Tips to Use Electric Heaters in a Tent

The campers while touring have to face low temperatures in the camps, but now a days there are large number of heating appliances available for the campers. One of such appliance is Electric heater, which do not require burning of propane. Electric Heater is an appliance that converts electrical energy in to heat and electrical resistor is the heating element in the electric heater which does this conversion.

Tips to be followed in a tent while using an electrical heater are:

• The electrical heater needs two feet distance open space in front of it to prevent fire accidents, melting of the objects. So the area around it should be cleared and the instructions given in the manual should be followed carefully to avoid accidents.


• While sleeping, place the electric heater in such a place where it will not be bumped during the night time. The size of the tent also depends on the amount of space required by the heater and purchase a tent according to the space required by the heater.


• Place the heater on the raised platform and fasten the heater to the platform by wrapping duct tape around the heater and the platform several times. This technique can cause the structure to topple, so ensure that the base is properly weighted.


• Plug the heater in the sachet of electrical source and see that the cables are clearly visible, wrap the plugs in duct tape to prevent any water from shorting the connection. Before turning the heater on, check the cords for any tearing, holes, or cracking.

The above are the tips to be followed while using a electric heater in the tent.

Important Things You Should Know about Renters Insurance

Renters insurance is a type of insurance policy to protect the rental items, like rented home, rented furniture and many other things. Renter insurance is a contract between an individual and the insurance company, in which an individual pays some amount of money to the insurance company at regular intervals of time, in exchange to receive the benefits for the rental items. Here the insurance company covers the losses which occur for the rented home or rental items, like computer, air coolers, and music systems.

There are few things you should know about renter insurance

1. It covers the third party liability
This insurance is helpful in cases such as, you get car from your friend to use it for few days. One of your relatives come to visit you and unexpectedly he/she did some damage to your friend's car. In such cases, if you have a renter insurance, the repairing costs will be beared by the insurance company.

2. Renter's insurance pays for the new place to live, when your place becomes unavailable
If your rented home is damaged due to fire or earthquake. And your home owner is unavailable to help in that position, in such cases, the renter insurance provides the pay to live you at a new place for one year.

3. Check how much of renter insurance is affordable to you
While choosing the renter insurance, once check how much insurance you require for your rental things. By choosing low coverage amount and high deductibles you can get generally great saving.

4. Know your renter insurance options
There are different options. Some insurance covers your personal property. Some insurance covers only third party liability. Some are combination of these two.

5. Know the limitations of your renters insurance before signing it
Many insurance policies limit the amount of money that you can get for the replacement or high loss, such as jewelry, fine art, and computer. Make sure that you read this part of your policy before signing it.

6. Know your home inventory worth before choosing renter insurance
It is important for you to know your furniture, inventory actual worth. It is better for you to take a photograph of your home inventory and mark the photo with the value of the item. This allows you to see exactly how much coverage you need, when you get loss.

Due to all the above benefits, it is very much essential for one to have rental insurance.

How to Choose a Right Type of Lodging While Traveling

It is important to choose the right lodging which will help you to have a nice experience of travel for vacation. You may find different types of lodging which are available.

You may find the popular hotels in the center of the city. Generally they are near the attractions like restaurants, entertainment venues and other popular places. Usually business people use them.

You can stay at resort hotels which are a type of lodging. They are found in very popular vacation spots. Generally they are near the mountains, or beach or other places. Luxurious rooms and lots of amenities are provided by such resorts to travelers and their family.

You may find the boutique hotels for best lodging. These hotels are smaller than the resort hotels and they are inexpensive. Many luxuries and amenities like resorts are not provided by them. But they are good for smaller scale, resulting in friendlier services. You can get more privacy in them.

Next, motels, which are good for lodging. You may find them along highways and interstates. If you are in multiple days trip, then you will be provided with lodging by them. They provide lodging for travelers who want to stay for one night as well. They are cheaper than hotels. You can find them easily, because they are highways. They will not provide rooms and amenities like hotels. There are limited rooms.

You can choose any type of lodging according to your specific requirements, convenience and budget.

Steps To Avoid The Supply Chain Risk

Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is a process which identifies the potential disturbances in the manufacturing process and this leads to the commercial financial exposure. SCRM reduces the supply chain risk by a coordinated holistic approach.

The supply chain risks are of two types, one is external risks and the other is internal risks.

• External risks arises due to the effect of external factors like market conditions and these are not controlled by the business. It includes demand risks, supply risks, environmental risks, business risks related to the factors such as suppliers, financial or managerial stability and physical risks.
• Internal risks are with in the control of the business and this includes manufacturing risks, business risks caused by the change of key personnel, planning and control risks, mitigation and contingency risks.

