Poverty,population and environmental degradation in China

This article examines the relationship between poverty, population, and environmental degradation in China. Environmental conditions include water pollution, deforestation, destruction of grasslands, soil erosion, and salinization. The authors review China's success in controlling environmental degradation through leadership, environmental policies, and institutional capacity. Findings suggest that environmental progress is best achieved indirectly by poverty alleviation, market integration, and population control. Government policies were not very effective. Degradation occurs due to limited financial resources, poorly trained personnel, and political factors. Control of water pollution was instituted since the 1980s. The levels of pollutants have been reduced, but the type of pollutant determines the seriousness of impact. Water pollution is due to industrial wastes, agricultural run-off, and soil erosion. Since the 1970s, reforestation targets have not been met. Technical extension and monitoring of planting is not available in most areas, and private, profit seeking interests control acreage. Grassland destruction is due to deforestation, agricultural expansion, and overgrazing. Independent regional authorities have successfully managed pasture programs. Erosion is the most serious in Loess Plateau, the Red Soils area, the Northeast China Plain, and the Northwest Grasslands, which comprise 70% of total land area. In 1990, erosion control was practiced in 39% of eroded land area. Salinization has remained fairly constant. Environmental controls (direct regulation, planned recovery, and state-mandated technological improvements) are uneven. The main tool for environmental management is the State Environmental Protection Commission and its executive unit, SEPA. Problems stem from vague laws, lack of means of enforcement, lack of coordination of laws, and lack of standards, schedules, and other provisions in ordinances.     

Inventory accuracy in 60 days!

Despite great advances in manufacturing technology and management science, thousands of organizations still don't have a handle on basic inventory accuracy. Many companies don't even measure it properly, or at all, and lack corrective action programs to improve it. This article offers an approach that has proven successful a number of times, when companies were quite serious about making improvements. Not only can it be implemented, but also it can likely be implemented within 60 days per area, if properly managed. The hardest part is selling people on the need to improve and then keeping them motivated. The net cost of such a program? Probably less than nothing, since the benefits gained usually far exceed the costs. Improved inventory accuracy can aid in enhancing customer service, determining purchasing and manufacturing priorities, reducing operating costs, and increasing the accuracy of financial records. This article also addresses the gap in contemporary literature regarding accuracy program features for repetitive, JIT, cellular, and process- and project-oriented environments.     

The Genesis Enterprise: creating peak-to-peak performance

Peak performance is often the beginning of failure. The process of continuously creating peak-to-peak performance defines the Genesis Enterprise. There will always be more problems than there are solutions. We need to install a process that anticipates and solves problems before they are problems and to continuously transform our organization into a championship organization that is nevertheless the underdog.     

Maximizing the potential of your systems

In the last two decades, manufacturing businesses throughout the United States have learned that an important factor affecting the productivity of their manufacturing systems when implementing manufacturing resource planning is the way they approach the implementation itself. Eighty percent of an implementation effort needs to be devoted to preparing people in the organization to use the system and only 20 percent should be devoted to purchasing the system.     

The learning curve and the health care industry

This article will examine the learning curve and its potential impact on the health care industry. Although the learning curve has traditionally been applied to the manufacturing industry, a labor-intensive industry like health care is a prime candidate for the benefits of the learning curve. Specifically, we will look at past research on the learning curve and discuss what effects learning might have on health care costs and outcomes in the current health care environment.     

Enhanced ABC costing for hospitals: directed expense costing

Space limitations do not allow a complete discussion of all the topics and many of the obvious questions that the preceding brief introduction to directed expense costing probably raised in the reader's mind. These include how errors in accounting practices like posting expenses to the wrong period are handled; and how the system automatically adjusts costs for expenses benefiting several periods but posted to the acquisition month. As was mentioned above, underlying this overtly simple costing method are a number of sophisticated and sometimes complex processes that are hidden from the normal user and designed to automatically protect the integrity and accuracy of the costing process. From a user's viewpoint, the system is straightforward, understandable, and easy to use and audit. From a software development perspective, it is not quite that effortless. By using a system that is understood by all users at all levels, these users can now communicate with each other in a new and effective way. This new communication channel only occurs after each user is satisfied as to the overall costing quality achieved by the process. However, not all managers or physicians are always happy that the institution is using this "understandable" cost accounting system. During one of the weekly meetings of a hospital's administrative council, complaints from several powerful department heads concerning the impact that the use of cost data was having on them were brought up for discussion. In defending the continued use of the system, one vice president stated to the group that cost accounting does not get any easier than this, or any less expensive, or any more accurate. The directed expense process works and works very well. Our department heads and physicians will have to come to grips with the accountably it provides us to assess their value to the hospital.