ISO 9001 vs ISO 14001

The main difference is that ISO 9001 is focused on Quality management system while IS0 14001 on Environmental management system. For being more specific ISO 9001 is a Quality Management System (QMS) which gives organizations a systematic approach for meeting customer objectives (providing consistent quality) while ISO 14001 is an Environmental Management System (EMS) which provides a system for measuring and improving an organization's environmental impact.

The structure of the two standard is similar , in fact there is also a table to reference clause of ISO 9001 to ISO 14001 ones. An organization can be certified vs both standards and can also pursue the integration of the two systems as well.  They share several requirements and the goal of contiual improvement, but also differ in their approach and degree of prescription. One important difference between ISO 14001 and other ISO standards is that an organization can self-declare their compliance.

There are many other differences in the theorical level, like: there are no normative references defined in 14001, 9001 asks for a Quality Manual but 14001 doesn't, 9001 requires 6 documented procedures whereas 14001 requires only one documented procedure, 14001 requires to document Responsibilities & Authorities but 9001 doesn't require them to be documented anyway, exclusions are permitted in 9001 but not in 14001, while 14001 requires only 6 or 7 records, there are as many as 21 required to be maintained by ISO 9001, 9001 exclusively focuses on enhancing Customer Satisfaction while the 14001 is aimed at minimizing harmful effects of our activities.

ISO 14001 Descriptive Essay

ISO 14001 represents a major change of technical standards to "generic" standards,  in other words standards that can be applied to any company that standards only have to do with the company that manages its operations and not to the product that they produce .
ISO 14001 are international standards for environmental management, are intended to provide organizations with the elements of an effective environmental management system, which can be integrated with other management requirements to help companies achieve some environmental and economic objectives, is adaptable legal standards of various countries and focused on the implementation of RSE can also be part of the global pact to the productive units.
It is a voluntary international standard, which aims to establish the requirements to be met by an organization to manage the pollution prevention and control activities, products and processes that cause or could cause impact on the environment and thus able to demonstrate consistency in meeting its fundamental commitment to protection and respect for the environment.
The essence of the management system ISO 14001:2004 is the improvement in environmental performance, objectives and goals should always be pointing in that direction.

Activity 6

Vision

Answers the question Where? It also responds where the organization is headed. For creating a good vision, it must have some characteristics like: written in future sentence ending in –ing, be clear and visible, audacious, descriptive and redacted for an specific lapse of time (3, 5 o 10 years). We don’t have to confuse vision with mission, however they are closely related. The vision is where we see the organization in some years, it can use quantities of money, activities, physical appearance, etc.

Mission

Answers the question Why? It also reveals the purpose of the organization. For creating a good mission, it must have some characteristics like: being short, memorable, inspiring, market focused and express what you want to be remember for. A good mission often represents an organization ideal, and in some cases without mention the organization’s name we can recognize which is. The mission expresses how we can reach the vision.

Values

The values express in what the organization believes in. For creating a good value statement, it must have some characteristics like: 5 to 7 values, contains shared ideas of the people in the organization and it might be at the mission statement. The values are also used as to apply reinforcement, training, rewards, consequences and alignment. The values govern the operation of the business and its conduct.

Objectives

Are also called priorities, planks, platforms, etc. Statement objectives are broad, and that is the main difference between objectives and goals. Making the objectives is equivalent to architecting a house instead of construct it. The objectives can also be considered as little vision statements of the different areas that conforms the organization. The objectives have to be related among themselves, because they are the results or needs that the business has to achieve regular profits.

SWOT

It means Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. In an organization is too much advisable to capitalize strengths, invest opportunities, shore up weakness and identify threats. Strengths and weakness are internal, things like customers, employees, capabilities, resources, processes, etc. are part of them. Opportunities and threats are external, things like the environment, the industry and the competence are part of them. The SWOT is not just a matrix, it’s the beginning to identify in which things the organization is strong and which not, it help us to get ideas for the goal statement.

Activity 3

Case 1

Persons Involved

-          Passenger

-          Aeroflot

Kind of Leadership

-          Passengers: None

-          Aeroflot: Autocratic leader

Identifying the Problem

Caused by Conflict Management.

