Friday, April 30, 2010

ISO 14001 - Environment Management System Documentation

ISO 14001 are a generic document and it does not specify "how" to do, but only states "what" to do. As per the standard, the Environment Management System should be documented and be demonstrable in the manner consistent with the requirements of ISO 14001 models. The total demonstration in the Environment Management System consists of four tiers of documents.

1.Environment Manual

2.Procedure Manual

3.Work Instruction/Operating Procedure Manual

4.Forms, Records

The amount of documentation should support and efficient Environment assurance system without creating a paper bureaucracy. The details for documenting above four tiers of documents is described in this paper.

NEED FOR DOCUMENT CONTROL: -

The Environment System consists of a number of documents. Some system should be provided for safe keeping of complex records. It is important to clearly define as to where they should be kept and for how long, and who is responsible for them. Each written procedure should be checked and signed by an authorized person, with issue number and issue date. The management representative should have a list of all completed procedures, applicable to the individual departmental activities. Against each listed document the number should be shown together with the date of the latest change. It is also called a "Master Copy". It is a yardstick against which any other controlled copy can be judged.

From time to time the Committee for Management Review and Corrective Action may put forward recommendations for change in the procedure. The Management Representative should be responsible for implementing the change. For making a change, the new page should be circulated to the keeper of the controlled copy of the document with an instruction to insert the new page in order and return the replaced page to the Management Representative. Thus outdated documents will be removed from circulation. The change, which has been made, should be known to the staff and everyone should implement the new procedure. When a number of major changes have been made, a complete new manual has to be issued. The retention period for these records can be predefined either contractually or by the policy and it is to be mentioned in the Environment Manual.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Stakeholder Management Tactics - Learn to put pressure on influential people

In every project and activity, interest groups. For a leading sales team, will be a list, from workers and their families, end users of the product of any intermediary. These are the titles of the speakers, there are often different levels of stakeholders, interest groups may also be called to investigate a great need.

E 'therefore essential to understand that you work. Once you have a clear understanding ishave to estimate and allocate adequate resources to ensure that you need the right people at the right levels to influence the results for you.

Many times this will be to negotiate the best communication skills and the appropriate marketing, public relations, and also experience. Interestingly, many people expressed through their efforts, they see the influence. While not necessarily catastrophic, there are better ways to create valueRelationships with people and often is very simple.

In the famous book by Dale Carnegie "How to Win Friends and" that makes the crucial point in the construction sector reports that the most successful to come so often.

Although this may not be protagonists in its entirety for your situation, great, trying to get the best price with solid layer forms the foundation for success.

If you are in a position "ON" Get Well ", withwho could look over the table with you is an opportunity too good to be overlooked. Even the best one-on-one able to convince a potential minimum, in fact, often these relationships so often the missing piece of the puzzle that we find a decision rule can be.

Need a contractor?

Well, this is one of the media, Carnegie strongly recommended that the capacityTo listen more than talk too much.

If you're bursting to tell a more influential by the project, which is so important to you, good advice is to take a break. Find out what they are interested to know, much of what they say, all the attention on the month of March, interest in them as people.

discuss the investment of your time listening instead of two, you find that you can win valuable prizes - simple! You see, the time to make friends withpeople must be very gratifying and save a lot financially.

Those with skills for better management of stakeholders working to those who can make a difference. The interest in them as people, a whole series of negotiations and hard bargaining may be unnecessary.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

What Does an Event Management Company Do Exactly?

Event management companies can help you organise a number of different special events that your organisation may be interested in hosting. Ceremonies, celebrations, product launches and product presentations, workshops, company inaugurations, conferences and events where you invite the public.

You can ask the event management company to help you set up special meetings that your employees and/or business partners may need to attend. An event management company can also assist in setting up trade congresses to publicise your line of work and any products or services that go with your company profile.

How do you know the events company can do your work for you the way you want them to? First, you might have to ask around if anyone in your social circles has ever tried this company before. Past experience does predict future results to a significant degree. Second, you can always look at their own promotional materials to find out what they do exactly and for how much. See what testimonials they have and the type of companies they may have worked on behalf of.

A good events company will listen closely to what you expect from them. They should then explain how they can meet those needs within the time, cost, manpower, and resource restrictions they have to live and operate under. Let's face it - not many event organisers can handle everything a client can throw at them under the category of demands. There are just some Event management companies that can handle a bigger and more varied work load than others. But definitely, the events company should be up front about what they can and cannot do to avoid misunderstandings that early in the negotiation process.

Event management companies based in a particular location, for our example, in Spain, have one great selling point in their advantage: they all allow your special event to be hosted in Spain itself and have the local knowledge and first hand experience. Each part of Spain has its own unique features and things to offer visitors, so you might want to be more specific when you ask the event management company if you want your special event hosted in Spain. This means you have to do your own research as to which part of Spain seems ideal to celebrate or observe your special event in. Or you can simply ask the event management company in Spain for tips as to where such a special event would be perfect to be celebrated or observed in.

