Burger King s Successful Fast Food Restaurants - 1780 Words

Burger King is one of the most successful fast food restaurants in the world. Burger King has been very effective in applying their strategic vision and mission statement to build their brand. The leadership team has positioned Burger King for a path of continued domestic and international growth, because of a strong brand recognition and quality products. Burger King uses two generic strategies to deal with competition, they are differentiation and cost leadership. Cost leadership within Burger King is essential to minimize costs. This allows Burger King to control margins and operating costs. For Burger King to offer such competitive prices, they have to reduce operating costs, but at the same time they need to provide a quality product that the customers want. Burger King also uses a differentiation strategy. A good example would be the way they grill their products and the specific techniques they use for products such as the â€Å"Whopper†. The marketing teams has also fo rmed slogans such as â€Å"Have It Your Way† and the most current slogan â€Å"Be Your Way†. These slogans attempt to form a differentiation pattern in the consumer’s minds. These marketing slogans are also used to attract new customers especially in the competitive market such as the fast food market. These techniques have allowed Burger King to reach out to new and current customers. Burger King uses a pricing strategy that is based off of their successful cost leadership techniques. This is a vital component toShow MoreRelatedBurger King s Brand Identity Essay1398 Words   |  6 Pagesexperience with the brand. Brand Identity Burger King’s brand identity relies heavily on their signature menu item the Whopper and the brand’s relation to the fast food giant McDonald’s. According to Burger King, â€Å"more than 11 million guests visit BURGER KING ® restaurants around the world. And they do so because our restaurants are known for serving high-quality, great-tasting, and affordable food. Founded in 1954, BURGER KING ® is the second largest fast food hamburger chain in the world. The originalRead MoreThe Fast Food Industry Is A Multi Billion Dollar Industry1286 Words   |  6 Pages` The fast-food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that has generated about 200 billion U.S. dollars just in 2013 alone. This industry employs approximately four million people across the country with 83% of U.S. consumers dining at fast-food restaurants at least once a week. The word â€Å"fast-food† made its addition to the Merriam-Webster dictionary during the early 1950’s. The fast-food industry’s (also known as Quick Service Restaurants) modern system of fast-food franchising is said toRead MoreMcdonalds vs Burger King1374 Words   |  6 PagesFast food is currently one of the biggest businesses in the United States due to the hectic schedules that the average person has to deal with. It is often necessary to grab food on the go because there just isn’t enough time to cook at home. This is the main reason behind the tremendous success of fast food giants such as McDonalds and Burger King. McDonald s Corporation is the world s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countriesRead MoreFast Foods : Fast Food Restaurants834 Words   |  4 PagesFast Foods in America Fast food restaurants have always been extremely successful and are experiencing an increase in popularity in America. The ongoing question all consumers have is which one is the best. 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I will also discuss how companiesRead MoreCase Analysis Burger King1538 Words   |  7 Pages Presented BY: Walid ElKateb Burger king is the second largest fast food hamburger chain in the world with more than 12,174 restaurants across 76 countries 60% of which are located in the US amp; 90% of its restaurants are franchised. By looking at the industry, we can see that Burger king is operating within the fast food hamburger (FFHR) category of the quick service restaurant in the restaurant industry. Sales for the FFHR has been growing rapidly (with a totalRead MoreBurger King International1296 Words   |  6 PagesBurger King International MBA 6601 International Business By Wendy B. Machana Burger King International Burger King, previously known as InstaBurger King in 1954, is the world’s largest flame-broiled fast food restaurant chain (Daniels, Radebaugh Sullivan, 2011). Burger Kings core competency lays in the way it cooks its burgers- by its flame broiled method as opposed to grills that fry and also the option that it offers its customers as to how they want their burgers (â€Å"haveRead MoreEssay about Organizational Structure- Mgt/2301127 Words   |  5 Pagesthe organizational structures of McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s food restaurants. It will examine the comparison and contrast of the organizational structure of McDonalds with Burger King, and Wendy’s Corporations. What functions influence McDonalds, and explains how the organizational design helps determine the structure that best suits McDonalds needs, as a business. Organizational Structure Burgers are one of the most favored junk foods people like to eat from around the world. What

Rejecting Gender Roles In Sophocless Antigone - 1262 Words