The problem is the bad service of the Aeroline for they are to blame for not having planned an appropriate number of passengers per flight and also are charging extra money for no reason, since that was their responsibility. The company doesn’t have good service politics.

Solution for the Problem

I think one of the possible solutions is having a better plan of passenger allowance. This measure should improve the programming of flights with the objective to of making not necessary to postpone any flight, and less charge more money. 

Case 2

Persons Involved

-          People of Nigeria

-          Seamen and their companies

-          Nigeria’s Government (ministries, departments, etc.)

Kind of Leadership

-          People of Nigeria: None

-          Seamen and their companies: Task-oriented leader

-          Nigeria’s Government: Autocratic leader

Identifying the Problem

Caused by Communication Conflicts

The problem here is, as the statement says, the lack of communication between departments and ministers from Nigeria. This causes no proper organization and planning of arrivals. As a result, it failed to properly supply the country with cement, which is negative for the evolution and development.

Solution for the Problem

I believe that the best solution is to establish programs of arrival of ships to prevent them from building up on the coast, because they also have to pay and that's not fair considering that it is not their fault. They should receive only the amount they can.

Case 3

Persons Involved

-          General Smith

-          Vladimir Seminiov

-          Colonel General Ogarkov

-          Civilians

Kind of Leadership

-          General Smith: Servant Leader

-          Vladimir Seminiov: Democratic Leader

-          Colonel General Ogarkov: Autocratic Leader

-          Civilians: None

Identifying the Problem

Causes by Leadership conflicts

The problem in this case is the disclosure of information that can be considered classified,  in other words that  can’t be counted to the general population. This happened because of the different points of view and interests of both parts.

Solution for the Problem

Analyzing the problem the best solution would be to not build nuclear weapons, as they represent a great danger not only to one country but for all humanity.

Case 4

Persons Involved

-          Ministry of Tourism

-          Ministry of Transport

-          Ben-Gurion airport

-          Israelis and foreign tourists

Kind of Leadership

-          Ministry of Tourism: Bureaucratic leader

-          Ministry of Transport: None

-          Ben-Gurion airport: Bureaucratic leader

-          Israelis and foreign tourists: None

Identifying the Problem

Caused by Communication Conflicts

The problem is the lack of communication between ministers, as they don’t agree on what features each have. Also, probably the  government hasn’t established the specific functions of each position.

Solution for the Problem

The solution would first establish and define the functions of each minister to have clear obligations. If there is a case that is not easy to identify who is responsible, then the best would be to have an open communication between ministers and decide who will take over

How to do public presentations?

There is no unique formula for a succesful presentation, there are some recommendations that are effective. Any executive or any person shall be liable to face the public and that can produce success and recognition as a professional, business men or student.

Some useful steps to do a good presentation are:

1. Prepare the conference selecting the most important information and find out about the latest developments. 
2. Introduce yourself,, but do it in 25 or 30 seconds, without exaggeration and without arrogance.
3. Explain very briefly how it will develop the conference and how long.
4. Use aid, like videos, impressions, etc.
5. It is important to have the attention of the audience. Find real life examples, anecdotes, jokes or double-meaning, use terms easy to understand. A characteristic of the good speakers is: they make a pause in the key moments of the presentation.  
6. Look to the public, don't focus exclusive in the documents at hand or make the mistake of sticking to the images on the projector.
7. Inspire confidence and project animation.  
8. Interact. Ask if there is all clear, and make brief conclusions.
9. When finished, do not just say thank you very much. Made a courtesy thank you all,  make available material and provide basic information such as your e-mail, website or blog.
10. At the end, try to feedback and improve the error made in the last presentations.

So as a conclusion, I think a good public presentation depends in the confidence and hability of the speaker. He has to attract the attention of the audience and algo seems nice. He also has to avoid boring the audience and make the presentation the more funny (depending on the topic) and interesting he can.

Do you have Leadership Potential?

