Lean Operation and Supply Chain Management Textile Industry - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2022 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Fashion Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? There is an increasing concern on lean operation and supply chain management in the textile and apparel industry which has changed significantly over last decades, due to global sourcing and price competition. One of the main reason for the interest in supply chain management caused by apparel industrys unique characteristics, such as fast fashion and short product lifecycle. At present, lean operation and supply chain management played an important role in textile and apparel. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Lean Operation and Supply Chain Management Textile Industry" essay for you Create order This essay illustrates how an apparel company, Zara, achieved a tremendous success by take advantage of the practice of lean operation and supply chain. Lean operation mainly focuses on eliminating waste and minimizing the time between a customers order and delivery. Lean concept is a much faster, better and less-expensive way of get the right done at the right place. It not only attempts to eliminate material waste, but also the reduce time in order to enhance efficiency and improve processes. In other word, Lean operation allows Zara to get low cost advantage and short lead times over its competitors. 2.Zaras operation management practice Zara demonstrates clear advantages over its rivals by lean operations. Zara applies the latest software application and unique business strategies to ensure that its overall capabilities are developed to their full potential. This leads Zaras business procedures performing more efficiently throughout all levels of the business. This allows Z ara to not only update all relevant information, but also monitor and evaluate information such as sales, returns or pricing. These enhancements mean that efficiency is improved in all aspects of the supply chain. sales can be precisely monitored at POS terminals across all stores allows Zara to recognize when necessary strategic decisions need to be made in relation to supply and demand. Such communication between stores and other levels of the supply chain . This in turn makes sure that the alignment between the demand at store level and the supply at its headquarters is optimal. Therefore stock control is more precise; shipment and replenishment is more efficient and ordering time is minimal. Zaras success is partly depend on such lean operation and effective communication from customer to store manager, from retail sector to design section and from production to distribution. it takes advantage of lean operation in order to take control of almost every aspect of design, ma rketing, production, retailing and distribution. A constant cooperation throughout every step of Zaras supply chain provides competitive advantages to Zaras fast fashion strategy, information flow transfer among customers, store managers, marketing employee ,designers, production employee, warehouse managers and distributors managers, and so on. Zara has made significantly efforts to ensure each progress is very efficient and information flow transfer easier to facilitate operational procedures, performance assessment, and the location of every store and office layouts. It shows that operation management is one of major activities for Zara to support its fast fashion system. it is effective solution to connect all of Zaras operations worldwide network and automating processes. this lean practices is entirely compatible to Zaras supply chain. Zara use such system to differ substantially from its competitors. Zara invests on prompt lean pratices. To keep up with fast reaction to busin ess procedural changes, supply chain management will probably ensure flexibility and quick response. 2.1 Lean operation used in design progess Today, many people still take a narrow view of lean opearion, they view lean operation as cost reduction, mainly in terms of the costs they can save. Cost control is definitely an important part of lean operation. After all, if your rivirals can produce their products at a much lower cost, they could easily take over the market. However, some smart company view lean operation as their marketing plan and adding value for their customers. For instance, Zaras design involves in many efficient lean practices ¼Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ which only design products the customer demand. All processes performed just for the sake of creating customers Value. The lean manufacturer minimizes resources that are not only raw materials but also manpower and time. The lean criteria is that all activities, movement, resources and other input convert into final product efficiently. Zara has applied such lean criteria successfully. Product development is constantly working in order to adapt to new fashion trends . Designers and managers attend high-fashion fairs and exhibitions to obtain fashion information and then convert the latest fashion trends of the season into their designs. Other sources of design inspiration come from TV, Internet, film content or trend spotters. product development teams focus on venues such as university campuses and clubs around the world to capture fashion trends and customer preferences. Zaras product development