Rejecting Gender Roles in Antigone Human nature dictates that conformity is a safer choice than expressing individuality. When placed in a situation where one must either remain silent or speak their mind and face severe consequences, there is much less risk in taking the first option. Sophocles, an Athenian tragedian from the fifth century BC, confronted this theme throughout one of his most popular works: Antigone. In the play, the title character must decide if she should honor her brother and die, rather than saying nothing and leaving his dead body unburied outside the city walls. In the present day, most Americans don’t experience such extreme circumstances, but this battle between conformity and individuality directly reflects the†¦show more content†¦Women rarely received inheritances or owned property themselves (â€Å"Greek Attitudes†). Homeric women, like Penelope from The Odyssey, and Andromache from The Iliad, exemplify the expectations of wives at this time. While their main role was to produce and raise heirs, they also wove clothing and watched over their servants (Fantham 33). In the absence of Penelope’s husband, Odysseus, her main objective is protecting the house and her name by rejecting suitors who, thinking Odysseus has died in battle, try to marry her (Fantham 33). Penelope’s role in the household is similar to the role of women in Greece around the time in which Antigone takes place. Ismene, while loyal to her sister, still conforms to the expectation that she must abide by the laws and comply with the ones who have the power. Compared to Ismene, Antigone is a complete individualist. Her devotion to her religion and ultimately, her own morals, is what drives her to break the law without shame. After Ismene chooses not to help Antigone bury Polynices, Antigone replies, â€Å"I’ll bury him myself. And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory† (Sophocles 85-86). Antigone’s behavior directly contradicts t he role of women at the time, as most kept to their role as a wife and mother, rarely leaving the house or challenging male authority (â€Å"Women in Greece†). Similar to how Ismene conforms to the female gender roles of Ancient Greece, Creon conforms to every quality of the ideal

Emergency Room Operation free essay sample

In other words, the ER’s primary target group of patients is those with a sudden and unexpected need for medical services and attentions at any given time. In general, the ER must be able to provide initial diagnosis and treatment for a broad range of illnesses and injuries, some of which are more crucial than others and may require greater and immediate care. Hence, ER patients can be generally classified into two categories, which we define to be ‘light’ patients and ‘emergency’ patients. There is the issue that emergency patients should be placed under a greater priority to medical services and attention as compared to ordinary patients, who are less severely injured or ill. Given that patient arrivals follow a Poisson distribution (randomly), in order to cater to irregular service demand, the ER generally operates 24 hours around the clock comprising of both day-shift duties and night-shift duties, usually with a variable staffing level to mirror general patient volume. Therefore, due to the critical nature of the ER’s services whereby timeliness and efficiency are of utmost importance, there are various service protocols such as effective situational queuing models that the department must follow to fairly determine and allocate service priorities to each different patient to ensure that they receive the necessary timely medical attention. 2. 0 Problem Recognition The Revision of Emergency Duty Law 2. 1 Rationale for the revision of Emergency Duty Law In August 5th 2012, the Ministry of Health and Welfare had revised the Emergency Duty Law governing emergency rooms in the hospitals. Before the revision, the emergency room generally employed the help of residents. However, the main intent of the revision of the revision of the law is to ensure that every emergency room should have at least 1 specialist and 5 nurses on night duty. After the revision, on-duty residents now first assesses the patients, and if the patients are unable to be treated properly by the residents, they are subsequently assessed by the on-duty specialist, taking over what was usually the job of a senior resident before the law revision. It is a requirement that the names of the on-duty specialist must be posted publicly. In addition, it is also required that even the specialists who are not on night duty must assume duty if the on-duty resident requests for it (on-call). Potential suspension of license or penalty will be imposed under violation of this law. 2. 2 The Problem Two bottlenecks have been identified to appear after the emergency duty law revision. The first bottleneck appeared at the stage of assessment by duty residents because of the publicly posted name list of the on-duty specialist. Many light patients have a tendency to visit emergency room during the night because they don’t want to use their day hours. As previously mentioned, light patients require less urgent medical attention, so they are able to spend time to consider and be selective of the on-duty specialists when they go to the emergency room. This behavior reflects the patients’ preference of choice of doctors. This resulted in an excess number of light patients seeking medical treatments on particular days, causing the first bottleneck. The second bottleneck is caused by a shortage of specialists. On-duty residents who take first examination may have a tendency to avoid difficult patients. Therefore, on-duty residents impute a heavier responsibility to on-duty specialists. Before the revision, there were three stages for treatment, but now, there are only two stages. In this case, night duty specialists who take second examinations will have to assess a large amount of patients. It is difficult to meet the required the number of duty specialists in small hospital. In Korea, most of the big main hospitals are located in the big city. In small cities or towns, there are only small hospitals. It is an issue that small hospitals often do not have enough on-duty specialists, so they have to close their emergency room. This results in the emergency patients who are in need of immediate medical attention from the small cities or towns seeking treatment from big city hospitals. This poses a critical problem whereby it takes a certain amount of precious time to shift to a big city hospital. In the case of very urgent emergency patients in small cities, it can be life threatening. 