Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting

Book Description

A practical guide to the ABCs of ABB

This unique resource takes an in-depth look at creating value through activity-based budgeting (ABB). As most organizations are dissatisfied with some aspects of their performance, ABB has become an increasingly popular process for which many companies are abandoning traditional methods that no longer meet their demands. Emphasizing the importance of budgeting by activities and features rather than by cost elements, Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting offers a complete overview of feature costing, a technique used in conjunction with ABB, as well as the underlying principles of ABB, including linking strategy to activities, forecasting revenue, capacity management, and gap analysis. With numerous examples and case studies, it shows how to use state-of-the-art tools for achieving strategic goals, such as customer survey, core competency analysis, benchmarking, house of activities, reverse engineering to cascade strategy so everyone can act to create value for the organization.

In today's highly pressurized business environment, creating value is the number one priority for organizations. The key to achieving this is having a budget and accounting system that supports long-term goals. More and more organizations are now turning to activity-based budgeting (ABB), an innovative approach that can help organizations become more competitive by linking the budgeting process to organization strategy. Explaining the importance of budgeting by activities rather than by cost elements, this groundbreaking resource—the first book of its kind—is a practical how-to that covers the essentials of Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting.

Beginning with an overview of the fundamentals behind driving value, James Brimson and John Antos examine what exactly value is, how it is created, and why traditional planning and budgeting often lead to the destruction of value. Following a clear outline of the problems posed by the traditional budgeting process, the authors go on to explain that many companies have contemplated abandoning it altogether. In doing so, however, they must set performance targets and identify actions to achieve the targets: "Once those actions are implemented, there is a need to monitor the execution. Therefore, to drive value creation, organizations are implementing activity-based budgeting (ABB)." This comprehensive guide offers in-depth coverage of ABB and feature costing, a technique used in conjunction with ABB. ABB creates value by translating the business strategy into the activities necessary to implement that strategy. Feature costing creates value by understanding sources of product and customer variation and relating this variation to expected workload. Along with the benefits of using ABB and feature costing, Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting addresses such essential topics as:

Translating strategy into a process and activity framework—performing activities and cross-functional processes that support strategy and assessing current performance against strategic goals
Forecasting revenue, volume, and workload—customer demographics and needs, the competition exploding a bill of activities, determining workload for special projects
Capacity management—capacity defined, managing capacity, capacity management methodology, handling excess capacity
Getting started—creating a business process budget, budget review panels, rank and select activities, cost budgeted activities

Filled with numerous examples and case studies, a complete glossary, and an appendix of target-setting techniques, this is must reading for everyone in your organization since all participants must continually ask themselves how they create value.

Book Description

SCM is one of the hottest topics in manufacturing and distribution, and like JIT and TQC it requires a corporate commitment. This book provides both fundamental principles of SCM as well as a set of guidelines to assist in practical application of SCM. It will be one of the first books on the market that deals exclusively with SCM and its application. Readers in the academic, management sciences, sales, marketing and government environments will find this book of particular interest.

Logistics Management and Strategy: Competing Through The Supply Chain (3rd Edition)

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Logistics Management and Strategy: Competing Through The Supply Chain (3rd Edition)
Alan Harrison , and Remko Van Hoek
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Purchasing & Buying | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0273712764

Competing Through Supply Chain Management: Creating Market-Winning Strategies Through Supply Chain Partnerships. (book reviews): An article from: IIE Transactions

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Competing Through Supply Chain Management: Creating Market-Winning Strategies Through Supply Chain Partnerships. (book reviews): An article from: IIE Transactions
David Simchi-Levi
Manufacturer: Institute of Industrial Engineers, Inc. (IIE)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from IIE Transactions, published by Institute of Industrial Engineers, Inc. (IIE) on August 1, 1998. The length of the article is 672 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Competing Through Supply Chain Management: Creating Market-Winning Strategies Through Supply Chain Partnerships. (book reviews)
Author: David Simchi-Levi
Publication: IIE Transactions (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 1998
Publisher: Institute of Industrial Engineers, Inc. (IIE)
Volume: v30 Issue: n8 Page: p762(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Competing through Supply Chain Management

