Research Paper

1938 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Conclusion about walmart history

On July 2, 1962, the first Wal-Mart store opened in Arkansas, and over the next 50 years, Wal-Mart became a retail giant. Holding the title of the world’s largest employer, only comparable to the United States Department of Defense and Chinas Army, Wal-Mart employs over 2.1 million people. Sam Walton’s philosophy was low prices. Instead of offering good sales every once in a while, Walton offered an “always lower price” than competitors on things that ordinary people use every day. This philosophy continues to attract more than 140 million shoppers per week. This staggering amount of shoppers helped produce a revenue of $443billion for fiscal year 2012 alone (Matthews, 2012). With more than 6,000 stores in 14 countries, Wal-Mart produces remarkable revenue each year (Hesterly, 2010). With literally billions pouring into the company, one must assess how the money is controlled and if its accounted for by the best contemporary management techniques on the market. While Wal-Mart thrives on the use of benchmarketing and lean accounting, the Theory of Constraints paired with lean accounting could produce staggering results for Wal-Mart in terms of financial management.
Lean accounting techniques are designed to give a clear picture of a company’s financial performance after the adaptation of the lean manufacturing process. Lean accounting techniques may organize cost by value systems, by changing financial reports to include non-financial information, and by changing inventory techniques. Lean manufacturing encompasses benchmarketing in that it focuses on the values of the customers and meeting the needs of the customers while producing a profit for the company. Wal-Mart has embodied the five steps of lean accounting (thinking). These...

... middle of paper ...

...e River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Maskell, B. (n.d.). What is lean accounting? Retrieved June 21, 2014, from http://www.pcb.org.za/upload/files/what-is-lean-accounting-maskell.pdf
Moore, R., & Scheinkopf, L. (1998, January 1). Theory of Constraints and Lean Manufacturing: Friends or Foes?. . Retrieved June 14, 2014, from http://www.tocca.com.au/uploaded/documents/lean%20and%20toc.pdf
Preez, D., & Louw, L. (2004, January 1). A Roadmap Approach For Implementing Theory of Constraints In Manufacturing Organisations . . Retrieved June 29, 2014, from http://www.indutech.co.za/attachments/134_A%20Roadmap%20Approach%20For%20Implementing%20Theory%20of%20Constraints%20in%20Manufacturing%20Organisations.pdf
Project Life Cycles. (2013, January 1). Project Life Cycles. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from http://www.successfulprojects.com/PMTopics/ProjectLifeCycles/tabid/113/Default.aspx

Show More
Related

  • Identifying and Analysing the supply chain structure of Superdrug

    2124 Words  | 5 Pages

    TONI, A.D.,TONCHIA, S. (1996) “Lean orgnanisation, management by process and performance measurement”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 16(2), pp. 221-236. [Online}. Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com (Accessed: 08 December 2011)

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart and Corporate Social Responsibility

    1340 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.

    Read More

  • Lean Thinking In A Donuts Company Case Study

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    The paper primarily focuses on the adapting Lean Thinking in a company. This paper gives a basic perspective of Lean application. The paper investigates and elucidates Lean by demonstrating how the procedure can be augmented to include incremental worth. The paper exhibits how Lean systems can be adjusted into certifiable circumstances by applying Lean instruments to the genuine organization. In this way, organizations of distinctive administration commercial ventures can likewise learn and adjust the Lean approach all the more adequately.

    Read More

  • Successful Project Manager Case Study

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    The idea behind lean is to maximize customer value while eliminating waste which means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. This means the main aim of lean management is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste (LEI, 2009). Lean manufacturing is based on efficiencies, adding value to a product and removing wasteful steps in production (Summers, 2011). Waste is considered anything that doesn 't add value to the end product. In terms of efficiencies, this is done by focuses on a customer needs, i.e. what is the customer willing to pay for? In order to deal with lean manufacturing, there are key stages involved; identify waste, analyze waste, find the root cause, solve the root cause and repeat the cycle (Mind tools,

    Read More

  • Strategic Management of Wal-Mart

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is in the discount, variety stores industry. It was founded in 1945, Bentonville in Arkansas which is also the headquarters of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart operates locally as well as worldwide. It operated 1209 discount stores, 1980 super centers, and 567 Sam’s Club by January 31, 2006. It has also extended its operations to many international countries. It runs its retail stores in two forms: Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Stores. The Sam’s Club sells assorted product lines such as hardwares, electronics, jewelry, and to mention a few. The Wal-Mart stores also offer similar products in addition to the following: health and beauty products, apparel for women, men and children, household appliances etc (www.yahoo.finance.com). The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Values and Code of Conduct, Corporate Governance: Directors, Executive Management, Committees and Stakeholder will be the key elements that will discussed in this report as it relates to Wal-Mart. In addition to that, the major trends in the general/macro environment and industry will be analyzed.

    Read More

  • Lean Manufacturing Case Study

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    Let’s start from the very beginning. Lean manufacturing is a business model that incorporates a variety of methods that focuses on eliminating non-value added processes while producing quality products on time every time at a low cost with greater efficiency. A few of those methodologies, for example, are kaizen, just-in-time manufacturing, process improvement, and continuous improvement. Now there are many how; however, history needs to be disgusted first so that a better understanding can be achieved.

    Read More

  • Definitions Of Lean Manufacturing

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before understanding the history of Lean Manufacturing I would like to explore its definition from several different perspectives and compare it to other philosophies, discussing its limitations and misconceptions.

