剑桥商务英语扩展笔记 NOTES OF BEC.docx

1、剑桥商务英语扩展笔记 NOTES OF BECNOTES OF BEC: UNIT 8 PRODUCTIONOpportunity cost = economic opportunity cost 机会成本Opportunity cost or economic opportunity loss is the value of the next best alternative foregone as the result of making a decision. Opportunity cost analysis is an important part of a companys dec

2、ision-making processes but is not treated as an actual cost in any financial statement. The next best thing that a person can engage in is referred to as the opportunity cost of doing the best thing and ignoring the next best thing to be done.Opportunity cost is a key concept in economics because it

3、 implies the choice between desirable, yet mutually exclusive results. It is a calculating factor used in mixed markets which favor social change in favor of purely individualistic economics. It has been described as expressing the basic relationship between scarcity and choice. The notion of opport

4、unity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently. Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, swag, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered opportuni

5、ty costs.sunk costs沉没成本In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs are retrospective (past) costs which have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is take

6、n. Both retrospective and prospective costs may be either fixed (that is, they are not dependent on the volume of economic activity, however measured) or variable (dependent on volume).Fixed costs固定成本In economics, fixed costs are business expenses that are not dependent on the activities of the busi

7、ness. They tend to be time-related, such as salaries or rents being paid per month. This is in contrast to variable costs, which are volume-related (and are paid per quantity).In management accounting (管理会计，管理核算), fixed costs are defined as expenses that do not change in proportion to the activity o

8、f a business, within the relevant period or scale of production. For example, a retailer must pay rent and utility bills irrespective of sales.Along with variable costs, fixed costs make up one of the two components of total cost（总成本）. In the most simple production function, total cost is equal to f

9、ixed costs plus variable costs.Variable costs可变成本Variable costs are expenses that change in proportion to the activity of a business. In other words, variable cost is the sum of marginal costs（边际成本）. It can also be considered normal costs（正常成本）. Along with fixed costs, variable costs make up the two

10、 components of total cost. Direct Costs, however, are costs that can easily be associated with a particular cost object (e.g. labor, material, etc.). Not all variable costs are direct costs, however; for example, variable manufacturing overhead costs are variable costs that are not direct costs, but

11、 indirect costs. Variable costs are sometimes called unit-level costs as they vary with the number of units produced.Direct labor and overhead （企业经常性开支）are often called conversion cost, while direct material and direct labor are often referred to as prime cost.Fixed costs & variable costsA company w

12、ill pay for line rental and maintenance fees each period regardless of how much power gets used. And some electrical equipment (air conditioning or lighting) may be kept running even in periods of low activity. These expenses can be regarded as fixed. But beyond this, the company will use electricit

13、y to run plant and machinery as required. The busier the company, the more the plant will be run, and so the more electricity gets used. This extra spending can therefore be regarded as variable.In retail the cost of goods is almost entirely a variable cost; this is not true of manufacturing where m

14、any fixed costs, such as depreciation, are included in the cost of goods.Although taxation usually varies with profit, which in turn varies with sales volume, it is not normally considered a variable cost.In most of the concerns, salary is paid on monthly rates. Though there may exist a labour work

15、norm based on which the direct cost (labor) can be absorbed in to cost of the product, salary cannot be termed as variable in this case.Total quality management (TQM)全面质量管理Total quality management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational p

16、rocesses. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, hospitals, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.TQM is an approach to Quality Assurance, where-in strategic details for implementing Quality in the process is emphasized. It brings

17、 the concept of Quality in early transformation process of Raw material to finished good，as opposed to quality tests in final phases of the product/process/services.TQM clears the sources of defects to enter in the final product and grow quality assurance in the final product/process/services. Indus

18、tries had majorly accepted the method to avoid hidden Factory (re-work) and or deal with Quality related Issues.Kaizen =kaizan 改善哲学The term kaizen (改善, Japanese for improvement) is a Japanese word adopted into English referring to a philosophy or practices focusing on continuous improvement in manuf

19、acturing activities, business activities in general, and even life in general, depending on interpretation and usage. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen typically refers to activities that continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to manage

20、ment and from the CEO to the assembly line workers. By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses during the countrys recovery after World War II and has since spread to busines

21、ses throughout the worldDeming Cycle = PDCA 德明循环PDCA (plan-do-check-act) is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in business process improvement. It is also known as the Deming cycle, Shewhart cycle, Deming wheel, or plan-do-study-act.PLAN ：Establish the objectives and proce

22、sses necessary to deliver results in accordance with the expected output. By making the expected output the focus, it differs from other techniques in that the completeness and accuracy of the specification is also part of the improvement. DO ：Implement the new processes, often on a small scale if p

23、ossible. CHECK： Measure the new processes and compare the results against the expected results to ascertain any differences. ACT ：Analyze the differences to determine their cause. Each will be part of either one or more of the P-D-C-A steps. Determine where to apply changes that will include improve

24、ment. When a pass through these four steps does not result in the need to improve, refine the scope to which PDCA is applied until there is a plan that involves improvementEnterprise Resource Planning (ERP)企业资源管理，企业资源计划Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a term usually used in conjunction with ERP

25、 software or an ERP system which is intended to manage all the information and functions of a business or company from shared data stores.An ERP system typically has modular hardware and software units and services that communicate on a local area network. The modular design allows a business to add

26、 or reconfigure modules (perhaps from different vendors) while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed.Marginal cost 边际成本In economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. It

27、is the cost of producing one more unit of a good.QC: Quality Control 质量管理In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are used in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements. Quality control is the b

28、ranch of engineering and manufacturing which deals with assurance and failure testing in design and production of products or services, to meet or exceed customer requirements.Quality assurance质量保证, or QA for short, refers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a p

29、roducts suitability for its intended purpose. It is a set of activities intended to ensure that products (goods and/or services) satisfy customer requirements in a systematic, reliable fashion. QA cannot absolutely guarantee the production of quality products, unfortunately, but makes this more like

30、ly.Two key principles characterize QA: fit for purpose (the product should be suitable for the intended purpose) and right first time (mistakes should be eliminated). QA includes regulation of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components; services related to production; and mana

31、gement, production and inspection processes.It is important to realize also that quality is determined by the intended users, clients or customers, not by society in general: it is not the same as expensive or high quality. Even goods with low prices can be considered quality items if they meet a ma

32、rket need.HISTORY:Craftsman: let the buyer beware (caveat emptor); working conditionsWartime: mass production & piecework(影响质量，工人求量不求质); Statistical quality control, sampling & control chartsPostwar: JapanQC & QAQuality control emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects, and reporting to management who make the decision to allow or deny the release. Whereas quality assurance attempts to improve and stabilize production, and associated processes, to avoid, or at least minimize, issues that led to the defects in the first place. To prevent mistakes from arising, several QA meth