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Competing through Supply Chain Management
David Frederick Ross
Manufacturer: Kluwer Academic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MHIA8A

Book Description

Focusing on U.S. property rights law and the notions of private property and the Rule of Law, this book paints an unconventional picture of law and rights in general. Law and rights shift and cycle as systematic factors like increasing numbers and complexity produce tough institutional choices and unexpected combinations of goals and institutions, such as private property best protected by the unconstrained political process and communitarian values best achieved through exit and atomistic markets. These forces also frustrate attempts to export the U.S. image of rights. Although there may be an important role for law, rights and courts both in the U.S. and abroad, it can not be easily defined. This book proposes a way to define that role and to change the way we look at law.

Book Description

Apart from food and raw materials, agriculture can also provide ancillary benefits such as landscapes, biodiversity, cultural heritage and thriving rural communities. This book offers a state-of-the-art overview of strategies for sustainable management practices and their implementation through the adoption of suitable instruments. Such practices aim to sustain and support the multiple functions provided by agriculture and natural resources in the rural countryside. The authors explore the value of alternative governance structures and examine the design of policy models and institutional mechanisms for a range of different countries and agricultural methods. The empirical results allow them to identify successful examples as well as recognize practices which have failed. They can then transfer positive policies to geographical areas or production systems where effective and efficient strategies for the sustainable management of natural resources are urgently needed. In doing so, the authors hope to improve the design, identification and implementation of appropriate policy instruments to help sustain the rural economy in the future. They also aim to strengthen the establishment of markets for nature which overcome institutional constraints. This timely new book explores emerging perspectives on multifunctionality in agriculture and the rural environment. It will be widely read by academics, researchers and policymakers with an interest in agricultural and resource economics, environmental governance and sustainable development.

Book Description

The Dwellings of the Philosophers is perhaps the most important alchemical work of the past two centuries. This first translation into English brings us a wealth of alchemical philosophy that has hitherto been unavailable. Fulcanelli's sentinel masterpiece takes the attentive reader through the alchemical labyrinth, decoding the monuments and architectural decoration built by those who have actively engaged in the Great Work. Fulcanelli instructs us by showing that history must be interpreted by the monuments that have been left and not by the historians who construct a worldview exclusively through documents, which method gives us an often jaded and unrepresentative view of what transpired.

Not only does Fulcanelli decode and interpret the various alchemical symbols of the houses of the alchemist and philosophers, he goes to great lengths to lay bare and explicate the alchemical worldview of past centuries. Fulcanelli presents us with the deep mysteries of the Great Work.

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The real thing.......2007-09-20

This is the most thought-provoking work on alchemy I have come across. There is so much here, that it's difficult to know where to start.

Fulcanelli is the first practical alchemist I've read who came out and said that without divine inspiration and the aid of the stars, one will not be able to carry out the Work. So often it seems that folks concentrate purely on the practical side or worse, purely on the spiritual side. Most seem to ignore the astrological aspects, I guess considering that "as below, so above" is referring to the practical and spiritual, not to the celestial. It is refreshing to hear someone reiterating the importance of all three aspects--material, spiritual, and celestial--for success.

Fulcanelli is very explicit when discussing aspects of the Mineral Path, to the extent that I don't understand why I have not seen this book more often referred to when alchemists working on the Mineral Path discuss their operations. I wonder how many people have actually read it. Perhaps folks are put off by the apparent topic, the alchemical decorations on various buildings. But while the book does discuss these decorations, they are only a jumping-off point for discussing alchemical concepts and steps in the process. For instance, when touching upon salamander decorations, he gives many excellent clues about the nature of the Secret Fire.

