repository where the documents were required to be posted before each Steering Committee Meeting. This enforced appropriate handling of quality, risk, time, investment, benefits other aspects to be clearly defined beforehand and their achievement during the course of the project. The Project phases also included a Post Production Review phase where the post implementation benefits were compared with the anticipated benefits. As regards this project, requirements were collected and a prototype developed so as to fulfill the requirements. The prototype was demonstrated and further tuned based upon the feedback of the end users. Next, the prototype was given to the end users for testing – testing with test data, testing with specific â€Å"scenarios† prepared to test typical conditions or situations anticipated. This was followed by an integration testing i. e. testing encompassing multiple functions to test the integration and finally, the load testing to measure the adequacy of the infrastructure to support the given number of users as envisaged. After such exhaustive testing and based upon the feedback received, the prototype was fine tuned and the software set up for production. Conclusion : The Oracle 11i e Business implementation was already planned as to what needs to be implemented, how and within what time ! It touched almost all employees in all functions at all offices of the organization. The time allowed for changeover was limited to 5 days. The in-house Key Users were with no major exposure to IT and especially, ERP. Every milestone was required to be reviewed and approved by the IT Team at US the Steering Committee. All this called for a very detailed planning and an extremely time bound execution with hardly any scope for deviation. The eventual consolidation with Group Headquarters and visibility over complete data by them made it totally transparent to them, also making quality assurance a pre-requisite. Obviously with most of the major investment having already been made, the project was required to be completed within the budget. To ensure a smooth implementation, major thrust came from the CEO and continued throughout the implementation. The determining factor that led to the success of the project was the high motivational level of the project team which could be raised and sustained throughout the project. Once this was achieved, execution of every project activity became a simple affair. Another major factor was the anticipation of bottlenecks and problems raised by the Project Manager initiation of actions to control the same. Emphasis on preparation and testing of scenarios eliminated chances of facing any surprises after the implementation. Detailed planning carried out for the black out period was a significant step in ensuring a quick and smooth changeover. Thus the Project was a grand success story !

Thursday, January 23, 2020

How can the role of leadership be best understood in organizational cha

The role of leadership can best be understood in organizational change as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Depending on the conceptualisation of organizational change you adopt, the leader’s role could be perceived to be a variety of things, from that of an initiator/visionary, the influencer of culture, a trigger for follower organizational identification, someone who redefines resistance, or a sense maker who introduces new discourses. The most useful approach can be to consider an issue from a number of different theoretical points of view before determining the most effective intervention. Leadership has been conceived of in a multitude of different ways varying from Great man theory (Borgatta, Bales and Couch, 1954; Cawthon, 1996), trait theories (), and style theories (). More recent conceptualisations of leadership include contingency theory (), and transformational leadership (). Each of these theoretical models has a contribution to make in forming a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between leadership and organizational change and we shall explore how adopting a definition for leadership or organizational change infers the role of the other. However we define leadership, the concepts of organizational change and leadership can be argued to be inextricably linked. If a leader was not able to effect any change within an organization then it is hard to imagine a way in which such a leader could be effective in their role. Thus organizational change is at the very heart of a leader’s role. This paper will argue that a pluralist approach to understanding leadership’s role in organizational change possesses the greatest utility in informing practice. In doing so, it will present a number of different concepts ... ...ind of universal sense as in doing so, one ‘mistakes the map for the terrain’. The role of leadership in organizational change is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which, it has been argued in this paper, can be most usefully understood by employing a pluralist perspective. That is to say, ‘a pluralist approach of comparing multiple plausible models of reality is essential for developing objective scientific knowledge’ (Campbell, 1988: 389, in Van de Ven & Poole, 2005). While there are a plethora of lens through which to understand both leadership and change it is more useful to consider a range of perspectives and only then assess the utility of each perspective and it’s appropriateness for informing a real world intervention. In the words of Pettigrew (2001) â€Å"In the absence of unambiguous foundational truth †¦ the only sensible way forward can be conscious pluralism."

