New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc - Essay Example In reality, management seeks to develop a balance between product diversity and production feasibility. As markets mature and competitive pressures increase, more emphasis is given to product diversity. A challenging problem is the prediction of acceptance rates and market-development cycles. However, this cannot be done precisely at the start. But as companies gain better models and data, more precise market adjustments become possible. "If NB2E was to be successful-approaching Tompkins' goal of 100% availability within 24 hours while reducing inventory levels-manufacturing cycle times had to be dramatically reduced. These changes required complete realignment of factory operations" (Bowen et al 2008, p. 11). This pressing strategy has two sides: on the one hand it will require additional financial spending and restructuring within the company, on the other hand it will help New Balance to respond effectively to increased market pressure. "Doing this would require us to reduce work in process significantly and get the line associates and supervisors to embrace that change. The real challenge would be to keep making shoes every day while this transformation was ongoing." (Bowen et al 2008, p. 11). Product strategy is usually couched in terms of product success. However, management must be realistic about product failures -- new-product failure must be part of overall company expectations. Of course, newproduct failures can be eliminated by going out of business. But staying in business implies that new products will be developed and some will fail. Companies must determine an acceptable failure rate for their new products. Low failure rates are not always complimentary statistics, since they may indicate a lack of innovative ability and risk-taking (Crawford 2006). The second pressing strategy is structuring of supply chain. Successive channel stages attempt to overcome any discrepancy between product assortment and market requirements. Customer requirements of one or two units are at variance with supplier requirements of mass production. "In terms of manufacturing cost, labor and overhead each accounted for roughly 25% of the total, while materials accounted for the remaining 50%." (Bowen et al 2008, p. 9).Channels are thus used to overcome barriers. These barriers include the separations of time and space between producers and markets, the costs of moving goods, the communications barriers between producers and users of products, and the separation of demand. In surmounting such barriers, middlemen serve two groups -- manufacturers and customers. Their economic justification stems from performance of their functions more effectively than others. "New Balance continued to forge closer partnerships with its suppliers" (Bowen et al 2008, p. 9) . In order to improve the situation, New Balance could develop a new line of products targeted at low class consumers. The idea is to develop a product line which meets daily needs of a beverage consumer but its manufacturing process is based on professional sport shows technology and materials. In product development, for example, screening, consumer reaction,

Teenagers and Gang Violence in Connecticut must be in the last 5 years Research Paper

Teenagers and Gang Violence in Connecticut must be in the last 5 years - Research Paper Example Initially, gang violence among teenagers was only prevalent in inner cities of Unites States but now it is spreading in to every part of the country. Connecticut is one such state which is following other states and seeing an increase in teenager based gang violence. The teenager involving in gang violence in Connecticut is slowly increasing and the families and government of the city has a great responsibility to fight this social evil. As per (Hearst Communications)â€Å"Connecticut is not immune to gang violence issue. According to the Department of Public Health, 10 percent of teens surveyed were in a physically violent dating relationship last year; 17 percent were in an emotionally abusive dating relationship†. The teenagers in Connecticut City are slowly getting violent and major blame could be put on the domestic violence occurring in the homes of the state. Dating violence and atrocities at colleges and universities are the major concerns for the government and parent s in the city. Teenagers can get violent for many reasons and mostly they get an affinity towards violence when they see the same at their homes. The Teenager and Gang Violence activities in Connecticut Recently gang violence have spread to many communities in United States and Connecticut is one of the city joined the group. In United States, much of the violence is caused by the youth gangs. They create violence in neighborhood and schools where they are more active and interact commonly. According to (Brown) â€Å"The police in many Connecticut cities only had to look inside the schools to see that the problem of youth violence is on the rise. There's more fights resulting in violence over little things and more violence involving girls†. It is also seen that these violent youths get access to guns as they are sold on the streets .Children as young as 14 year old possess gun and using it at unpredictable situation which give rise to injury and fatal killing. The fights amo ng teenagers start on petty things and move on to become a deadly encounter. Since they are immature to think about the consequences of their action, things get out of their hand. This is a concern among the police authorities as the age of homicide victims are getting younger than ever. There have been many shootings and stabbings happening in the state in the past years that Federal, state and local authorities are highly concerned about the security of teenagers. More of violence is especially observed in the Hartford and Manchester towns of Connecticut State. The gang violence among teenagers has taken over the nature of adult fights and local police are more active to trace the reason for such violence. The teenagers involved in gang violence perform activities like petty theft, vandalism, fights over turf, drug dealing and burglary. Since the teenagers are mostly set free they have the tendency to repeat the same action as they know that there would not be any negative consequ ences for their atrocities. The involvement of teenage in gangs is what mostly provokes them to end up in violence. In his book(Gerali,32)writes that â€Å" Teenagers who get involved with gangs may begin carrying weapons such as knives, baseball bats, pipes, brass knuckles, hammers, pipe wrenches, and guns†. In Stratford town there happens rapes, brawls and killing which is caused by the teenagers who are member of violent gangs. The police in Connecticut have found out that these teenage