Woody 2000
The project proposed herein involves identifying optimal approaches to the expansion of the existing workspace and installation of a production train for The Custom Woodworking Company (hereinafter alternatively "Woody's" or "the company"), a custom furniture and millwork manufacturer headquartered in ritish Columbia. The company's longstanding reputation for high quality products has created a need for this additional workspace and more efficient manufacturing processes.

Overview of Plan and Implementation

The overarching objective of this project will be four-fold as follows:

Identify key players and their respective roles in the project;

Determine how MS Project can be used to support and oversee the project's progress;

c.

Construct a finishing shop featuring additional compressor capacity; and,

b.

Install a semi-automated production train.

3.

Nature of the Proposed Research

The nature of the proposed research will be to identify optimal approaches to using MS Project 2007 for project management applications using the sources of information described below. The proposed study will also evaluate the…...

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Bibliography

Dinsmore, PC & Cabanis-Brewen, J (2006) The AMA Handbook of Project Management. New York: AMACOM.

Fraenkel, JR & Wallen, NE (2001) Educational Research: A Guide to the Process. Mahwah,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hibe, JM (2004, August). 'Section Editor's Notes.' The American Statistician, vol. 58, no. 3

oody 2000 -- Project Outline
The oody 2000 project represents an industrial facilities expansion for a growing small-to-midsize (SME) business that produces custom furniture and cabinets. This SME, The Custom oodworking Company, has designated a seventeen million dollar project budget with the goal of adding an equivalent of twenty five percent to their existing production floor space as well as introducing some modern equipment with some level of automation. The project is to be managed a company known as Expert Industrial Developers (EID) who has been contract on a cost plus basis after the project stakeholders refused an initial offer of twenty million dollar project budget with an estimated eighteen month project duration.

Company Background

Custom oodwork Company (oody's) began as a small scale furniture business that is now medium scale, manufacturing cabinets and furniture for industrial estates. Currently, the asset base is over $180 million with revenues over $96 million.

Project Objectives

The mini…...

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Works Cited

Kerzner, H. (2009) Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. 10th Ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

PMI (2008) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 5th Ed. Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute, Inc.

Wysocki, K. (2012) Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme. 6th Ed. Indianapolis: Wiley & Sons Inc.

The initial monthly cash flow charts set aside one million for contingencies: one million in each of the first and last months, with an intervening ten months at $1.4 million (Wideman, 1993, Planning). The project should have been carefully guarded against so-called 'scope creep' or an expansion of the project which was not strictly approved of, according to the initially-set limit and budget. If more money or additional expansion was required over the project's duration, a formal meeting should have been immediately called for in the initial project directives to determine why and how the costs could be curtailed. Communication channels and pre-ordained regular project meetings should have been established between EID and Woody's. The project's leadership hierarchy should have been defined.
Deadline completion was a must, given that the project was designed to respond to an available external opportunity. EID was paid an hourly rate. The problem with paying…...

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References

Wideman, Max. (1993). Woody 2000. Expert Project Management.

Retrieved September 27. 2010 at  

Woody's Project Management:
The Custom Woodworking Company is relatively a medium sized cabinet and furniture making firm whose headquarters are at Industrial Estates, BC. The founder began the company in 1954 following his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker before moving to the current location in 1959 together with his wife. Woody's currently manufactures custom furniture, typical kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and various wholesaler or retailer furniture products. Following its continual growth since its inception, the company has established a solid reputation for supplying millwork to the construction industry ("Background," 2000).

Project Management in the Construction Industry:

Project Management is a multi-faceted activity with numerous dimensions that are entirely based on the kind and class of project. However, regardless of the project type and class, every level of project management involves the same approach though it's only the branch and size of the activity that varies from project to project (Wideman, 2001). In order…...

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References:

"Background." (2000). Project Management Case Study: The Custom Woodworking Company

Woody 2000 Project. Retrieved December 21, 2011, from  

For example, the company did create a monthly cash flow chart for the modernization project. However, this flow chart was not regularly re-evaluated over the course of the project on a regular and timely basis, once delays became a problem. There was no talk of scaling back or reformulating the approach, once it became clear that the project was going to be more expensive and take longer than anticipated. Additionally, there was no careful monitoring of the external market environment for opportunities or threats that could affect the future profitability of the project.
The lack of close monitoring was especially detrimental to the company because of the fact that the contracted firm, EIS, was paid at an hourly rate: once delays began to spiral out of control, so did costs. Another poor strategy was evident in their criteria for selecting members of the leadership team. For example, Ian Leadbetter did…...

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Reference

Wideman, Max. (2002, November 14). The Woodworking Case Study. Expert Project

Management. Retrieved May 23, 2010.  

When Leadbetter was made aware of these issues, he contacted only the subcontractors working on individual aspects of the project, attempting to micromanage without coordinating through the project leaders at the two major companies that had been hired to complete this project (EID and S&P) (Project Management Case Study 2000). All told, the project that had been slated to take a year to complete took over two years, ran into major cost overruns, did not provide the amount of increased production capacity for all areas of Woody's manufacturing operations as had been hoped and promised, and left a bad taste in many individual's mouths both at Woody's and at many of the other companies that had been hired to take part in the project (Project Management Case Study 2000).

esults

The results of this project, as one could imagine, were only slightly short of disastrous. Continued delays in production meant that the…...