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Nuclear Power As A Green Energy Source Environmental Sciences Essay

In today ‘s society, atomic energy is a high demanded beginning of energy. It provides electricity to families and concerns with electricity expeditiously for it to be able to run. It is viewed by assorted political and non political groups as risky, menace to climate alteration such as planetary heating, and non a sustainable beginning of energy. Their position of bring forthing electricity and other beginnings energy is to be produced from renewable beginnings such as air current turbines and solar power. Many research workers argue that the menace to environment from the production of atomic energy is non the instance and in fact less harmful to the Earth and produces less nursery gases ( Dawson 2003, 34 ) , some like to see that atomic energy has a nothing C emanation. Nuclear energy is viewed as a cost effectual manner of bring forthing electricity compared to char firing which was seen to be expensive and immense menace to the environment. 1.1 Purpose The intent of this study is to see whether or non atomic power can so be seen as a green and sustainable green beginning of energy. 1.2 Scope This study considers what atomic power is, the hereafter energy demand in relation to planetary heating, the advantages of atomic energy, disadvantages of atomic energy such as the effects of the environment, whether it can be seen as a green solution in bring forthing energy, and a sustainable beginning of energy.1.3 Beginnings and MethodsInformation was collected from books, scholarly journal articles, green peace and greenies internet web site.Nuclear PowerNuclear power is energy that is produced for the intent of turn outing electricity for domestic, industrial, and other industry usage ( Hodgson 1999, 51 ) . The rhythm of bring forthing energy involves mining the U ores, change overing for fuel, enrichment, fiction, the production of a power works, operating, uranium processing, and waste disposal ( Fthenakis and Kim 2006, 2552 ; Lillington 2009, 94 ) . It is made up of a stuff called U which goes through a figure of procedures until is it stacked inside fuel rods. These fuel ro ds are so used to bring forth heat and steam which allows the atomic reactor to bring forth energy ( Fthenakis and Kim 2006, 2552 ) . Nuclear power is seen as a risky procedure of bring forthing electricity ( Hultman 2008, 41 ; Greenpeace. 2010 ; The Greens 2010 ) . Others view as a manner of scheme to cut down nursery gases ( Pasztor 1991, 98 ) and supplying economic stableness ( Green 2008, 15 ) . As mentioned before, environmental groups such as Greenpeace and political parties for illustration the Australian Greens party have fought against administrations in the affair of atomic power and have impeaching them of being the chief job for planetary heating. However society to a great extent relies on atomic power and sees this as a demand or merely a necessity for them to utilize in their day-to-day lives. Nuclear power is easy to bring forth, it can supply a big supply of electricity atomic power and sees this as a demand or merely a necessity for them to utilize in their day-to- day lives. Nuclear power is easy to bring forth, it can supply a big supply of electricity atomic power and sees this as a demand or merely a necessity for them to utilize in their day-to-day lives. Nuclear power is easy to bring forth ; it can supply a big supply of electricity, and is really efficient if supplying the demand for electricity ( Sovacool 2008, 3 ) . The usage of renewable beginnings of energy from solar and air current would non be plenty to supply energy to a house. In fact it can non power two 60 Ws light bulbs for a whole twenty-four hours.Future Energy DemandNuclear power is considered to be a future energy demand in footings of C emanations which is related to planetary heating ( Pasztor 1991, 105 ; Kessides 2009, 323 ) . With the high demand for electricity to better life criterions, many states are still building and runing atomic workss to bring forth atomic energy ( Pasztor 1991, 105 ; Green 2008, 15 ; Hodgson 1999, 119 ) . This is due to increase of populat ion, a rise in incomes in states which develop increases the energy demand. During 2008, the United States had approved another 30 reactors to be built ( Green 2008, 15 ) . States such as Germany, France, and Japan have made investings to better their processing activities in which this will ensue in lower measures of Pu and U needed to bring forth atomic power ( Pasztor 1991, 103 ) . As of 2005, there were 20 states that depended on atomic energy for the usage of electricity. It is seen as a reliable beginning of energy that has no emanation of C. This besides includes the phase during the processing with fossil fuels ( Lorenzini 2005, 33 ) . In the context of planetary heating, research conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) show that atomic power should be retained because it is seen as a production of energy that is carbon free ( Dawson 2003, 34 ) .AdvantagesLooking at the component Uranium, one lb of it contains the same energy of one 1000000s of coal ( Lorenzini 2005, 33 ) . This means less excavation activity for Uranium and necessitating less energy. It is seen as been a low C emitter, harmonizing to Pasztor ( 1991, 98 ) it â€Å" can be considered as an alternate beginning of energy in nursery gas decrease schemes † . During the production of atomic energy it is show that little sums of air pollution along with acidic gases are created during the burning phase of the fossil fuels ( Pasztor 1991, 98 ) . It which this can be a better option for bring forthing electricity so coal. However harmonizing to Mortimer ( 1991, 76 ) â€Å" atomic power is found to offer less than its advocators imply. This is when it ‘s looked more into it. Again we can besides take into history Jan Murray who represented the Uranium Institute who supports the fact the C dioxide is non produced by atomic power ( Mortimer 1991, 76 ) . The sustainable development committee references that the production of atomic energy can be seen as a low C emanation ( Kennedy 2007, 3710 ) . Many administrations are presently puting in improved atomic energy production which can be seen as a positive position, in which this will take to a lessening in C emanation ( Kennedy 2007, 3710 ) . Constructing more atomic workss can see a decrease of gas ingestion. At times when there is a deficit, big industries can take advantage of the decrease of gas for their benefit. This means a low impact on the environment, this leads to salvaging