teams have frequent dialogue via their internal IT system. Zara gave significant autonomy to each store manager in deciding the quantity of product needed by each store. Moreover, the store manager is able to decide which product to display in their stores and which product is to be sold at a reduced price. The managers responsibility is to make these decision based on market research and sales trends. Moreover, by employing young and fashionable member of staff ensures that employees also contribute by helping to report the sales analysis, th e product life cycles, and the store trends to the designers. There are specialized teams in headquarters to analyze feedbacks and information from each store, then design and produce their products. These sales analyses allow the designers to develop the right products to meet consumer Demand. Design team issues up to approximately 12,000 new design styles per year. Such a design concept obviously depends on the regular creation of new design. For example, Zaras designer team came up with approximately 40,000 new designs per year, from which only slightly more than one-quarter of them for production. Zara often follows the fashion trends of the high-fashion houses and offers similar products at much lower prices by using less expensive fabric. It also attempts to offer more colors and larger range of sizes to meet the need of consumers. After a prototype of new design was selected, a computer-aided design system is used to refine colors and textures. Limited number of new items were produced and presented in certain stores for a trial period and large volumes of the product are produced only if customerÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s reaction is positive. As a consequence, failure rates on new products is only 1% which is less than the average rate of 10% of other fashion retailers. 2.2 Lean Manufacture In fashion industry, the demand changes very fast due to new fashion trends and a volatile market situation. This demand is unpredictable and could vary and change completely in a short time, creating high difficulties for supply chain. To establish a lean supply chain is one crucial way for textile and apperal retailing company to enhance its performance and to gain competitive advantages. Zara has adopted lean manufacturing and combined this with practices in supply chain management for fashion retailing. In some extend, the lean manufacturing and supply chain management have become an universal solution in the apparel and textile industry. Zara has been able to obtain excellent success due to its lean manufacturing by vertical integration and fast fashion business strategies which provide Zara with a competitive advantage over traditional fashion retailers in the industry. Generally speaking, apparel retailers always try to keep lower costs by outsourcing production to develo ping countries where the lowest labor could reduce its manufacture cost. On the other hand, ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s subsidiary retailing chain adopted a successful diverse method of doing business through working through the whole value chain by in-house design, production, distribution and retailing. Highly capital intensity and vertical integration is a distinctive feature of ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s business model. From the upstream value chain, a subsidiary of Zara company, Comdietel, funnels fabric and other input supplied by external suppliers. More than half of the fabric was undyed which provide maximum flexibility to produce in-season clothes. Comdietel is able to dye and process gray fabric into certain pattern within only one week to meet the requirement of downstream value chain. Zara has 20 fully owned manufacture factories across the Europe. These factories use capital intensive production processes and provide cut garment and semi-manu factured products to approximately 500 in-house workshops. The relevant cutting machines and other systems produce semi-manufactured items and cut garments which will be transited directly into workshops. The progress looks rigmarole, but it is quite efficient because bar codes track the cut pieces through the every production steps. Workshops are located in labor-intensive areas across Europe such as Spain and northern Portugal. These workshops manufacture clothes in small scale to offer specialization in product type. The sewn clothes were sent back from these workshops to various product line under different brands. The center will inspect, iron and fold before sending finished garment to distribution center. The secret of ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s success is that vertical integration leads to short turnaround times and great flexibility. By implementing in-house production, zara has obtained high level of variety, quantity and frequency of new styled clothes. Zara adopts market orientation by reducing lead-times and increasing flexibility. Zara is able to upgrade products in its stores within 10 to 15 days from design to stores. Vertical integration decreased ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s stock to a minimum level and reduced fashion risk. In the mean time, providing small amount of products in a great variety of styles rendered Zara shorter lead times and high level flexibility. As a consequence of offering fewer amount of product more often, Zara