Advances in Transportation SLP Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Advances in Transportation SLP - Research Paper Example Today life without systems like London’s tube or Japan’s Shinkansen is unthinkable in a society where commuting between the home and workplace depends to a large extent on this form of transport. The 19th. century was an era of great technological advances. Perhaps none of these has had as far reaching an effect on the lives of people, as has the steam engine that led to the invention of the railway. The British used this invention to maximum advantage in their colonies, to expand business opportunities, ferrying local goods like spices, tea, coffee, rubber and cotton to the shipyards from where they were marketed to every part of the western world. The railways were used to carry the finished goods from factories to far flung corners of the world and allowed even farmers to sell their products further away from the regions where they were grown. This new means of transportation that ferried people as well as goods at speeds unmatched at the time by any other means of t ransport; was a boon, giving people a chance to explore new opportunities, to live away from their work places and above all to travel to far away places, that allowed them a glimpse of a world they had never seen before. As Nobel peace prize winner Sir John Boyd Orr remarked â€Å" After the First World War the economic problem was no longer one of production. It was the problem of finding markets to get the output of industry and agriculture dispersed and consumed.† (Boyd Orr, 1949) Railroads provided the solution to this problem by transporting finished goods to markets across the world. Huge public structure investment ensured that distances shrank and railroads began to determine the location and shape or size of new cities and towns. Joe Biden put it in a nutshell when he remarked â€Å"public infrastructure investment raises private sector productivity †¦.they literally are the veins and arteries of commerce.† (Biden, 2011) Railways brought economic prosper ity to people in towns and cities supplying them with every necessity - food, clothes, building material, fuel and access to markets. The railroad system resulted in a production boom; as resources and raw materials from one part of a country or continent were transported to far away factories, and finished goods marketed to every nook and corner that was now accessible through this new system of transportation. In Russia the Trans-Siberian Railway, gave an economic boost by facilitating agricultural exports from Siberia, to Russia and Europe. In Japan, the government promoted railways to cut down dependence on imported fossil fuels. Railroads have therefore been the backbone of the Japanese urban transport system and train stations formed the nucleus around which cities bloomed. Japan was the first country to have high speed rail and Japan’s business, economy, life and culture has been greatly impacted by the bullet trains that run at amazing speeds. High speed rail has beco me an efficient and convenient means of transport in Western Europe, and although this means of transportation has become popular throughout the world due to its efficiency and economy, Japan, China and Europe have the largest networks of high speed rail. It has however not taken off yet in the US. President Barack Obama in an effort to increase job opportunities in an economy that is yet to pick up after the down slide of 2008 remarked, High Speed Rail â€Å"will help accelerate job growth in an economy tha

Innovation to Sustainability about Lexus Electric Car Essay

Innovation to Sustainability about Lexus Electric Car - Essay Example The paper tells that Lexus has its headquarters at Nagoya in Japan and operational centers in the US and Europe. Through its innovation management, Lexus was able to produce Lexus CT 200h series in 2011 which even surpassed Toyota Prius in terms of performance and luxury. Lexus CT 200h is a hybrid car which derives its energy from a gasoline engine and electric motors. The power of the battery is very powerful and transmits 27 kW (kilowatts) of power the motors (The three main strategic innovations are; Innovation based on problem-solving vs. continuous innovation, R & D department vs. firm-wide innovation and Radical vs. incremental innovation. Lexus has opted to use radical innovation over incremental innovation owing to the fact that it has shifted completely to hybrid cars. According to Thomas and Christian, incremental innovation is very good for competitiveness but in most cases, it is adopted by competitors who want to catch up with leading innovators. In addition, it also use s innovation through the R & D over firm-wide innovation. In the case of Lexus, their innovations are technology-based which forms their strength in designing the Lexus CT 200h series. Technical innovation is basically the utilization of different forms of technology to come up with a product which competitive and sustainable. Technical innovations are very popular in the auto industry because a consumer is always looking for a car that has an edge over other in terms of technology. Using technology, auto manufacturers are able to increase the comfort and efficiency of cars. Organization Lexus has adopted the mechanistic structure which is quite elaborate in order to handle the challenges of manufacturing their Lexus CT 200h. This form of organizational structure is also good for enabling the accommodation of many lines of production which lead to high production. For ample technical innovation, mechanical structuralisation is good for allowing research and development with regards to technology. However, recent research tries to paint the idea that a combination of mechanistic structure and organic structure is best sustainable innovations. Organisation in the context of innovation management is concerned with the leadership structure and how physical plant. The leadership structure or organizational structure is conceptualized in the manner in which labor is fragmented into different tasks and their subsequent coordination. The auto industry is highly devolved whereby there are different levels of production of car parts. This is important because luxurious cars have many technical parts which require specialized fabrication.