Below are the 2 most recent journal entries recorded in gabriellapiercy's InsaneJournal:

Sunday, January 15th, 2012
12:21 am	Tasks and Technologies in the Offshore Access Industry Within this section we'll have a look at the core technology of offshore access providing firms. A lot of companies in the market concentrate on the development, construction and lease of high-tech offshore access solutions. Popular ways of transporting personnel offshore are: The helicopter, the Windcat workboat and the offshore access system, also called the heave compensated gangway. The Offshore Access System The offshore access system is a self-stabilizing platform providing you with access from a moving vessel to a stable platform on the ocean. Six hydraulic legs prevent any movement of the vessel brought on by waves, making the product very safe and stable when compared with other offshore solutions provided by competitors who make use of the helicopter to transfer personnel on sea. The bridge could be installed on location within eight hours and operated by a single person. The core technology used by the business is the manufacturing process. Classified in Woodward’s technical complexity scale, the manufacturing procedure for the organizations falls mostly into Group I. Since most providers from the offshore access system are young and emerging companies, which sell an innovative product, the organizations produce single units and small batches to customer orders. The organizations are seen as a a high amount of involvement by the employees for many of its operations. Yet, the companies have not reached the stage of mass production; therefore every worker currently requires a complete knowledge of we've got the technology being used. The technical complexity, which is defined by the degree of the mechanization from the production process, thus remains between medium and low, as the companies use a standardized production process on one hand, but did not go into the stage of mass production however. Because the organizations are currently facing rapid growth, it might fall into Woodward’s Group II in the near future. Group II manufacturers are characterized by large batches and mass production. Like a consequent from the rapid growth, the companies might highly routinize the manufacturing process and increase the production capacity soon. This can result in a more focused understanding on specific parts of the manufacturing process by the workers, a heightened division of work together with a greater degree of mechanization. We have chosen Woodward’s model to explain the dimensions of the primary process, because she focused particularly on manufacturing firms such as the offshore access providers for her studies. Moreover, we think that her typology currently characterizes the technology used by the business best. (Comment on this)
12:17 am	Resource Dependency within the Offshore Access Industry Like a final and important distinct factor, assessing the firms’ resource dependency can provide managers with valuable insights when defining the organizational environment. Essentially, the tool that allows this assessment is analyzing resources along criticality and scarcity. offshore safety One of the essential resources of offshore access providers is the product specific knowledge that's gained in close cooperation using the universities. Without continuous improvement of the knowledge the companies would lose their competitive benefit of the most reliable product (the offshore access system) in the market. Moreover, knowledge is available in the form of new employees who're constantly hired to ensure that nokia's to keep up with the substantial growth. This will make trained and qualified labor another highly critical resource. Both knowledge and skilled labor are closely connected and both of them are assigned as particularly scarce and hard to substitute due to the product specificities. Furthermore, developing the offshore access system requires an extensive initial investment, which induces the necessity of acquiring sufficient capital. Thus, making capital investors another important resource. However, the more systems a company within this industry has being used, the greater capital can be provided without needing external financing making substitution easier. Therefore, criticality is recognized as high but scarcity rather moderate. Closely from the growth and development of their systems is the input of recycleables. These will take the form of customized parts for that offshore access industry there are many different companies that all provide only a limited amount of the needed components. Consequently, reliable supplier parts are crucial, scarce and hard to substitute. Eventually, offshore access systems need to get to the customer in order to realize turnover and potential profits inducing the obvious criticality of consumers. offshore transport Although, customers also provide special inputs in the form of safety requirements and cheap offshore access solutions. In terms of scarcity clients seem to continuously demand offshore services, however, most providers of an offshore access system continue to be unknown to some major part of consumers within the offshore oil & gas industry. Subsequently, the industry shows customers in abundance permitting substitution, more importantly though, is that these providers of offshore access systems have to increase their brand awareness amongst these potential customers. Like a conclusion, just as much information about environmental surroundings ought to be a accessed as possible through boundary spanning, but the right balance has to be found between buffering these resources and also the continuous refreshment of data and techniques utilized in the business. (Comment on this)