obtains larger percentages of the full price due to in-season sell and thus achieve higher net margins on sales. By focusing on shorter response times to fashion trends and keeping up with fashion. Zara made efforts to make sure that its stores are able to offer latest fashion items that consumers desired at a given time. Zara can move from coming up a design to having clothes in its stores within 2 weeks. Short lead times is Zara one of the most important competitive advantages over its competitors. When ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s retail stores provide consumer with latest fashion items and gain huge amount of sales, its competitors have still struggled to catch up. In comparison, HMÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s lead time is more than 20 days. Traditional retailers use 4-6 months . 2.3 Distribution Excellent supply chain management mainly focus on the understanding and balancing three key dimensions of flexibility, inventory and cost. Zara is obvious example for it by managing these trade-offs efficiently. Zaras supply chains has improved business performance and drive competitive advantage. Improving supply chain management is considered as its the business model which resulted in rapid growth and profitability. A more systematic approach to inventory distribution is another feature of Zara. Each retail chain has its own centralized distribution system. Distribution center is located in Arteixo and small satellite centers across the world. In order to keep its stores refreshed with new merchandise every two weeks, the warehouses of Zara is simply a place to transfer merchandise rather than store them. Under IndetexÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s distribution system, most of merchandise stayed at the distribution centers for only few hours. Products are inspected and shipped immediately in distribution center. Store managers can check lists of items available to be shipped to their stores. Based on their store inventories, they can request quantities and type of products. However, ZaraÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã‚ ¸s international expansion required constant adjustment on distribution. Zara schedules the shipment by time zone to make sure distribute effectively. Zara uses this method to gain a competitive advantage by minimizing the lead times. 3.Conclusions Zara is experiencing significant growth and has great opportunity to continue that growth by its efficient lean practice in design and manufacturing process and effective supply chain management that is completely contrary to the rest of the clothing industry; Zara has possess a competitive advantage for itself in the sense of low prices and quick cycle times, introducing new fashions. For Zara, supply chain management is a strategic differentiator that leads to a competitive edge. Su pply chain management is more than a new name for logistic. Lean operation is not just concerned about cost control, Zara views its lean operation and supply chain as key strategy of its business models. The case study on Zara

The Effects Of Parental Involvement On Children s...

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Ethics of Euthanasia Free Essays

Courtney Thorne Professor Chesire English 1100, Section 48 7 December 2012 Euthanasia One of the most hotly debated topics going on through the government is the one concerning the ethics of euthanasia also known as assisted suicide. Euthanasia comes from the Greek language meaning ‘Good death’. Euthanasia is suicide, but with the help of a doctor. We will write a custom essay sample on Ethics of Euthanasia or any similar topic only for you Order Now The government and people argue about whether it should be legalized or not, this is because it can be seen as unethical and it taking the ills life. I think assisted suicide should be legal because we have the right and moral obligation to euthanize our beloved pets when they are suffering and in pain†¦ why are we not morally obligated to provide the same options for ourselves and our loved ones who have no quality of life? Euthanasia fascinates me because not much people of my age are aware of what it is exactly and how much that it could actually help out in the society if it was to be legalized. Euthanasia should be legalized we have ‘the peoples rights’, it cost more to keep someone on life support and it is a way out of unnecessary suffering for the ill. I was interested in researching this topic because I don’t think this topic gets as much attention as I think it should. I am all for assisted suicide and believe people should not be denied their wishes when they want to end their pain when they are terminally ill. However, I was open to learning more about the opposite stance and what the reasons for opposition were. Which I understand that some people are not for euthanasia, but with you reading my essay I hope to persuade you to take in some of my ideas that I will explain to you throughout my paper. I wondered how someone could just deny the peoples right of wanting to pass when they are terminally ill. There are two main kinds of euthanasia; one is voluntary euthanasia which refers to the action taken by the physician and the patient, who both agree to end the patient’s life with an informed consent. Then there is involuntary euthanasia that refers to a third party taking a patient’s life