One of the especially interesting things he discusses is what he calls "cabala." This refers not to Kabbalah or Qabalah but is instead a system of transmitting meaning by using visual puns that was especially popular in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, according to him. Anyone who is even slightly interested in alchemy knows the importance in it of graphics. We all know that these pictures are meant to be metaphorical, but Fulcanelli suggests that they incorporate visual puns as well. Looking for these puns gives us a whole new way of reading these pictures. 'Course, we need to know medieval French and German, etc.:)

Although alchemy has mostly managed to escape the attention of contemporary writers who simplify complex magical or spiritual systems in order to sell books or make a name for themselves, much contemporary writing about alchemy is dominated by the same sort of fluff-bunnyism that so undermines serious studies of magic. If we go back to the original works, we are presented with the problem of what has been lost in translation, and a number of these were garbled, either deliberately or not. Fulcanelli's book is perfect for the individual who has a background in alchemy and who rejects the "make the Stone in your head" approach yet who has had enough of beating their head against the impenetrable older texts. And that's a lot of us! Fulcanelli will give you new ideas for how to go about alchemy that you cannot find anywhere else.

One of the Most Important Books Ever Written.......2006-04-15

Fulcanelli's second book, Dwellings of the Philosophers , was originally one volume consisting of some six hundred pages divided into twenty chapters. In his foreword of the book, written in April 1929, Eug?ne Canseliet reveals the key enabling one to penetrate his master's writings. It lies in the following excerpt:

His method differs from the one that was used by his predecessors: it consists in describing in detail all the operations of the Work after having separated them into various parts. He thus deals with each phase of the work, begins to explain it in one chapter, interrupts it to pursue it in another chapter, and then completes it in yet a last one. This breaking up, which transforms the Magisterium into a philosophical jig-saw puzzle, is not to scare the learned researcher, but it promptly discourages the outsider, incapable of finding his way in this labyrinth of another kind, and unable to restore the order of the manipulations.

At the beginning of the book, Fulcanelli reverts to the subject of stone edifices; the custodians of hermetic science:
[...] Our preference remains for the Middle Ages such as revealed by the gothic edifices, rather than that period of time as described by historians.

Further on, he alludes to Huysmans' statement:

History is the most solemn of lies and the most childish of catches!

He seizes that opportunity to question the authenticity of certain tombs - crypts allegedly containing the remains of this or that historical figure, maintaining that it stands to reason that they are empty, unless corpses were substituted! He then again evokes the primacy of the Middle Ages over the period of the Renaissance:

[...] We deem that the medieval way of thinking reveals itself as being of scientific essence and no other. Art and literature are merely humble servants of traditional science. Their specific mission is to translate into symbols the truths that the Middle Ages received from Antiquity and of which they remained the faithful repositories.

In the next chapter, Fulcanelli gives some definitions of the term alchemy and pays tribute to the Adepts of the past. He then evokes the image of the legendary laboratory with its picturesque character.

In the following chapter, entitled "Chimie et Philosophie", Fulcanelli makes a distinction between alchemy and mere chemistry. He describes the first as the "science of causes" and the second as "science of facts". In his opinion, the latter rests on matter and experimentation, while the first originates in philosophy.

In the next chapter Fulcanelli makes a point of explaining the hermetic Cabala, which is based on phonetic assonance as well as on certain rules resting on the study of ancient Greek - the language of the Hellenes, and before them of the Pelasgians - perhaps of the very gods themselves! It is the language of the birds, the gay science or gay s?avoir, which enables the initiate to express Knowledge in only veiled terms.

