UPS case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

UPS case study - Essay Example With the objective of providing complete supply chain solutions to its customer, the company established the UPS Logistics Group in 1995. Today, the company manages the flow of goods, funds and information in more than 200 countries and territories every day. UPS provides specialized transportation, logistics, capital, and e-commerce services to its valued customers. It also enables its clients with warehousing, freight forwarding and returns management (Research and Markets 2011). UPS owns a large fleet of trucks, trailers, vans et al to ensure smooth functioning of day to day business. The company has imbibed the latest technology from time to time so as to provide superior services to its clients. UPS offers both ‘LTL’ and ‘TL’ services to cater to needs of all its clients ((PR Newswire 2006). From time to time, the Atlanta based company ventured in oversees markets and made a mark there as well. 2) The U.S. Postal Service, headed by a Postmaster General and a Board of Governors, is a branch of the federal government. The USPS is, by statute, under obligation to provide mail services to all Americans. This mandate has to be followed by the USPS irrespective of where the customers live. USPS has to serve these customers/territories even if a cost-benefit analysis suggests that they do not make commercial sense (Harreld, Heather 2000). This obligation obviously leads to high costs, reduced efficiency and thus puts a strain on the financials of the company. Since USPS, a government agency is bound to operate even in non lucrative areas; UPS is relieved of this obligation, legal as well as moral, to do business in such areas. As such, UPS can concentrate on areas, services and customers that it deems would give the company decent profits. 3) An intermodal approach entails the placing of parcels, packages or letters that UPS is required to deliver in an intermodal container  or vehicle. This intermodal

IS CBT EFFECTIVE IN MANAGING SCHIZOPHRENIA Essay

IS CBT EFFECTIVE IN MANAGING SCHIZOPHRENIA - Essay Example According to the http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm, there is no cure for schizophrenia so all talk of "treatment" or "therapy" may pertain to â€Å"management† and not actual â€Å"treatment† of the condition. In this work, we review three articles that I consider important in how cognitive behaviour therapy can be useful in the management and treatment of schizophrenia. We review three studies: Barrowclough et al. (2006), Turkington et al. (2006a) and Turkington et al. (2006b). Barrowclough et al. (2006) sought to evaluate the effectiveness of group cognitive behavioural therapy for schizophrenia. To do so, 113 people with chronic schizophrenia, the Barrowclough et al. study assigned each of the 113 people to receive either the group cognitive-behavioural therapy or the usual treatment. The primary measure employed to assess the efficacy of treatment were the positive symptom improvement on the positive and negative syndrome scales while the secondary measures w ere â€Å"secondary outcome measures† like symptoms, functioning, relapses, hopelessness and self-esteem (Barrowclough et al. 2006, p. 527). The finding of Barrowclough et al. (2006) is that there was no significant difference between the two methods of treatment. However, the individuals subjected to group cognitive-behavioural therapy have a reduction in â€Å"feelings of hopelessness and in low self-esteem.† Thus, the conclusion of the Barrowclough et al. (2006) study is that â€Å"although the group cognitive-behavioural therapy may not be the optimum treatment for reducing hallucinations and delusions, it may have important benefits, including feeling less negative about oneself and less hopeless† (p. 527). The Barrowclough et al. (2006) study exhibited adequate adherence to professional and research ethics. Perhaps, an important indication of this is that the study sought an ethical agreement with the local research ethics committee. The inclusion criteria for the study are very clear in Barrowclough et al. (2006, p. 527). One of the inclusion criteria is that informed consent from the patient was required although the study does not discuss whether the informed consent is merely verbal or written or whether the relatives or the guardians of the patients were made co-signatories in the informed consent mechanism. I believe that concurrence of relatives or guardians may be necessary because schizophrenic patients may be considered legally incompetent to respond to requests for consent (even if symptoms have not exacerbated six months prior to the study). In building cognitive behavioural therapy groups, the study built groups from the 113 individuals who were the subject of research. Those who administered the group cognitive-behavioural therapy composed another group who operated a program independent of the Barrowclough et al. research team. In the opinion of this researcher, the Barrowclough made due consideration for the welfare o f patients by putting in their inclusion criteria the requirement that the patient had one month of stabilisation if they had experienced a symptom exacerbation in the last six months (Barrowclough et al. 2006, p. 527). At the same time, however, the inclusion criterion implies that the results of the study should be qualified or that the positive benefits of the group cognitive behavioural therapy for schizophrenia, if any, apply only to that population