without the informed consent (like putting and animal down). There are more people for euthanasia than what I expected there too be. This graph shows the debate on whether people are for or against euthanasia. They selected random people and were asked whether they were for euthanasia becoming legal or not. Euthanasia should be legal to save the terminally ill from the unnecessary suffering they face and the families of the terminally ill. We all have our rights being an American, but our country sometimes does not agree with those rights like wanting the right to die. Being an American we should enjoy a right guaranteed in the European Declaration of Human Rights, the right not to be forced to suffer. People who are terminally ill and know there is no life to look forward to should not have to live everyday suffering and make their family suffer with them by watching them, if they want to die by assisted suicide they should be allowed that right and not deny it. I feel like if it was my family member suffering I would suffer watching them suffer and I don’t think that’s fair to me or my family. We use euthanasia on our animals as an act of kindness why can we give humans the same act of kindness and with their consent? Keeping someone alive against their will in my book is morally wrong, and assisted suicide should be legal for those that consent to die that way. People who do not understand the concept of what euthanasia is see it as being morally wrong. The government has set laws against euthanasia because they think they are trying to prevent abuse and to protect the people. People who are against euthanasia see it as an easy way out of their suffering. Most of us who do not understand what euthanasia is fully do not understand why it should be legal, and that when they hear â€Å"suicide† they automatically think â€Å"bad†. Euthanasia is not about the right to die it is about the right to kill. I think the main argument for the support of euthanasia and assisted suicide is that people should have the right to control their life and death, and should be able to end their lives when they wish. People who are terminally ill tend to be on a machine to keep them alive. In this fact of matter is the doctor or the nurses are playing god to their patients by keeping them alive, on a machine. I think we should be able to play god for once and choose our death. For example someone with ALS who is on a machine breathing for them, the machine is keeping them alive and being their god. Why can’t they be their own god and decided if they want to die by assisted suicide? Keeping someone alive and playing god for them isn’t the ethical thing to do. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, better known as â€Å"Dr. Death† was one doctor known as playing the role of â€Å"god†. Dr Jack Kevorkian was the only doctor to let people have their dying wish. This is a passage from Terry Youk; Jack Kevorkian helped terry’s brother with assisted suicide. I of course felt that Jack [Kevorkian] never should have gone to prison I don’t believe that the medical service that he provided my brother and others is a crime. I think people look back and see that Jack was the only person that was willing to stand up during a divisive time and fight for what should be a right for all human beings to have choices at the end of their life. I think Ja ck provided for people that had fallen through the cracks of the health care system a way to die with some peace and dignity. Ultimately, Jack Kevorkian was our only option†¦ I am very grateful to Jack Kevorkian. I feel like he was a compassionate practitioner for my brother at the end of his life. † Feb. 25, 2009 – Terry Youk. I think people should be their own god and choose their own path to death even if it means euthanasia it’s their choice and their consent. With this comes the cost of keeping someone on life support or a machine to help them breath. Life support can cost between $9,000 to $15,000 a year. Drugs for assisted suicide cost up to $45 for each death. So it’s cheaper to let someone die by assisted suicide and have their consent than to keep them on life support. The counter argument for this is clear that people who are not for the legalization of assisted suicide say that the only person that can play god is god himself. God is the only one who can make the decision on when the right time for us to die is. People think that assisted suicide is morally wrong and god has planned their life to be that way and lived that way. They say that god plans out your life for a certain reason and you should just live the way he has made it for you, even if that means suffering. This is a religious view of why euthanasia should not be legalized. Certain religions think that if you choose euthanasia you will go to hell because god did not seek this out to be their path. â€Å"I am dying. There’s no sense and trying to deny that fact†. This is a quote is from Craig Ewert a patient that decided to die by euthanasia. Craig had ALS and decided he didn’t want to live a life where he couldn’t do anything for himself so he passed with assisted suicide. The way he died was the doctor provided him medicine to drink that would stop his heart. Assisted suicide may not be right in some people’s mind, but in reality the one choosing euthanasia isn’t harming anyone because it is their life and they should be in control of what they do without being