Areas to improve

The test result was 77, so even according to the analysis of the test itself is a good result, however there is still a considerable scope for improvement. This means that although I own ability to convey the views or goals of a company or any other activity to the other people, I can improve still more the way to go. Here, it seems that to improve this aspect I could try to interact more with people and understand their way of thinking, with the objective of inform them in an easier way  how to achieve goals. I think this aspect can be improved being a little more outgoing and open minded.

The Leadership Motivation Assesment

How motivated are you to lead?

The first and most basic prerequisite for leadership is the desire to lead. After all, becoming an effective leader takes hard work. If you're not prepared to work hard at developing your leadership skills or if, deep down, you're really not sure whether you want to lead or not, you'll struggle to become an effective leader.

 RESULTS

Total = 56

Score Interpretation

Score	Comment
14-27	This implies a low motivation to lead
28-55	This implies some uncertainty over your motivation to lead
56-70	This implies a strong motivation to lead.

 Source: This set of questions was constructed for this self-assessment and for illustrative purposes only. No prior validation work has been conducted that enables us to address the construct validity of this assessment. This self-assessment was patterned after that of A. J. DuBrin in Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills (2nd edition) (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998). Pp. 10-11.

Armed with the results from this self-test, your next step depends on your situation.

If you have found that you're strongly motivated to lead, and you're already a leader – great! And if you're not already a leader, this is definitely an area you should investigate as you plan your career development.

On the other hand, if your score indicates that you don't have a strong motivation to lead, and you're considering moving into this area, you may want to look at other career options before you make a decision. Our article on Finding Career Direction will help you work through a process to find out what type of work does motivate you.

But if you're already a leader and you're just going through a low patch in the role, try out leadership motivation tools and regain the enthusiasm for the job that took you into leadership in the first place!

Areas to Improve

The results show that I have already a strong motivation lead, however, it is necessary to improve further becausa the results are almost at the limit. This mean according to the analysis that shows the test, I need no have more enthusiasm an motivation to develop some tools to make leadership a priority in my life. Summarizing, the area to improve is the motivation of leading, directing and desire to be satisfied with the job. I think a good way to improve these aspects is reading any book related to motivation o try to fin all the positive aspects of being a leader and identify actions to take.

Programming and Control of the Laundry's Production in the General Hospital San Juan de Dios

Introduction

In Guatemala the General Hospital San Juan de Dios plays a very important roll. As a public organization or entity, it must bring to the poblation a quality service and it's responsible of the guatemalans' health. As part of my final practices of the Industrial Engineering career, I have been assigned to help in one of many problems that the authorities of the Hospital have in the diary operation of the one.

So, they have identificated a need, that in this case is to fix the disorder and decontrol of the production in the laundry department; and they went to the University for find some students that could solve not just this problem, but also a lot of different others.

  

Context

The laundry department of the General Hospital San Juan de Dios have many problems, it is disrupted, disordered, the people don't count with safe working conditions, they are unmotivated, etc. The origin of these problems starts in the organization of the whole Hospital, because it has excessive procedures just for make little changes and this affects the desires of improve.  The people responsible of this department (the assistant manager, the manager, etc) have a lot of good ideas, but in most cases it not depend on them to decide wheter to buy. This affects the power not only to buy some new necessary things, but also the power to reward or punish the operator who deseves it.

In the department, it is necessary to analize all the activities and make studies, with the objective to obtain a general vision of the situation and try to solve it; this using the different tools given by the engineering faculty as flowcharts, time studies, travel diagrams, industrial hygiene and safety, etc. Doing the mentioned studies we can understand the process, the problems and then we can implement some action plans.

Population Targeted

It could be said that maybe all the poblation of capital city at some time could be targeted, because we don't know when we will have an accident or get a disease and need the services of the hospital. Now, talking about people that are already hospitalized, of course they are the most benefited ones, they will have clean clothes, and this contributes to their rehabilitaion and confort.

 

Institutional Framework

The project then, it's developed in the laundry department ubicated in the bottom floor of the second tower. It's first just a improvement proposition waiting to be accepted and launched, but it could be an important step for a total change. This means also, there are no funds or money prepared or destinated to be expended until the project gets into the authorities hands and give their approval. So, the one who is developing the project is me and I'll try to reach important conclusions to make the department a better one.