energy and necessitating less excavation, conveyance, and geographic expedition ( Kennedy 2007, 3711 ) . When it comes to atomic waste, the coal waste is seen to be more risky. It includes been risky to the environment and to our wellness. However atomic power is less harmful and better for the environment ( Lorenzini 2005, 34 ) .DisadvantagesFor atomic power to be produced, foremost a atomic station demands to be constructed. Constructing requires concrete, aluminum, steel, Diesel to run machinery, and Cu. In which they do necessitate a big sum of it ( Fthenakis and Kim 2007, 2553 ) . The stuffs required for the building is gathered from chiefly mining activities. In which it is seen that excavation does play a function in environmental pollution and emanation of nursery gases ( Kennedy 2007, 3711 ) . As from 2006 cost analysis study, it is estimated to be 2.8 billion lbs to build a works ( Kennedy 2007, 3708 ) . The usage of Uranium to fuel the atomic power works are seen as extremely radioactive, fuel is either fain or reprocessed in storage casks or in pools. However the United States as holding the bulk of bloomerss in the universe ( ) , it does non see recycling fuels. Some claim to hold less emanation and non a subscriber to planetary heating ( Mortimer 1991, 76 ) . However during the enrichment, operation, and production phases of the atomic rhythm. It requires a batch of energy in order for the phases to map ( Fthenakis and Kim 2007, 2553 ) . The terminal of the life rhythm is s till accounted for nursery pollution. All power Stationss and industries that relate to it hold an consequence on the environment ( Hodgson 1999, 117 ) . These effects are seen as a immense impact on our wellness and landscape that is used for mining which can take to destruction to the land ( Hodgson 1991, 119 ) . As mentioned before, we produce more energy to better our life, but pollution is produced during the rhythm of the atomic power which brings our life of standard down ( Hodgson 1991, 119 ) . Coevals of atomic power green goodss waste which is unsafe and seen as a planetary job. Normally wastes are buried belowground and has a mass consequence to the Earth. Care is non normally taken ( Hodgson 1991, 123 ) in which the consequence of radiation pollution can happen.6.1 Chernobyl and Three Mile IslandLooking at the Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island incident ( Greenpeace International 2010 ) these incidents lead a immense taint to the H2O supply and cause of deceases in Ukra ine due to radioactive pollution. The people of Ukraine have besides suffered from birth defects and other cancerous unwellness due to the proper attention non taken into topographic point ( Adamantiades and Kessides 2009, 5160 ) .Green EnergyThe inquiry is raised earlier one is whether atomic power can be seen as green beginning of energy. The universe has witnessed tragic incidents such as the Chernobyl and Hiroshima in which atomic power had made a immense consequence to the Earth ( Tilson 1996, 63 ; Damian 1992, 597 ) . To some certain countries, it can be considered as a green beginning of energy. Adamantiades and Kessides ( 2009, 5151 ) reference that atomic power has shown that it can avoid effects of fossil fuel pollutants. Extinguishing coal and replacing with U would set less injury to the environment and lower the nursery gas emanations. The more atomic power used to bring forth energy can assist to cut down the usage of such minerals such as brown coal, difficult coal, a nd oil. As these minerals are harmful for the environment it would intend less used in exchange for atomic power. Lorenzini references that atomic power is better for the environment and wellness compared to other minerals such as coal ( Lorenzini 2005, 34 ) . However political groups such as The Australian Greens Party argue that atomic power is non a solution to cut downing nursery gas emanations ( The Aussie Greens 2010 ) . Besides Greenpeace international claims that the usage of atomic power is a hazard to humanity and the environment ( Greenpeace International 2010 ) but Lorenzini ( 2005, 38 ) argues that the ends of atomic power is ease the force per unit area on land usage along with the environmental jobs that ‘s occur and extinguish emanations that contribute to climate alteration and human wellness issues. The argument on whether atomic power is green is hard to reply as the positives positions are equal to the negative positions.Sustainable EnergyThe inquiry whethe r atomic power can be seen as sustainable beginning of energy has been. As Lorenzini references ( 2005, 36 ) â€Å" sustainability of atomic power depends on an equal attack to atomic waste † . This is frequently hard due to the troubles in looking for a suited site for waste to be deposed. However the atomic industry has faced this job of waste disposal on whether it should disposed or reprocessed ( Adamantiades and Kessides 2009, 5166 ) . Nuclear waste is either placed in ceramic or glass containers and so taken to an appropriate country for disposal. Due to the Hazardous radiation, Uranium needs to be disposed directly after electricity is produced to in order to hold a less consequence on the environment ( Greenpeace 2010 ) . This is five old ages after the power works has cooled down the waste in its pool in order to forestall it from runing down. Nuclear power can seen as non been sustainable, due to the fact that there is no manner safe manner of disposing it.DecisionT o reason this study, we have chiefly identified the advantages and disadvantages of atomic power in today ‘s society. A batch of betterments have been made on atomic power in footings of its public presentation and injury to the environment. We can see that atomic energy is a measure to been green and is replacing usage of coal to supply electricity. However atomic power is non a sustainable beginning of energy. As it is hard to happen storage topographic points and the consequence it has on the environment one time its transferred for chilling. Many groups such as The Australian Greens Party and Greenpeace International are wholly against this step and see this as load to the environment and to our wellness. But one inquiry that is raised is that why that is these groups target atomic power when other beginnings of generators such as coal are to a great extent used to supply electricity. Overall atomic power is a beginning of energy that we to a great extent depend on ( Sovac ool 2008, 2 ) . Renewable beginnings of energy from solar and weave demand to be improved in order to supply the needed sum of electricity that a family would necessitate.