2. 3 Example In ‘ ’ which is very famous in Korea, they broadcasted an accident which was caused by the revision of the emergency duty law. Because of the new law, in Eusung in Kyong-buk, there was no emergency room. If there are emergency patients, they had to move to Andong or Sangju, which takes about 30 minutes to an hour. Evidently, Eusung covers a very large area, two times bigger than that of Seoul. In this traffic accident in Eusung, there was an old married couple that was severely hurt, but was unable to obtain medical treatment in Eusung, hence proceded to seek treatment in Andong. The journey to Andong took about 30 minutes itself, and after they finally arrived at emergency room, the woman had unfortunately passed away. 3. 0 Analysis for a Service Blueprint of ER When a patient first enters the ER, a triage is performed, whereby priorities for action in an emergency are determined. After the patient is categorized according to the seriousness of his or her illness or injury, he or she sees a doctor for the first time. Because it is mandatory for all patients to undergo registration for treatment, the patient goes to reception area and pays a fee for the medical examination. Then the patient goes through the necessary X-ray, CT, or blood tests for proper inspection. After the whole test inspection is finished, an on-duty resident in charge of diagnosis in the ER diagnoses the patient’s case. Since the resident is a non-specialist doctor, he or she sometimes meets difficulty in accurate medical diagnosis. Before the revision of emergency duty law, the on-duty resident hands over the case to more experienced senior residents. When the patient is still unable to be adequately treated by the senior residents, the on-duty specialist then has a responsibility to treat the patient. However, as the revision of emergency duty law came into effect, the on-duty resident now hands over the case directly to an on-duty specialist. The on-duty specialist resolves the problem and promptly sends the patient to the nurses for allocation of a hospital room. The patient will then be hospitalized for a few days. After the emergency duty law revision, the on-duty specialist suffers an increased amount of workload because there is no involvement of senior residents in ER process. What is depicted is a condensed case of ER process. The chart below records the waiting time and lead-time of each ER process as well as net average of those processes. Process| Average Waiting Headcount| Average Waiting Time| Net Average Waiting Time| Net Average Lead Time| Triage| 0. 3| 6. 25| 3. 837| 5. 254| Exam| 1. 06| 8. 46| | | Reg/Pay| 4. 02| 14. 37| | | X-ray| 6. 13| 77. 07| | | CT| 0. 98| 31. 91| | | Blood test| 0. 87| 11. 69| | | Diagnosis| 5. 61| 32. 40| | | Cooperative treatment| 2. 26| 60. 11| | | Room allocation| 4. 19| 86. 82| | | Preparation for Hospitalization| 3. 29| 77. 01| | | Reference: (2010, ) 3. 1 Blueprint of ER- Before the Revision Figure I: Blueprint of ER- Before the Revision This is a blueprint of ER before the emergency duty law revision. As you can see in the case above, the maximum number of assessment stages a patient can go through is three. They are a series of assessments done by on-duty residents, senior residents and on-duty specialists. 3. 2 Blueprint of ER- After the Revision B B A A Patients come Assessed by duty residents Triage X-ray CT Blood check Assessed by duty specialist Being treated and prescribing medicine Go home or hospitalization Diagnosis assistance Diagnosis Procedure Untreatable Treatable Patients come Assessed by duty residents Triage X-ray CT Blood check Assessed by duty specialist Being treated and prescribing medicine Go home or hospitalization Diagnosis assistance Diagnosis Procedure Untreatable Treatable Figure II: Blueprint of ER- After the Revision This is a modified blueprint after the revision. Out of the three assessment stages, second assessment by senior residents was eliminated. When an on-duty resident is unable to treat his or her patients, the on-duty specialist in then directly in charge of the treatment. For that reason, the responsibility of a duty specialist is greatly increased in ER process. Postponement of his or her performance also means that the residual processes will be also delayed. 3. 3 Bottleneck Analysis As you can see on the blueprint, after the law revision, two bottlenecks had appeared. Under the revised law, the most remarkable transition of ER system is the elimination of the senior residents’ examinations, which was a stage that had existed between that of the on-duty residents and specialists. Source: Healthcare Process Patterns with Triage in the Emergency Department (2009, KORMS) The first bottleneck spot is shown at point ‘A’ on ‘Figure II: Blueprint of ER- After the Revision’. At this stage, many lightly injured/sick people are coming to the ER in the night. Even though these patients are lightly injured, on-duty residents have the duty to medically examine them no matter the varying degree of medical need. This is the first step of the ER rule. However, in comparison to the unrevised law, patients then could be sent to senior residents directly. However, there are now no senior residents on duty anymore under the revised law. Thus, duty residents have the responsibility to attend to all of patients that enter the ER at the same time. Moreover, the theory of FIFO (First In, First