judged. Euthanasia is a highly debated subject when it is talked about. Euthanasia should be legal to perform in the United States to end the suffering of the terminally ill, that do not want to live a life where they can’t do anything but suffer and watch the ones they love suffer because they are suffering. Making it legal also gives us more of a people’s choice and us to play or own god and not have someone else make the decisions for us. Euthanasia in my point of view should be legal because it is morally wrong to deny someone their wish in dying and taking their rights from them. Work Cited International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide â€Å"Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Questions,† www. internationaltaskforce. org, Jan. 2010 â€Å"Frequently Asked Questions,† www. nternationaltaskforce. org (accessed May 27, 2010) â€Å"Statement on Euthanasia,† on www. usccb. org, Sep. 12, 1991 â€Å" Terry Youk,† http://euthanasia. procon. org/view. source. php? sourceID=009779 , April 28th. 2010 Stephanie Clayton. â€Å"This House Believes that assisted suicide should be legalized. † idebate. org. 16 Feb 2012. idebate. org, Web. 26 Oct 2012. http://idebate. org/debatabase/debates/philosophy/house-believes-assisted-suicide -should-be-legalized How to cite Ethics of Euthanasia, Essay examples

Develop Systems to Involve Stakeholders in the Planning free essay sample

Module 5: Planning for Change: Project planning Module aims This module will help you facilitate stakeholders to work from an understanding of resource management issues to a project design. Specifically, it covers how to facilitate a: ? Solutions tree activity. ?Participatory impact assessment activity. ?Discussion of project options. Topics 5. 1Developing a solutions tree 5. 2Assessing social, economic and ecological impacts 5. 3Selecting options 5. 4Checklist of project planning issues IntroductionThe previous modules have taken project staff and stakeholders through a process of understanding resource management issues, and their social and economic context. The next stage in a participatory resource management program is planning. During this stage, facilitators working with the project can use the activities in this module involve stakeholders to develop potential solutions and selection appropriate options for development into a project plan. Topic 5. 1 Developing a solutions treeOnce the causes of resource management issues have been analysed, stakeholders are in a better position to develop targeted strategies to address some of the ‘root causes’. The solutions tree activity that follows works with the outputs of the Participatory Problem Analysis (Topic 3. 3) to develop potential solutions to the identified causes of the resource management problems. It is important to clarify that not all of the solutions identified in a solutions tree would be picked up in a project plan. In any event, time, skill and money constraints are likely to limit the ability of projects to tackle a problem from every possible angle.Therefore, the solution tree activity discussed overleaf aims to provide a logical basis for considering alternative solutions and planning for the implementation of the solutions selected. After the potential solutions have been identified, stakeholders can discuss criteria for choosing between alternative strategies to develop into a project map (see Module 6). The activities solutions tree activity can also identify potential areas for action that stakeholders may be able to work on outside of the project framework. Activity: Developing a â€Å"Solutions tree†Purpose To show stakeholders how the problem analysis can be used to identify solutions and possible activities for the pilot project. To better understand what stakeholders believe are possible solutions and valid activities for the pilot project. The identification of solutions at this stage is not final. The options are assessed and discussed. A ‘project map’ is later developed for the set of objectives and actions that are likely to gain the greatest benefit with the least negative consequences (the greatest ‘net’ benefit). Participants:Stakeholders who have worked on the participatory problem analysis process follow on to this activity. Materials: Flip-chart paper Post-it notes Coloured marker pens. Preparation: Organise the workspace to enable groups of up to 5-6 to work on the task. Time: 1 ? to 2 hours Steps: 1. Ask participants to review their problem tree and make any needed revisions based on further thoughts and discussions on possible underlying causes. 2. When they are finished with revisions, invite participants to construct a Solutions Tree by converting each ‘problem’ (the negative statement) into a future positive action.For example, the negative statement ‘lack of public awareness of the impact of waste on water quality’ may be converted to a positive action such as ‘increase public awareness of the impact of waste on water quality’. 3. As participants work, ask them to keep checking the logic of the relationship between different levels to ensure that activities clearly address the problem. Do this by asking IF†¦THEN as you move up the chart (see figure below on â€Å"checking the logic of the solutions tree†). They could do this by asking IF we do the positive action, THEN will the specific problem to which the action is related be alleviated?This is sometimes known as the IF †¦ THEN test. An example would be the question: IF we increase public awareness of the impact of waste on water quality THEN will we reduce ignorance of the impact of waste on water quality? If the answer is ‘yes’, the logic of the solutions tree holds firm. Think creatively and holistically about the solution! 