Some Spanish territories you might want to host your special event in are: Seville, Malaga, Marbella, Madrid, Valencia, or Barcelona. Do your research and then ask your preferred events company in Spain what type of event hosting packages they have for the places that appeal to you. This will greatly help you in making the best choice you can in your situation.

Many events companies will charge you a fee to put forward their proposals whilst some will simply be reimbursed by the local authorities or commissions from the hotels, venues and leisure companies that they may utilise.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

From Project Management to Portfolio Management

"Organizational portfolio" or "projects portfolio" is a collection of projects or programs and all the additional activities existing within an organization, brought together to ensure an effective management of all the activities within the organization fully coordinated with its strategy.

The main goals of portfolio management are to provide a broad overview of organizational activities focusing on the strategic goals and to support decision making based on all the projects within the organization.

Meticulous management of each of the "portfolio components" is crucial, but it does not necessarily ensure the realization of all of the organizational goals. This requires integrative management of the projects making up the projects portfolio, which relates to the mutual impact of the projects, resource constraints and priorities.

Organizational project management and portfolio management are closely connected. A project constantly receives strategic information from the portfolio it represents, and provides the portfolio with "on-site information".

The Project Manager measures the planned vs. actual in relation to budget and content scheduling, and reports to the Portfolio Manager. By contrast, the Portfolio Manager prioritizes and connects among the projects. The flow of information in both directions leads to the process, in which project management and portfolio management are bonded in order to make sure that the right resources are allocated to the right project, or, to put it simply, that the organization invests most of its efforts into the right place.

Portfolio management represents a continuous business process, which is focused on two major phases: portfolio planning and monitoring and control over its progress. The process is cyclically recurrent, in compliance with the organizational policy.

During the project planning phase, the projects that will lead to revenue maximization or will best serve the organization's strategy are selected. The availability of information relevant to the strategy the portfolio is supposed to support, is checked, and the measurement method, by which the projects related to the portfolio will be measured, is also defined. This is supposed to create uniformity in project management processes and their measurements, enabling the organization to benchmark its future projects objectively.

After the portfolio has been established and endorsed by the senior management, it has to be monitored and controlled. At this phase one has to make sure that the portfolio is functioning according to the pre-defined organizational processes. For example, the portfolio can be checked for the availability of the projects, in which the net present value (NPV) is higher than a specific value, or the return on investment (ROI) is not lower than the minimal value defined. Moreover, control processes check the progress of all the projects according to plan, for example: schedule compliance, resource overload, etc.

In order to make control procedures simple and effective, a portfolio manager has to have an easy access to the updated project overview, which can be obtained from a uniform and integrated system.

This system is supposed to contain general information on the projects within the portfolio and to enable one to perform analysis on the organizational level, and not only the standalone project level.
Such a system can allow for performing "What if" analysis for assessing different alternatives and providing an information basis for the best business decisions within the organization.

Microsoft has developed the EPM (Enterprise Project Management) application aimed at supporting organizational portfolio management. Based on MS Project, EPM presents an overall solution to portfolio management based on an organization-wide resource pool and on a broad overview of all the projects.

PME TEFEN has developed the "PME- Portfolio Dashboard" - a tool based on EPM solutions, which enables any organization to manage its portfolio in an effective way aimed at reaching the organizational strategy goals.

The "PME- Portfolio Dashboard" provides a summary of all the project data in addition to the one existing in EPM. This is intended for supporting the most senior managers of the organization in decision making processes by providing the mean figures of all the projects performance. The possibility of obtaining "on-line" updates enables the management to respond rapidly to the cases, in which the organizational efforts are not directed to the "right" projects.

In a single view, the tool centralizes all the principal measurements of the portfolio after the mean figures of the projects managed by the system have been derived. This is how the tool assists project progress monitoring and resource overload management, including scheduling, costs and risks.

If a problem with one of the metrics surfaces, the manager can do "Drill down" for projects negatively affecting this metric and single out the task causing the problem.

This is, basically, how the organization's management can obtain the most current data relevant to locating a problem at any given time and make the best decision, which will constitute a dynamic response to the changing needs of the organization and the market.

Organizational portfolio management is essentially an integral part of organizational management. The right project management serves as a basis for portfolio management. While until recently PMI has focused on standalone project management, this leading body of project management is currently addressing the broader issue of portfolio management.

PME TEFEN specializes in customizing and implementing project management methodologies and tools and will assist your organization in achieving higher performance levels and executing the right portfolio management processes that will effectively bring the strategy of your organization towards its full realization.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Inventory Management - Good Practices And Benefits

In every kind of business, inventory management or management of the inventory consists of a series of processes on the multiple functions with reference to the tracking, handling and managing of goods and materials that are held in stock.