Out) is not applicable in the ER because different patients have varying degree of medical attention needs, whereby the emergency patients should be given priority treatment. This results in a more complex queuing situation whereby there can be no confirmed estimated queue time for that of light patients. The second bottleneck occurs at the on-duty specialists’ medical examinations. This is also due to the elimination of senior residents. The bottleneck is shown as point ‘B’ in Figure II. After the first examination, should the on-duty resident be unable to treat the patients, they are sent to the on-duty specialist under the revised law. It has been identified that the service quality can also pose a problem. Certain departments, such as obstetrics, often do not have enough specialists even during the day shifts. Because at least one specialist of each department should be on night duty, these departmental specialists’ night shift duty are of higher frequency as compared to that of specialists of other bigger departments. In small institutions, there are less than 2 specialists, which suggests high difficulty in allocating night duty shifts. It results in crowding of patients whereby the service demand outweighs that of service supply. This scheduling problem also leads to low quality of medical examinations during both day shifts and night shifts. In addition, it was previously mentioned that on-duty residents have strong tendency to transfer the patients to on-duty specialists. This is because the on-duty residents are generally unwilling to assume full responsibility should diagnosis go wrong with patients should they do not seek assistance from the more experienced specialists on duty. What is worse is that it is very difficult for small hospitals to hire more specialists who are willing to take night duty shifts. . 0 Solution Since the new duty law on ER has changed the service operation model dramatically, we need to find out the queuing duration for the previous service operations, current service operations under the new duty law and a few of our further suggestions. It is straightforward to develop a queuing model based on the equations such as M/M/1 of M/M/S. However since the basic characteristic of ER d oesn’t allow usage of the theory FIFO (First In, First Out) because of varying degrees of patient need and priority, we cannot apply a basic equation queuing model. Instead, we would use a simulation model (Extend ver. 4) FIFO that has a priority consideration function. 4. 1 Past Service Operation (Before the Emergency Duty Law Revision) Suppose each patient arrives every 4 minutes. (360 person / day) Given that the patient arrival follows an exponential distribution. Patients are categorized into 5 categories. Category 1 refers to very urgent patients, and category 5 to very light patients. Probability of each category is shown on the left picture. On-duty residents and senior residents take 5 minutes to examine the patients. And on-duty specialists take 10 minutes to examine one. We assume that all the patients just go through the duty residents to the more experienced specialists. The reason for this assumption is that many of the Korean patients do want to seek further medical treatment from the on-duty residents to that from the on-duty specialists because residents are often perceived to be less experienced and capable in comparison to the senior residents and specialists. In addition, on-duty residents have strong tendency to transfer patients to senior residents to lessen responsibility and burden. Furthermore, we assume that only 20% of the patients are sent to on-duty specialists because there are many senior residents who are sufficiently skilled. In reality, most examination processes end with medical assessment and treatment from the senior residents. Overall result of this modeling is shown below. Y axis = number of served patients X axis = time (1440 minutes = 1 day) 4. 2 Current Service Operation (After the Emergency Duty Law Revision) After the revision of the night duty law, on-duty specialists must take the second examination. There is no role for the senior residents in the examination process. All the patients go through on-duty residents and specialist to exit. Every input data in the model is same as previous one. Overall result is shown below. We can see that number of served patients had decreased dramatically after the law revision. Also, the overall queue duration had becomes longer compared to the prior one. 4. 3 Solution 1- Increasing the Number of Servers To overcome the illustrated situation after the law revision, we simply double the number of on-duty specialists. The rest of the input data still remains unchanged. Evident from the results, as a result of doubling the specialists, the number of served patients has recovered up to that of first model. Also, queue duration and volatility have improved. 4. 4 Solution 2 Adopting CP (Clinical Pathway) Before explaining the model, let us explain what the ‘CP’ is. The definition of CP is shown below. â€Å"Clinical pathways, also known as care pathways, critical pathways, integrated care pathways, or care maps, are one of the main tools used to manage the quality in healthcare concerning the standardization of care processes. It has been shown that their implementation reduces the variability in clinical practice and improves outcomes. Clinical pathways promote organized and efficient patient care based on evidence-based practice. Clinical pathways optimize outcomes in the acute care and home care settings. † (Source: Wikipedia) The table above is the example of CP for acute stroke. According to the research from Korean society of nursing science, examination time was reduced from average 74. 07 minutes to 19. 