4. If there is any problem with the logic of the solutions tree, you may need to rephrase the positive action. There could be an error in the logic in the Problem Tree so check this also. 5.Check the solutions tree to see if the solutions that may have come up in earlier discussions by participants are represented. If they are not, ask why not? Was the problem tree correct? Perhaps the problem tree needs further revisions? Go back and make more changes to the problem tree if necessary. 5Ask each group to present their work to the others. Checking the Logic of Solutions Tree Check that the lower box will lead to what is written at the box on the next level, and so on. This will help to make sure that the actions on the solutions tree flow logically.Source: (adapted from Worah et al. , 1999) Example: Solutions tree to address chemical pollution of coastal waters from Niue Topic 5. 2 Assessing the social, economic and ecological impacts of possible solutions Any potential solution is likely to have ecological, social and economic impacts. It will, for instance, have intended ecological impacts because the objective of the project will be to alter resource management practices. The solution would also have economic and social impacts because it involves changing behaviour and thereby changing people’s access to wealth and resources.At the same time the project may also generate unanticipated ecological, social and economic impacts. To select the ‘best’ option to address the environmental problem, project staff will need to work with stakeholders to consider the social, economic and ecological impacts of alternative options. This is because negative impacts on any option may jeopardise the success of the project. For instance, there would be no point in pursuing an option that offers positive ecological benefits if the social and economic impacts of this are so damaging to stakeholders that compliance would be impossible.In fact, severe social and economic implications are a warning sign that an option will ultimately be unsustainable or unviable. One way of conceptualizing the relationships between the economic, social and ecological is as an ‘egg’ (see Figure 9), where economic and social actions are nested within the biophysical environment. Action in one area will ripple through the others. Impact assessment helps us to work out what these connections are, so that we can maximise outcomes across these three dimensions and develop more sustainable resource management activities (Lal and Keen, 2002).Figure 9: Three dimensions of sustainability Source: (Lal and Keen, 2002) Environmental impact assessment Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a process to support planning and decision-making. It is based on the identification, prediction and evaluation of the potential environmental impacts of about projects, plans and policies. Impact assessments can involve very detailed technical examinations of the environmental impacts in policies and projects, particularly where projects are likely to have significant negative environmental impacts (Modak and Biswas 1999).The scale of the impact assessment can and should be matched to the project. However, the steps are broadly similar, and aim to integrate consideration of the ec onomic, social and economic impacts of an intervention. In this section, we will focus of the social impacts of alternative solutions and will only consider economic and ecological impacts as they relate to these. Project managers would need to consider all these sets of impacts – social, economic and ecological – in practice. Information on the economic aspects of solutions is discussed in detail in Lal and Holland (2004).Social Impact assessment Social impact assessment is a specialised form of impact assessment. It focuses on: ? The likely social impacts of what is planned; ?The likely consequences for various stakeholders (eg improvement or deterioration in people’s well-being); and ? How to improve positive benefits or minimize negative impacts. Social impact assessment, like EIA, can be a relatively large and complex process. However, the scale of the impact assessment can and should be matched to the project (Goldman, 2000). Impact assessment can be done when consensus has been reached on the viability of two or three main options. Alternatively, it can begin in the early stages of stakeholder consideration of problems and with information about likely social impacts being collected and analysed as part of the baseline assessment. Social impact assessment is linked to stakeholder analysis because it involves considering how stakeholder interests would be affected by different options to solve the problem. A stakeholder analysis in relation to potential solutions (see Topic 3. 