    Read More

  • Waste Reduction

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...hout the articles, complexibility of implementing Lean manufacturing has been shown since in order to reduce waste for the different companies all operations and procedures has to pass through tests and a whole set of studies in their totality. For example, the Product and Process Design (3P) is important since it eliminates waste in terms of time and complexity. It is vital to go to meetings and training seminars since us as future EHS managers we need to know how the real world works and which technologies are out there to help us perform better our job. Furthermore, waste reduction is not easy to achieve since there are many steps that need to taken into consideration. For Boeing, they had to analyze all the 767s and 777s manufacturing procedures to project all opportunities that can be achieve by enhancing the overall operation by the use of Lean manufacturing.

    Read More

  • Lean Manufacturing Implementation in Malaysian Automotive Components Manufacturer

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    The purpose of this case study is to investigate the methods used in implementing lean manufacturing by this successful company namely MJ SDN BHD where this company was awarded by Malaysia Japan Automotive Industries Cooperation (MAJAICO) on its achievement as a Toyota Production System (TPS) Model Company (Muslimen, Yusof and Abidin, 2011). This case study was chosen because it related to our assignment’s central issue in the process of implementing lean production. The issue that may face by the company in the implementation of lean production is that the process is time consuming and high in expenditure (Sandberg, 1995). Despite requiring specific tools and techniques, this long term project also need a clear direction of work progress, proper planning and controlling, and adapted to a company’s environment and needs. Most of the companies failed in implementing lean manufacturing are because they possess an ambiguous project direction, lack of planning and insufficient project sequencing (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006 as cited in Muslimen, et al., 2011).

    Read More

  • Operational Planning For Wal-Mart

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wal-mart has a reputation for caring for its customers, of course their employees, and for the prospective public. So Wal-Mart can be an industrial leader for the world of shoppers with an eye for lower affordable prices, company decision makers would continue it's systematic strategies that it's founder and president established years ago. Sam Walton believed in three guiding principles in his strategy planning they were to provide the customer with good value and service, to have a good relationship with its associates, and to be involved with the community.

    Read More

  • Principles Of Lean Production

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of these principles being the standards of time based management, which are incorporated with the preparation accommodated with many different types of supply chain 's representatives and work staff. Preparing and training are two highly important requirements in lean production that empowers supply chain to cut out wastefulness and decrease expenses. Through preparing staff to do a mixture of errands around one of the stores in a supply chain, it can minimize its employee requirements and tasks. This technique brings about employees within the supply chain to not only picking up information about the entire business, but are able to offer a much more elevated amount of customer service. In Chris and Rick Harris’ “Three pillars for building a lean supply bass,” Harris embraces this importance, “When an organization operates a lean production system, it is important to understand that the lean production system is the customer of the supply base.” (Harris, 2015, p. 28) Staff expenses can likewise be decreased as less staff are needed due to the fact employee are more experienced with the obligations all through the

    Read More

  • A Case Study: Process Cycle Efficiency Improvement Through Lean

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author has portrayed his view to attain the objective of lean tools and techniques by eliminating the increase of time and cost, the lean thinking on manufacturing shortens the time of the customer’s order and the shipment duration. The five-major principle of lean are as follows:

    Read More

  • Advantages And Disadvantages Of Agile Manufacturing

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lean manufacturing is focused on minimising the costs of manufacturing. The focus is therefore on demand-based manufacturing, which aims to eliminate investment in inventory. Lean manufacturing involves with improving the effective use of utilities, facilities and materials. The process is driven by the mindset that the processes can be constantly improved to make manufacturing more cost efficient. Therefore, lean manufacturing emphasises improvement and the measurement of performance.

    Read More

  • Research Paper

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    Security is an idea with many meanings. What this thesis brings new is an answer to the question weather we all experience security in the same way ? Assumptions about feminism play important roles in understanding and reacting to security threats. A key introduction to feminist literature is the study of gender in International Relations (IR). A new concept is proposed gender security, and an alternative to the reform of the security system advocates to include more female participants in the discourse and in the institutions emphasising on female insecurities to help denaturalise and dismantle, gendered hierarchies that contribute to strengthen security.

    Read More

  • Lean Manufacturing In The Aeronautical Industry

    2087 Words  | 5 Pages

    The first who started with this methodology was Boeing. After the problems that it had with manufacturing in the 90s, they saw the necessity of changing its way of working. The problems were that while sales and profits were firm and the order backlog were solid, Boeing's manufacturing operations look weak next to those of Airbus. From the beginning, Airbus' designs and operations were newer and more efficient than those from its competitor. A gap like that can be disastrous, as Boeing learned in 1997. With unprecedented demand for new planes, Boeing tried to increase its production. But parts supply problems and a shortage of workers forced the company to shut down its 747 and 737 assembly lines. Some customers changed to Airbus, and Boeing's commercial airplane division was smacked with a $1.6 billion loss, even though it sold a record $24.5 billion worth of jetliners (Holmes, 2001). But that has completely changed. Boeing's mid-'90s shift to Lean is already reaping tangible dividends. The first step was sending executives to Japan to study JIT (Just in Time: error free production, and process flow). Consultants were hired from Shingijutsu Co., a group of former Toyota executives (Hall & McArthur, 2008). Then, the Chicago based conglomerate started using this philosophy to restore its tarnished reputation in manufacturing. Following are explained some examples extracted from Jenkins

    Read More

More about Research Paper

Open Document