Understanding and managing of the supply chain risks involves 5 steps:

Supplier base:
This is an important task, and in this step essential things for the company are found out in terms of raw material, strategic materials and understanding the strategic suppliers organization.

Vulnerability:
In this step company identifies the causes for the above said risks and their effects and the ability of the company to cope up with them.

Implications:
Various techniques like Monte Carlo simulation are implied to check the potentiality of the risks.

Mitigation:
This is the step where the company needs to set goals and targets and know how to achieve them. It is similar to the business continuity planning and evaluating how soon the company can get back to business as usual.

Measures and actions:
Clarification of roles and responsibilities, between the partners of the supply chain and risk management process to be effective it must be fully integrated in to the business process.

All the above five steps when thoroughly implemented can definitely avoid the supply chain risk.

Role Of Key Performance Indicators In SCM

Key performance Indicators (KPI's) are used to measure the performance of the organization or to evaluate the success of a particular activity in the organization. Success is measured in terms of achievement of the operational goals and some times strategic goals. KPI's are developed from the assistance of the benchmarking success and these are used to measure the performance of the supply chain and achieve the objectives of the organization. The process connects the strategy to Critical Success Factors (CSF's) for the business and then to the development of a set of KPI's.

Benchmarking success results in various Supply Chain and Logistics KPI's for supply chain like procurement and supplier management KPIs, inventory management and forecasting KPI's, warehouse KPIs, transport KPIs, customer service KPIs, production KPI's, etc., With the use of this KPI's a balanced score card is developed which measures the performance of the supply chain and the balanced score card uses these KPI's as metrics to measure the performance in terms of defects per million opportunities, inventory months of supply, claims percentage for freight costs, on time pickups, transit time and customer order promised cycle time.

The higher level managers with the help of Key performance indicators (KPIs) periodically monitor and measure the success rate of different activities carried out by organization, business units, and their division, departments and employees continuously and if there are any deviations from the actual results, they can immediately correct the process and this helps in achievement of over all objectives of the organization.

Logistic Vs Supply Chain Mgmt

Supply chain management normally involves purchasing the raw materials from the vendors, then manufacturing the products into finished goods, then passing them to wholesaler, retailer and finally to the consumer. The activities and the elements involved in the supply chain are customer, planning for the production, purchasing the raw materials, inventory management, final production, transportation of the products to warehouse and finally delivery of the products to the customers. The supply chain starts and ends with the customer. The complexity of the supply chain depends on the size of the business and numbers of items that are manufactured.

Logistics for a business includes physical distribution, material handling, packaging, warehousing, freight transportation, sales order processing, inventory planning and production planning. Logistics is a channel of the supply chain which adds the value of time and place utility. The logistic management is also known as materials management or channel management. Aim of the logistics is to maximize profits, minimize costs and improve customer service for one activity in the supply chain.

Supply chain management is the process that covers the whole business activities from the purchase of the raw materials from the suppliers or vendors to the delivery of the final products to the customers. The logistics are the part or parts in the supply chain and focus on material handling, stocks, and movements in one part of the supply chain. The logistics can be equal with the supply chain management when one calls it as the total logistics management or integrated logistics management.

Effects Of Operational Decisions On Supply Chain

The companies make operational decisions daily to ensure the efficient flow of the materials in the supply chain. Operational supply chain decisions are made hundreds of times each day in a company. Here are the various operational decisions taken by the companies and effects of those decisions on the supply chain:

• A crucial activity for planners is to decide when to place an order, for this there are a number of reorder methodologies which can be adopted. Most companies use computer systems for materials requirement planning (MRP).
• Most of the companies are trying to lower the operational costs and this can be done by the drop shipments which is a process where companies can reduce the need to keep inventory in their warehouse, lower their overall shipping costs and improve customer service.
• Cycle counting is a sampling technique used to count inventory where count of a certain number of items infers the count for the whole warehouse, and it is used to count a number of items in a number of areas within the warehouse and reduces the efforts without having to count the entire inventory.
• The other method used in warehouse is order picking where a small number of goods are taken from a warehousing system, to satisfy a number of independent customer orders. Picking processes have become an important part of the supply chain process.
• MES (manufacturing execution systems) is used to increase productivity, control costs and manage the day to day operations of the shop floor. Operations managers can sometimes be reactive and not proactive to the issue that arise with maintenance on the shop floor.
• Small manufacturers who cannot afford ERP systems have been turning to low cost systems to help with their fast growing operations.