Monday, January 6, 2020

History of the Simplest Writing Tools Pencil and Paper

Pencil and paper may not look too impressive today, when we have all kinds of fancy electronic devices that replace them and make the process of writing so much easier. They are so habitual and inconspicuous, so mundane that one hardly ever thinks of them twice. Yet these two seemingly simplistic writing implements have a long history behind them, and at one time both of them were revolutionary, world-changing inventions. Modern pencil descends from the stylus used by the ancient Romans – it was a thin metal stick with a sharpened end – not unlike modern styli used to work with mobile devices. Stylus was used for scratching on papyrus – direct predecessor of modern paper – or wax tablets. Of course, such a method of writing was hardly effective – texts written in this fashion were hard to read and easily erasable. A bit later somebody thought about making styli out of lead – these left more visible traces on papyrus, but had an unfortunate side effect – lead is toxic, and prolonged usage of such styli led to very unpleasant health issues. The history of the pencil in modern sense of the word begins in the middle of 16th century, when a very large deposit of graphite was discovered in Borrowdale, England. It was unusually pure and solid – so much that it could have been easily sawn into sticks. To understand how lucky this discovery was one may note that by this day it remains the only non-negligible deposit of solid graphite to be found. Graphite is brittle, so some sort of encasing was in order – initially graphite sticks were wrapped in sheepskin or string, and only much later somebody found a way to put them into hollowed-out pieces of wood. However, the production of pencils from natural graphite was an arduous and not very efficient task – as a result they weren’t mass produced until 1662, when Germans found a way or reconstituting graphite powder. Since then the pencil survived, almost unchanged, until the present day. The history of paper begins in ancient China during the reign of Han dynasty in the first or second century BC. Other paper-like materials, like papyrus, were in use much earlier, but they were made out of expensive raw materials and required a long and tiresome processing, making them unviable in most cases. Paper, being made out of wood, has enough raw materials for its production virtually anywhere, and efficient large-scale production methods have been invented relatively early, which made it easily available and widespread in the East. It, however, took a while for the paper to get to Europe – the earliest paper document there dates back to the 11th century. Europeans, however, rather quickly developed a mechanized method of paper production by means of water power, thus turning it from a rare commodity to cheap and easily reproducible material. It is fascinating to think that such simple things as paper and pencil have come such a long way before becoming ubiquitous household items – so ubiquitous that we hardly notice them.