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Reference

Project Management Case Study. (2000). Accessed 26 October 2010.  

Setting specific time tables for events, and having a clear understanding of how long each part of a project entails -- and who is responsible for overseeing that phase of the project -- is essential. Many delays could have been easily overcome, simply by ensuring that responsible staff members did not go on vacation at critical times.
How the organization will benefit from making changes

When the project began, the organization had benefitted by moving into subcontracting, in addition to focusing on its custom-built, wholesale and retail furniture lines. Expanding its production facilities was supposed to facilitate meeting increased demand. However, particularly given the 'custom' nature of many of its pieces, the benefits of time efficiency might not be as easily conveyed to the Woodworking Company as would be the case for a company with a more standardized manufactured product. Craftsmanship, even with superior production facilities, always takes time. Other aspects…...

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References

Analysis of project success: Criteria and success factors. (2009). Knol. Retrieved May 14, 2010

at http://knol.google.com/k/analysis-of-project-success-criteria-and-success-factors#Success_Criteria

Eco-efficiency in the wood furniture industry. (2008, January). Eco-Efficiency Center. Retrieved May 14, 2010. .management.dal.ca/Files/Business_Fact_Sheets/wood_furniture_fs.pdfhttp://eco-efficiency.

Wideman, Max. (2002, November 14). The Woodworking Case Study. Expert Project

Woody's Case
Woody's

The background of this case is relatively straightforward, despite the complexities of the described project's ultimate failure. The younger generation of the company's leadership wanted to see Woody's, a manufacturing concern, enlarged so it could take a greater market share and respond to increases in demand. While these goals might have been laudable in a general sense, the project suffered from a great deal of lack of foresight and planning, major communication issues among the various project leaders and designers, and an overall lack of control that led to many expenditures, a significant loss in productivity, and a near-total failure that had a negative impact on morale and company loyalty. No one acted with malicious intent or even laziness in order to lead to the outcome in the attempted expansion project, but a lack of expertise and over-ambition caused a failure nonetheless.

The solution to this problem depends upon where…...

With no clear standard operating procedures or defined chain of command, the project met with near-continual impasses and delays. For example, two critical company leaders with important decision-making capabilities were on vacation, while the manufacturing drawings for equipment awaited approval. Delays resulted in spiraling costs (Wideman, 1993, Design). However, the outsourcing of the project, it could be argued, was already a 'disaster waiting to happen.' Expert Industrial Developers (EID) was offered an hourly rate, which essentially gave it a reward to work longer, given that this would generate more revenue for EID (versus a flat fee) (Wideman, 1993, Design). EID's employment of Schemers and Plotters (S&P) for the building and industrial design work further dissipated the control over the project and increased the risk of delays (Wideman, 1993, Design).
Woody 2000 would not yield the expected profits for the company, unless it was met in a timely fashion. It was…...

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References

Wideman, Max. (1993). Woody 2000. Expert Project Management.

Retrieved October 25, 2010 at  

Project Management
In The Custom Woodworking Company, hereafter known as "Woody's," there were numerous project management problems that appeared from the very beginning, and they only got worse as the product was carried out. The Woody 2000 project was not well conceived, and that was the first problem encountered. When a project is going to begin, it needs to be thoroughly planned out first (Wideman, 2001b). There was little planning that took place with this project, as it was suggested and seemed to snowball from that point. Before Woody knew what was happening, a budget was proposed and there was a meeting with the engineers who were going to add to the building (The Custom Woodworking Company, 2012). Even then, the project started off badly. Originally, the desired plan was to move the company's location to a huge facility where rapid expansion could take place. However, Woody and his wife did…...

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References

Gheorghiu. F. (2008). Starting a PMO from Scratch: A Challenge or Unbearable Burden. PM World Today. Vol. X, Issue III.

History of Project Management. (2012). Retrieved July 29, 2012 from  http://www.lessons-from-history.com/node/16 

Lavell, D. & Martinelli, R. (2008). Program and Project Retrospectives: An Introduction (Part 1 of a Series). Vol. X, Issue I.

The Custom Woodworking Company - Woody 2000 Project. (2012). Retrieved on July 29, 2012 from:  

As he himself admits, "I have a very grim perspective. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish meaningless existence, and the only way to be happy is if you tell yourself some lies. One must have some delusions to live" ("Cannes 2010: oody Allen on Death -- 'I'm Strongly Against It'"). hat Midnight in Paris is for him (and us), therefore, is a kind of distraction from the reality that at some point the final credits will roll.
Malick's Tree of Life, then, is a kind of answer to Allen's melancholy. It is, of course, a religious answer told through an impressionistic and indirect medium. Nonetheless, unlike Allen, Malick is willing to embrace the spiritual side of man and explore its meanings and possibilities. For Malick, life is a spiritual journey that can lead one either upwards to the good or downwards to the bad. Allen's film may…...