After this, Fulcanelli undertakes the actual study of certain historic buildings that are adorned with alchemical symbols, and which he names "the dwellings of the philosophers". The Manoir de la Salamandre in Lisieux (no longer in existence) is the first one he deals with. Fulcanelli suggests that within its walls there existed a fraternity of Adepts - the Flers Alchemists, in the Orne Department - that counted the following three men among its members in 1420: Nicolas de Grosparmy, Nicolas Valois, and the priest, Pierre Vicot. This small group alone is said to have moved to Caen (Calvados Department), and one of the members allegedly erected the Manoir de la Salamandre in the course of the following century. Fulcanelli discusses at length the Secret Fire of the Great Work in this chapter. This Secret Fire is allegorically represented by a salamander, and according to legend, it lives in the igneous element. Several pages farther along, Fulcanelli lists the multiple virtues of the philosopher's stone. Drawing on various texts by the scholarly librarian, Pierre Dujols, he also brings our attention to the alchemical symbolism emanating from the Graal and the Templars' Baphomet.

Referring to the "house of Adam and Eve" in Le Mans, Fulcanelli also discusses in some detail Genesis and the symbolic appearance of the first Adam (made of red earth), and of the second Adam (Sulphur) that united with Eve and which designates Mercury.

In the chapter dedicated to Louis d'Estissac, and recalling the hermetic concerns of the author of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, Fulcanelli sees in the scholarly Fran?ois Rabelais the ma?tre d?s alchimies who initiated young Estissac. In this chapter, Fulcanelli particularly develops his thoughts on the symbolic significance of the Greek letter X (khi), since it is this letter that is identified with Light itself. In this respect, he tells us "the Greek X and the French X represent the writing of the light by the light itself". Bringing up Saint-Andrew's cross, as well as cat whiskers in the shape of a cross, he also tells us about the ways and customs of the Ecole Polytechnique (the "X" ), which he knows too well to have not been personally familiar with them!

In the following chapter, entitled `L'homme des bois' , Fulcanelli refers to the hermetic pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela, as well as to the Parisian alchemist, Nicolas Flamel.
Fulcanelli then extensively examines the coffered paintings on the ceiling admirably adorning the high gallery in the Ch?teau of Dampierre-sur-Boutonn.

The prestigious tomb of Fran?ois II in Nantes provides him with ample material to discourse on the alchemical androgynous state, and thus discuss what sets the hermetic Cabala in opposition to the mysteries of the Hebra?c Kabbala.

In the study of the Holyrood Palace sundial in Edinburgh, Scotland, Fulcanelli gives the reader precious information about the making of the Adepts' famous vitryol. Furthermore, he supplies significant details about the hermetic character of the prestigious Order of the Thistle, with which Scottish alchemist Alexander Sethon was likely not unfamiliar.

In its subsequent edition, The Dwellings of the Philosophers ends with a chapter entitled "The Unlimited Paradox of Sciences", which is decidedly hermetic in orientation, although also apocalyptic. According to Eug?ne Canseliet, this section was added to the previous text and was composed of the material of a third "collection of handwritten notes" that his master, Fulcanelli, had left with him before taking them back in 1928, thereby making it impossible to eventually publish the third book. That book, had it been published, would have been entitled Finis Gloriae Mundi - The End of the Glory of the World.

The alchemist Fulcanelli was the most famous adept of the 20th century, the man who achieved the Great Work less than 100 years ago, but his true identity has always been shrouded in myth and uninformed speculation...until now.

Patrick Rivi?re reveals with profuse documentary evidence the true identity of the enigmatic and prestigious author of The Mystery of the Cathedrals and The Dwellings of the Philosophers. Beginning with an overview of French alchemical life at the turn of the 20th century, Rivi?re carefully builds his case step-by-step with facts, documents, and photographs, introducing us to the well-known physicist who was known as Fulcanelli. Rivi?re also demolishes the scurrilous hypotheses that suggest Fulcanelli never existed. Rivi?re is uniquely suited to solving this mystery as his teacher was Fulcanelli's sole student, Eug?ne Canseliet. (ISBN 1-897244-21-5 Red Pill Press)

Excellent.......2000-08-10

I've read every Alchemical and Hermetic Chemistry book I could get my hands on over the last 3 years and this was up there with some of the best. It's not for the beginner because it makes some assumptions of general and basic knowledge about Alchemy that could leave the casual read in the dust. This book really caters to the avid student of Alchemy. It is none the less a book for your alchemical collection because the beginner one day will be no longer, and this book will offer knowledge without a doubt. "The lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding"

A Masterpiece of Art.......2000-01-24

This book is alive ! This is the path to join Pastimes, Present and Future... Readind this Book may suggest the desire to become a member of these enlighted souls, the greatest souls earth has ever carried, for the love of the Good, of the Beautiful, and the essence... The most eternal journey you may ever have...