Efficiency in effective inventory management will always give a competitive edge to the business, regardless of its nature. With effective control and management over inventory stock, as well as accurate visibility and fast efficient fulfillments, comparative pricing can be given on a customer-to-customer basis.

In addition to cutting down on operating costs, it will also bring satisfied customers back for more businesses in the near future. However, modern day management of the inventory is usually not as simple as the contemporary practices of just keeping abreast with inventory standards and expenditures.

Most businesses, especially those in the process and manufacturing industries, will require varied sets of both simplified as well as complex integrated inventory management controls. Such regulations are streamlined for effectiveness in compliance and distribution as well as making provision for further improvement on software and other protocols.

Primarily, the first and most important step to commence in inventory management is to acquire accurate data in terms of facts and figures. Next, a set of rules and regulations is set up to protect and guard the information efficiently. Such information may become a crux factor in the improvement of inbound operations, strategies and productivity.

In addition to the physical monitoring of materials being moved into and out of the stockrooms and drawing up reconciliations of the inventory balances, other tasks involved in inventory management may include tracking and reporting of replenishment techniques, analysis on the actual and projected inventory status as well as setting periodic targets and re-engineering the execution framework.

Although having proper management of the inventory may create a great difference in attaining and retaining a competitive edge in the sales markets for certain products of any businesses, it remains an integral and essential effort of a company to reduce its inventory management costs.

As a result, several computer software companies have since developed a standardized set of comprehensive inventory management systems to help businesses control and manage their inventory stock.

Aside from certain specialty features, the requisite module should be able to integrate into the pre-existing software system of the business. In addition to providing a quick and easy access to detailed inventory and ordering information, the new inventory management software should also give accurate and timely data.

Although the inventory management system is a beneficial tool, there are some basic and extremely significant points to ensure an effective and proper flow.

These will include good practices like making accurate entries on every stock receipts into the computer, setting up a replenishment strategy on all items in the stock houses and drawing up specific guidelines on the control of excess inventory as well as on-going dead stock. Such effective inventory management habits will give any kind of businesses a superior competitive advantage over their competitors, especially with an easy-to-use stock analysis tool that delivers quick and accurate information.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Anger Management Activities That Can Help You Cope

Anger management activities can help you to find a solution to the anger you have. Actually, you can apply these anger management techniques to just about everyone at the office. The fact is that everyone finds themselves struggling with anger at varying degrees with the people that are around them. It is all too common for people to face problems with each other based on simple things that get taken out of hand. Yet, that does not minimize the need or the frustration that they face.

As a mediator, it can do a great deal of help to the whole if the group breaks down into sections and directly relates to their anger management problems. This should start with anger management activities that are centered on the individuals that need it the most. Activities should be directly controlled by the mediator to insure that nothing gets out of hand.

An example of an anger management activity that can be beneficial is that of the group session:

· Six to eight people are in the group. The moderator (or someone in the group) will ask the questions:

- Is anyone angry at anyone in the group?

- Is anyone angry with anyone in other areas of their lives?

- Is anyone carrying a grudge that they need to get out?

· The person that has a problem will say, "I have a problem and would like to share my feelings about it." The person who the problem is directed at should agree to allow them to present their feelings without interrupting them.

· The individual with the problem presents his or her feelings. The person they are directed at (or the group) then talks about how they see the situation and they work to resolve the problem.

· The goal is to come to a conclusion about the anger and to resolve it. Not to quiet it, forget about it or to continue with the angry feelings.

· Grudges should be talked about and the person holding it should tell the person just what they can do for you to let go of that grudge. Again, working with it until it is resolved is the best way to go.

This anger management activity is just one thing that can be done. Often, anger management counseling should be done to help the individual to go through the problems as well. When the group is working on the anger management activities, it not only gets rid of the anger and frustration that is there but additionally it helps to keep the group together making them stronger.

Anger management activities are ideally present in all workforces. There are going to be problems when people work together. While problems often arise, there is no reason why they can not be addressed in a group and through anger management counseling. The whole is better for it.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Management and Organization

Management, in short, is the application of commercial enterprise, it is a page, arranged, or planning, and secondly, the administration, means of implementation of existing plans. Organization and Management believes therefore closely stages of management, all in the planning and implementation.

Since the dawn of corporate governance comes into play. At its beginning, butis generally regarded as the "promotion" or "organization" of corporate governance is seen as the direction of a well-known. Towards a society based, organization, of course, is a permanent part of management. There is no essential difference between the first meeting and the correlation parts of a company, usually as an organization and then re-adding relationships new departments, new people, new machines and new marketsgeneral administration as seen by the province.