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Works Cited

Allen, Woody, dir. Midnight in Paris. Los Angeles: Sony Pictures Classics, 2011.

Film.

Augustine. City of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1888. Print.

Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Girl and Great Falls
All cultures, seemingly without exception, foster gender role differentiation. Codes of male vs. female behavior guide the way parents raise their children, the ways children relate to each other, and the way individuals view themselves. In many cases, sex-differentiated adult gender roles, social norms, and expectations are constructed painfully. The painful, chaotic, and even violent process by which gender role differentiation occurs is captured by both Jamaica Kincaid and Richard Ford in their respective short stories, "Girl," and "Great Falls." These short stories show how gender as a sociological phenomenon can disrupt inner peace and fracture the soul. In her terse tale "Girl," Jamaica Kincaid recounts her internalized authoritarian voices: a list of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that have, for better or worse, constructed the narrator's sense of identity. In addition to the poignant impact of the narrator's internal dialogue, "Girl" shows how one woman…...

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Works Cited

Ford, Richard. "Great Falls." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. (pp. 338-349)

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 8th Edition, 2002. (pp. 476-77).

Folk Music
The Evolution of Folk Music Vocals

By its definition, folk music technically refers to indigenous forms of music created by local, regional or native populations as a way of engaging in cultural expression. This means that at its core, folk music is not intended to command a commercial value nor is it necessarily folk music by definition once a form has been co-opted by an outside culture. However, this is also a definition for folk which has long been rendered obsolete by the aesthetic and vocal qualities that listeners tend to associate with the genre today. This is because the most historically significant instances in which folk music converged with the commercial zeitgeist would come to produce a highly distinctive set of sounds.

Indeed, when we think of folk music, one tends instantly to conjure image of a young Bob Dylan with harmonica rack and guitar, wheezing his half-singing, half-speaking vocal…...

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Works Cited:

EW. (2013). The Great Folk Rock Revival: how bands like Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers are leading a global phenomenon. Entertainment Weekly.

Holden, S. (2013). When They Hammered Out Justice in the '60s. The New York Times.

Jacobs, P. (2006). Bringing It All Back Home -- The Folk Music Revival. Rewind the Fifties.

McCormick, N. (2011). Folk Music: A Quiet Revolution. The Telegraph.

" (1995)
The authors state: "The amphetamines occasioned dose-related increases in d- amphetamine-appropriate responding, whereas hydromorphone did not. Amphetamines also occasioned dose-related increases in reports of the drug being most like "speed," whereas hydromorphone did not. However, both amphetamines and hydromorphone occasioned dose-related increases in reports of drug liking and in three scales of the ARCI. Thus, some self-report measures were well correlated with responding on the drug-appropriate lever and some were not. Lamb and Henningfield (1994) suggest that self-reports are complexly controlled by both the private event and the subject's history of experience with the drug. Some of the self-reports they observed (e.g., feels like speed) are probably occasioned by a relatively narrow range of stimuli because in the subject's experience with drug administration, these reports have been more selectively reinforced by the verbal community relative to other reports (e.g., drug liking). They also suggest that these results imply that…...

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Bibliography

Budney, Alan J. et al. (2006) Clinical Trial of Abstinence-Based Vouchers and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Cannabis Dependence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 2006. Vol.. 74 No. 2. 2006 American Psychological Association.

McRae, a.; Budney, a.; & Brady, K. (2002) Treatment of Marijuana Dependence: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 24 (2003)

Pathways of Addiction: Opportunities in Drug Abuse Research (1996) Institute of Medicine (IOM)

Kamon, J; Budney, a. & Stanger, C. (2005)a Contingency Management Intervention for Adolescent Marijuana Abuse and Conduct Problems. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 44(6):513-521, June 2005.

As a testament to the respect he garners in the neighborhood, however, he is allowed to pass by without being sprayed by the water.
Radio Raheem's warrior status is first challenged in the film by a group of Latinos hanging out on their front stoop. They are listening to the radio, which is blasting Latin music. Suddenly, Radio Raheem appears, with his ghetto blaster pumping out Public Enemy. The Latinos react in anger, and turn up their music in order to drown out Radio Raheem's. This contest goes on for a few more takes, but it is ultimately Radio Raheem who emerges victorious in attaining maximum volume. The "fight" against the "power" has been won - at least momentarily. As Radio Raheem marches down the street, leaving his victims behind, a small black child runs up next to him. Radio Raheem gives the child a high five.

In another important scene,…...

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Bibliography

Calvino, Italo. 1974. Invisible Cities. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Cannon, Damian. 1997. "Mean Streets (1973)." Movie Reviews UK. Retrieved April 24, 2008 from: http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/Mean_Streets.html.

Ebert, Roger. 2003. "Mean Streets." Retrieved April 25, 2008 at  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031231/REVIEWS08/401010340/1023 .

Friedman, Lawrence S. 1997. The Cinema of Martin Scorsese. New York: Continuum.