Lege, lege, relege, ora et labora KalosKagathos

A Masterpiece of Art.......2000-01-24

Lege, lege, relege, ora et labora KalosKagathos

Book Description

On October 18-19, 2002, the Center for Philosophical Education at Santa Barbara City College hosted a symposium honoring Professor Adolf Grünbaum's contributions to contemporary philosophy. This work, an outgrowth of that symposium, contains contributions by leading philosophers on the vast influence of Adolf Grünbaum on philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. The symposium participants have either significantly reworked their original lectures or written entirely new articles for publication. A reprint of Grünbaum's "The Poverty of Theistic Cosmology" further enriches the book.

A highlight of this volume is an extended "Autobiographical-Philosophical Narrative" in which Grünbaum traces his intellectual journey, beginning with a poignant account of his early experiences with anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and his initial queries about religious belief, continuing through the major milestones of his career, and concluding with his current interests.

Besides Grünbaum, the contributors include Quentin Smith, Nancy Murphy, Bas C. van Fraassen, Michael Tooley, Steven Humphrey, Nancy Cartwright, and Edward Erwin.

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The Clockmaker or The sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville
Samuel Slick
Manufacturer: Lea and Blanchard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UUKA64

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The Clockmaker or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: Hard Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1406929972
Release Date: 2006-11-03

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The Clockmaker or Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: Echo Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1847025323

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The Clockmaker Or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville
Chandler Thomas Haliburton
Manufacturer: IndyPublish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1435347293

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The Clockmaker or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville
Thomas Haliburton
Manufacturer: Richard Bentley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000E5IEGI

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The Clockmaker Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GVPGIO

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Nova Scotia meets Sam Slick: never the same again

The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville(Large Print)
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Font Size 16 Bold | Alternative Formats | Formats | Books
ASIN: 1425065953
Release Date: 2007-01-03

Book Description

The profound creativity of Haliburton is evident from the thirty-three sketches that are presented in the book. With unparalleled humour and sarcasm on the literature, attitudes and politics of that time, this book established the author as a satirical humorist of international stature.

Customer Reviews:

Nova Scotia meets Sam Slick: never the same again.......1998-08-31

Series of short stories written originally for The Nova Scotian in the early 1830s. The narrator while riding through Nova Scotia meets an itinerant clock seller - Samual Slick of Slickville, Connecticut. The stories concern the views and opinions of Slick about - well, almost anything. And, for the most part, they are funny. A great deal of the book is a satire or parody of the moralizing story popular at the time: although occasionally, the stories themselves do fall into the moralizing trap themselves. If nothing else, great history as told by a contemporary neighbour of a young United States. The period is equidistant between the revolutionary war and the civil war. In one story, Sam Slick expounds on the great freedoms of the American people: all men created equal. The narrator points out that it is the British Empire (and hence Nova Scotia) where slavery is abolished. Maybe, says the narrator, the American constitution meant all white people are created equal. The humour is often of this type where paradoxes and false syllogisms are revealed.

The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Comfort Edition]

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The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Comfort Edition]
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Font Size 13 | Alternative Formats | Formats | Books
ASIN: 142506731X
Release Date: 2007-01-03

Book Description

The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Edition]

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The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Edition]
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Font Size 11 | Alternative Formats | Formats | Books
ASIN: 1425066631
Release Date: 2007-01-03

Book Description

The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Large Edition]

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The Clockmaker The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville[EasyRead Large Edition]
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Manufacturer: ReadHowYouWant.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1425067999
Release Date: 2007-01-03

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