Controversy of Oil Drilling in ANWR

Business

Clock Speeds and RFID Chips

When examining why different industries may have different clock speeds, it is first necessary to consider what is mean by the term. Fine (1998) stated that "Clockspeeds are to business genetics what lifecycles are to human genetics," this demonstrates the concept, where the clock speed is represents the different speeds with which the various industries move. Fine (1996) presents some examples of different industries to demonstrate how and why industries may have divergent clock speeds comparing semi-conductor manufacturers with automobile manufactures.

High tech firms such as Intel may invest many billions of dollars in facilities to manufacture products such as IT wafers. The manufacturing plants are likely to have a limited lifespan until they become obsolete, and as such Intel will need to have sufficient funds to build the subsequent generation of manufacturing plants for the new items. This means that the return ion investment needs to be realized in a short period (Fine, 1996; 1998). But companies such as Ford are able to operate production facilitates for a much longer period, some lasting more than twenty years. In both cases the two firms may be seen as operating within the scope of their industries, reflecting the different clock speeds. Industries move at different speeds.

Issues which impact on the clock speed include variants such as obsolescence, which is referred to as a "core rigidity," and the way in which companies may be unable to respond to architectural innovations in their sectors (Fine, 1996). While many texts refer to the clock speed of the manufacturing processes, this may also be seen in the context of non-manufacturing or support processes (Fine, 1996).

Question 2

RFID is used by a number of firms, both large and small. One early adopter was the Canadian firm Conros Fuels (Foster, 2004). This Toronto-based firm is a manufacturer of synthetic logs. Conros Fuel was facing a challenge in terms of managing operations with the presence of variable demand. The firm uses RFID tags attached to the logs packaging and pallets, this allowed the firm to track the movement of the inventory when it left the manufacturer. By tracking the movement the firm was able assess stock levels in different suppliers, which allowed it to undertake more accurate planning and ensure that there are sufficient stocks with the resellers (Foster, 2004). In the early stages each chip cost the firm $4, but as the usage increased this reduced to $1 (Foster, 2004).

A well-known large firm that uses RFID is WalMart. The company exerts a great deal of control over their suppliers, and mandated RFID some years ago (Zhu et al., 2012). WalMart benefits from RFID chops that are attached to incomes goods, with the ability to check a delivery in a matter of seconds, compared to the longer time required for manual checking (Zhu et al., 2012). This has also increased efficiency of the internal inventory management and checks. As well as the increased efficiency and lower costs associated with managing stock, there has also been an improvement facilitated by the more up-to-date knowledge that can be gained, and issues such as stock shortages and over stocks have been reduced (Zhu et al., 2012).