All the above effects reveal how crucial are operational activities in supply chain management.

How To Improve Quality In The Supply Chain

The present day companies are giving utmost importance to the quality in the business processes because the final output must contain the quality which ultimately increases the customer satisfaction. The quality in the supply chain should be increased by the companies by implementing the following methods in their supply chain process:

• Supply chain operations within an organization should be constantly reviewed to identify the problematic areas and where improvements can be made. One method to help do this is to perform a series of benchmarking tests on their supply chain processes.
• Safety measures in the ware houses prevents work related injuries, illnesses, and deaths. In USA Safety in warehouses is regulated by a series of standards from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA).
• The companies should also be conscious about the resources they are acquiring from the supplies because if the quality of the supplied material is not up to the mark it will show effect on the final product.
• There are also some software available in the market to monitor and control the quality of the supply chain. Most of the companies think that this software is expensive but it shows positive effect in the profits if the company.
• New Communication Standard helps businesses to improve Supply Chain quality, safety and security.
• Total Quality Management (TQM) is an another method to improve quality and performance. TQM is based on the overall quality measures used by a company including managing quality design and development, quality control and maintenance, quality improvement, and quality assurance.
• Six Sigma is a business management strategy that was initially developed by Motorola in the 1980’s, and now is used by many Fortune 500 companies. Six Sigma incorporates a number of quality methods and tools that are used to improve the quality in the supply chain.

Manufacturers are spending more and more money on quality control to provide a quality product and to satisfy the customer. Companies are integrating the new quality systems with the other technologies to leverage supply chain efficiencies.

Know About The Supply Chain Decisions

Decisions for supply chain management can be divided in to two categories, strategic and operational. Strategic decisions are made typically over a longer time period and operational decisions are for short term, that focus on activities over a day-to-day basis. There are four major decision areas in supply chain management, they are:

Location Decisions:
The decision regarding the geographic placement of production facilities, stocking points, and sourcing points is the first step in creating a supply chain. The location of facilities needs resources for long time. These decisions are very important for a business because this is the basic strategy for accessing customer markets, and has impact on revenue, cost, and level of service. Although location decisions are primarily strategic, they also influence operational level.

Production Decisions:
The strategic decisions include the production decisions like what products to produce, and which plants to produce them in, allocation of suppliers to plants, plants to DC's, and DC's to customer markets because these decisions have a big impact on the revenues, costs and customer service levels of the firm. Operational decisions focus on detailed production scheduling which include the construction of the master production schedules, scheduling production on machines, and equipment maintenance.

Inventory Decisions:
Inventory includes raw materials, work in progress and finished goods. Their primary purpose of inventory decisions is to buffer against any uncertainty that might exist in the supply chain. Holding costs of inventories are very high and their efficient management is critical in supply chain operations. Operational inventory decisions include deployment strategies, control policies, setting safety stock levels, at each stocking location.

Transportation Decisions:
These are closely linked to the inventory decisions, since the best choice of mode is often found comparing the indirect costs of the inventory associated with different modes. Customer service levels, and geographic location play vital roles in such decisions. Transportation is more than 30 percent of the logistics costs. Shipment sizes, routing and scheduling of equipment are key in effective management of the firm's transport strategy.

All the above supply chain decisions have a vital part in the overall management decision making processes.

How To Use Laundry Services In Hotels

Hotels offer many services to their guests, in that one is the laundry services. Many hotels offer laundry services to the customers and it is a simple task to use laundry services provided by the hotels. Charges for these services depends on the type of the hotel. Some hotels offer dry cleaning services along with the laundry services.

Here are some steps to effectively use laundry services in a hotel:

• Locate the laundry bag in the hotel room in which you are staying. Generally laundry bags are located in bathroom or closet.
• Each article of clothing has different prices in different hotels, so carefully read the card attached to it to check the cost of each item and requirements for service.
• Put the clothes which needs laundry services in the bags provided and tie it closed.
• Give the details of the articles which are given to the laundry services by filling the card attached to it and also mention any articles which needs special attention.
• Call the front office desk and inform them that the laundry is ready to be picked up.
• After calling the front desk they will give instructions regarding where to leave the bag full of clothes.
• Generally if you give clothes to the laundry services in the morning it will be returned to your room in the evening.
• It is not necessary to give tip but if you think that the laundry people have done great job, you can give the tip to appreciate their work.

Effective use of laundry services, actually increase your experience of staying in a hotel.