2) can be used to help identify these impacts.Subsequently, actions can be refined to increase any positive effects on stakeholder interests and or reduce or avoid any negative effects from alternative solutions. The information collected during preliminary community profile and baseline assessments are also important inputs to the impact assessment process. Who assesses impacts and when? Project staff may carry out a preliminary assessment of potential social, economic and environmental implications of a project on their own or in consultation with government in the process of determining where to locate projects.This preliminary assessment can help avoid the strategic mistake of selecting a project site that is unlikely to have viable or politically acceptable solutions. It is not wise politically to go through all the public stakeholder activities leading up to the preliminary assessments only to conclude that â€Å"Do Nothing Different† is the best option. Project managers and other project staff might also begin thinking about environmental impacts in the early stages of stakeholder consideration of problems and information about likely impacts being collected and analysed as part of the baseline assessment.Stakeholders are likely to raise issues of concern or risks early in the process of consultations—even during th e first round of stakeholder meetings. Project staff needs to think about potential social impacts and need to assure stakeholders that possible impacts will be considered in the decision-making process. EIA is thus central to the selection of social, economically and ecologically viable options. A participatory activity to assess the environmental impacts of options is outlined in Topic 5. 4. Topic 5. 3 Selecting OptionsBefore assessing impacts, it is important to select two to three options from the wider set of potential solutions developed in workshops. This is necessary because of time constraints, and also because it is unlikely that one project will be able to accommodate the full range of activities. The topics in this module are intended to support stakeholders to take a considered decision on which options for action they will pursue. The solutions tree Activity (Topic 5. 1) will have assisted them to identify potential solutions (options).The impact assessment below will help them consider the likely positive and negative impacts of certain options, including the option of taking no action. In this topic, we look at the decision-making process and your role in it as a facilitator or manager of a project. We also look at some criteria and techniques that can help stakeholders to assess the costs and benefits of options and choose the actions that are likely to bring the greatest overall benefit in social, economic and ecological terms. Decision-making in groups: processes and issuesBefore moving on to the specifics of selecting options, lets pause and consider the decision-making processes involved. The selection of options for action on a resource management issue is a key decision-point for stakeholders. Your facilitation role at this stage is crucial, and it is important for you to have an understanding the group dynamics of decision-making. Groups can arrive at a decision on an issue in many different ways. Some common rules that you may have come across are shown in Figure 10. Figure 10: Common decision-making rules. (Braakman and Edwards, 2002)Looking at these ‘common decision rules’, you will see that some rules are more consistent with a participatory program than others. For example, a chairman deciding after discussion is a very limited form of participation. In contrast, decision through consensus can allow broad participation, as long as rules are followed to ensure participation in the discussion process. Without explicit ground rules to guide the discussion, those with power, influence, and confidence are likely to hold sway, or the process can get bogged down and issues are not considered fully or systematically. The decision-making scenario may then look more like Figure 11 below. Figure 11: Decision making without rules (Braakman and Edwards, 2002) To avoid these problems, it is important for facilitators to discuss and establish decision-making rules with the group. You may even find it useful to use these diagrams in your discussions. Another important aspect of the facilitator’s role is the need to encourage the group to look broadly at issues before moving towards a decision-point. Such an approach challenges the group to move beyond ‘business as usual’ discussions to look at new ideas and angles.As a facilitator, you can help this process along to broaden discussion and then move back to a decision point (See Figure 12 and Issue 15 below on how to promote divergent thinking). Figure 12: Divergent and Convergent thinking Source: Braakman and Edwards, 2002: 47 As the group explores ideas a further challenge for the facilitator is to help them find the point at which f ree ranging discussion can be focused back to a decision point. This transition point is sometimes called the ‘groan zone’ because it can be a confusing time for the group as it struggles to find a shared framework.Your facilitation skills are crucial in helping a group move through the ‘groan zone’ towards a decision point (See Issue 16 below on getting through the ‘groan zone’). Issue 15: How to promote divergent thinking †¢Alert the group of ‘business as usual’ discussions. †¢Help the group avoid making decisions too quickly by pointing out how limited their input is. †¢Encourage everyone to contribute. †¢Think about the tools and skills needed to learn about other diverse points of view. †¢Suggest ways to structure thinking activities. †¢Respect other people’s point of view.