The problem of management of the company is the collection of independent services can be found, and the combination of these elements and control, to ensure the business unit as one of the advantages. These elements take on the whole, are products that are supplied by the capitalist, the employee's employment, purchasing powerexercised by the public, and management capabilities delivered by the operator or administrator. These are the four elements that form a society.

Produced without the use in the workplace are nothing without the products of labor, year in which a value, total assets and market work is not without value, and consist of the market may not, without a product. The products, processes, and can not join its own initiative, to be presented inRelation to others. The person who introduced these elements is a "promoter" if he continued to coordinate their relations and cooperation, which is known as "contractors, operation of a company or management company is defined as immediate.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Inventory Management Systems - A Business Fundamental

If you're like most businesses, you started small. Your time was mostly spent on the front end of your business selling and marketing your product. You spent a lot of your time learning how to perform all of the functions of your business yourself. It was easier then! You weren't selling that much so there was not a lot of information that needed to be collected. In fact, most of the information was stored in your head! Pretty soon you started to grow and all of the activities required more effort. Problem was, you were so busy dealing with your increased sales that you couldn't get to some of the back office functions that needed to be performed. Now you find yourself in a pickle! What to do? You need information to deal with your customers. You need to know what you have, where you have it, how much it cost you and how long before you can get more. You need an Inventory Management Software package!

You need to be able to have the stock on hand to make that sale or know when you expect to receive the product. You need to know when to reorder, how long it will take and how much it will cost. If your product is perishable you need to track expiration dates. You need all of this information made available to you in real time so you can make smart decisions and keep your customers happy. If you can accomplish this efficiently, you will be able to devote more of your time to the activities you enjoy most and that are most important to your business.

With a new inventory management software package, you can automate many of the routine tasks you do every day. You can setup a bar code system to collect data at each step of your process. Working with your supplier, you can input the product bar codes into your software package so that when you receive the product you can collect all of the necessary information with just a swipe. As your product or component moves through your process, you can use the bar code reader to collect all of the status information. The Inventory Management Software package will process all of this information and return it to you in a form you can take action on.

As your business grows, you can simply add more product bar codes into your system. You can also integrate your inventory management software with other business systems including the financial and point of sale systems. This eliminates tons of data entry hours as you will only have to enter information once into your system. You can also link your software to your supplier to automate the ordering and billing functions. The system will also help you eliminate waste as you will always know how much product you have and where it is. This is also a theft deterrent.

There are many types of Inventory Management Software packages on the market today. Some are canned packages that not only manage your inventory, but also handle your accounting and point of sale functions. These canned systems are great and quickest to implement if you are willing to modify your business processes to conform to the software package. Other, more complex systems are highly customizable. These systems will require more effort to setup and will cost more but will be able to conform a bit more to your way of doing things. A well integrated Inventory Management Software package will give your business an edge and position you for future profitable and sustained growth.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Project Efficiency and Effectiveness: The IT Project Management

The two primary objectives of project management are that the project should be effective and efficient. Most projects confound effectiveness, efficiency and effort to create a more efficient task, ignoring effectiveness, resulting in project breakdown.

Projects being successful imply projects to produce effective effects, but at other end being efficient implies producing consequences with minimum effort or the caliber to carry out actions promptly.

Efficiency of the Project:

Efficiency of the project is the determinant or a ratio of the out puts from a process activity in relation to the resource inputs, as a measured by the volume of output achieved for the input used. The project can be described as efficient if all stages, maturity, delivery, initiation and implementation are accomplished within the constrains identified at its beginning, in terms of workforce, cost, time and objectives.

Success: If the project is able to exploit the resources of the members of the project group and the user time to the fullest, avoiding unnecessary idle time, delays or wasted time brought about by undertaking tasks or activities.

Furthermore, the project will be effective if integration of activities of the members of the project team, and the interaction with dependences through other parties outside the project team are capable of apt delivery of resources including hardware, software services and training.

Besides, proper time management of resources also signifies efficiency of the project, as resources arrive before they are required, this may lead to problems, deterioration, unexpected fluctuation in planned cash flows and a proportion of the warranty period elapsing before equipment has been used.

Effectiveness of the Project:

Effectiveness of the project is a measure of how well or complete a project task will carry out. A project can be described as effective if it meets with established objectives including the required needs of the user producing quality standards that have been specified to satisfy the needs.
Furthermore, a project can be considered effective if it is able to integrate within the existing organizational system structures and processes with sufficient flexibility; in addition, if it is capable of responding to the changes in the environment in which the system will operate accordingly to the change in the requirement of the user.

Two terms can occur, effectiveness in subjective concept and efficiency in objective impression, in brief; project efficiency is the ratio of the resource inputs and the outputs, while effectiveness can be gauged with objective achievements of the project.