27 minutes. It is more than a 73% decrease. However, this figure is specific to the example of acute stroke, so we cannot be sure that other illnesses apply the same effect when adopting CP. Therefore, we adjust the examination time by only 20%. Now, duty residents and specialists only need 4 minutes and 8 minutes respectively. Previously, they needed 5 and 10 minutes each. The result is shown below. After adopting CP, the number of served patients was increased by 25%. Also, queue duration had dramatically reduced. 5. 0 Conclusion We had established that there were bottleneck problems because of the new law imposed in the ER. To handle this problem we suggested 2 possible solutions. The result of each situation is summarized in the table below. | Mean Number of Patients Being Served | Mean Maximum Queue Duration| Before Law Revision| 287| 68. 4| After Law Revision| 143| 76. 9| Doubling The Number of Specialists| 280| 68. 5| Adopting CP (reducing examination time by 20%)| 179| 21. 6| To generate the mean of each variable, we ran the simulation for 10 times each. There were clear improvements after implementing the solutions. Both the number of served patients and the maximum queue length had improved significantly. In terms of number of patients, doubling the specialists is the best way to enhance efficiency. However in reality, hiring more specialists is sometimes impossible for many hospitals. There is shortage of specialists as well as financial distress in hospital management. Therefore, adopting the solution of CP might be a better option. Although developing CP may need a lot of time and effort, once it is developed, it does not incur more costs. In addition, hospitals are able to co-operate with each other, so they can reduce initial cost for developing specific CP. Moreover, CP could bring greater impact than increasing the number of staffs in the long run. For example, as we mentioned above, the effect of CP for acute stroke is 73% decrease in examination time. To summarize, increasing the number of doctors is the simplest and most effective solution. Adopting the CP will be the second best solution. And the most desirable action to take is adopting CP and hiring more doctors at the same time. If it is not feasible, each hospital should consider its own situation and select its own appropriate solution.

Ode On A Grecian Urn Essays - Ode On A Grecian Urn,

Ode On A Grecian Urn Ode on a Grecian Urn Summary In the first stanza, the speaker, standing before an ancient Grecian urn, addresses the urn, preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the still unravish'd bride of quietness, the foster-child of silence and slow time. He also describes the urn as a historian, which can tell a story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn, and asks what legend they depict, and where they are from. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women, and wonders what their story could be: What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper's unheard melody's are sweeter than mortal melodies, because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers, and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves; he is happy for the piper because his songs will be for ever new, and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into breathing human passion, and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a burning forehead, and a parching tongue. In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going (To what green altar, O mysterious priest...), and where they have come from. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will for evermore be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Eternity, doth tease us out of thought. He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: Beauty is truth, truth beauty. The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows, and the only thing it needs to know. Form Ode on a Grecian Urn follows the same Ode-stanza structure as the Ode on Melancholy, though it varies more the rhyme scheme of the last three lines of each stanza. Each of Grecian Urn's five stanzas is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter, and divided into a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven lines of each stanza follow an ABABCDE rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the CDE sounds do not follow the same order. In stanza one, lines seven through ten are rhymed DCE; in stanza two, CED; in stanzas three and four, CDE; and in stanza five, DCE, just as in stanza one. As in other odes (especially Autumn and Melancholy), the two-part rhyme scheme (the first part made of AB rhymes, the second of CDE rhymes) creates the sense of a two-part thematic structure as well. The first four lines of each stanza roughly define the subject of the stanza, and the last six roughly explicate or develop it. (As in other odes, this is only a general rule, true of some stanzas more than others; stanzas such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme and thematic structure closely at all.) Themes If the Ode to a Nightingale portrays Keats's speaker's engagement with the fluid expressiveness of music, the Ode on a Grecian Urn portrays his attempt to engage with the static immobility of sculpture. The Grecian urn, passed down through countless centuries to the time of the speaker's viewing of it, exists outside of time in the human sense--it does not age, it does not die, and indeed it is alien to all such concepts. In the speaker's meditation, this creates an intriguing paradox for the human figures carved into the side of the urn: they are free from time, but they are simultaneously frozen in time. They do not have to confront aging and death (their love is for ever young), but neither can they have experience (the youth