Measuring and Managing Process Performance Essay Example

Measuring and Managing Process Performance Essay After reading this chapter, you will be able to: 1) define sunk costs and explain why sunk costs are not relevant. 2) analyze make-or-buy decisions. 3) demonstrate the influence of qualitative factors in making decisions. 4) compare the different types of facilities layouts. 5) explain the theory of constraints 6)demonstrate the value of just-in-time manufacturing systems. 7)describe the concept of the cost of quality. ) calcurate the cost savings resulting from reductions in inventories,reduction in production cycle time,production yields improvement, and reductions in rework and defect rates. 2 Short Case For 50 years,the Tobor Toy Company had been producing high-qulity plastic toys for children. In early 2006,Tobor experienced a large drop in sales and market share. After some investigations,this loss was attributed to a significant decreases in the quality of the product and to general delays in getting it to customers. After several weeks of study,Don and a cross-functional team of management personnel documented and numerous shop floor problems.Don Pielin,senior manager’s report to top management raised several questions. 1. Should many of the existing machines,including the major injectionmolding machine must be replaced. 2. What should the company do about the local vendor who produced the faulty computer chips? 3. Would it make sense to implement an entirely new production process such as JIT? 3 This chapter presents three types of facility designs(1) Process layouts,(2)product layouts,and (3)cellular manufacturing-all if which can be used to help organizations reduce costs.We follow this with a discussion of how organizations can reduce costs by ensuring that they focus on improving the quality of their processes. Finally the JIT manufacturing system is presented as a system that integrates many of the ideas we discuss in the chapter. 4 1. Evaluationof Financial Implications(p. 208) Managers must evaluate the financial implications of decisions that require trade-offs between the costs and the benefits of different alternatives. 2. Sunk Costs are not relevant.When choosing among different alternatives, managers should concentrate only on the costs and revenues that differ across the decisions alternative ;these are the relevant cost/revenues. 5 Opportunity costs by difinition are also relevant costs for any decision. One category of costs that often causes confusion for decisions makers consists of those incurred in the past,or sunk costs. Sunk costs are the costs of resources that already have been committed and cannot be influenced by any current action of devision. 6 ) Relevant Costs for the replacement of a machine Exhibit 5-2 Bonner Cmpany:relevant costs and revenues Cost increase and cash outflows Cost savings and Cash inflows 1. Disposal of the $50,000 Old newtech machine 2. Montly cost saving labor materials Maintenance $4,400 1,000 800 $6,200 1. Down payment on the new precision machine 2. Monthly lease payments on the Precision machine $50,0000 $ 6,000 7 3)Summary of Relevant Costs Manager must be able to identify the costs and revenues relevant for the evaluation of alternatives.Equally important,they must recognize that some costs and revenues are not relevant in such evaluations. 4)Assuming Responsibility for Decisions On a technical level,the correct decision for Bonner Company is to dispose of the machine and replace it;however,because they are concerned about their reputations within their own organizations,not all managers would do so. 8 3 Make or Buy Decisions Management accountants often supply information about relevant costs and revenues to help managers make special one-time decisions.One example is a make-or-buy decisions. As managers attempt to reduce costs and increase the competitiveness of their products, they face decisions about whether their companies should manufacture some parts and components for their products in-house or subcontract with another company to supply t hese parts and components. Exhibit 5-3 displays details of the two lowest quates from outside suppliers for a representative lamp in each of the four product lines manufactured in-house. The lowest bid is lower than the total in-house manufacturing cost of each lamp.Ray should accept the outisde bid and terminate the in-house production of these product? 9 Exhibit 5-3 sommers motors,Inc. Product line Standard rear Standard Multicolored lump Front Halogen Rear Lamp Lamp Curved Side and Rear Lamp 18? 4 CS418 Dimension Product number Product cost per unit Direct material Direct labor Unit-related support Batch-related support Product-sustaiining over Facility-sustaining over Total manufactuirng costs Bids from outside suppliers Lowest Second lowest Annual Production(units) 20? 6 SR214 14? SF120 14? 4 MR314 36 22 14 10 6 8 96 82 88 36,000 49 25 16 16 12 10 128 109 116 48,500 56 24 18 19 14 11 142 140 147 6,800 58 28 20 22 19 14 161 156 164 8,700 10 1) Avoidable Costs To answer the previ ous questions,the decision maker must identify what costs are relevant for the decision. To summarize the analysis so far,if product SR214 is outsourced , Sommers Motors can avoid 3,168,000 of manufacturing costs. This is 216,000 more than the total price of 2,952,000 ($82? 36,000)that Sommers Motors has to pay the outside supplier.Avoidable Production Costs Direct Material costs Direct Labor Costs Unit-related support costs Batch-related support cost Product-sustaining support costs Cost to ouside supplier Increase in Profits from outsourcing 1,296,000 792,000 504,000 360,000 216,000 3,168,000 2,953,000 216,000 11 2)Qualitaitve Factors One is the permanence of lower price if you would use outsourcers. Second is the realiability of the suppliers in quality and deliveries. Third is technological innovation factors for our own product advantage. 12 4 Facility Layout SystemsManagers must consider the entire operations process within a facility. Process layouts, 2) product layouts, and 3)cellular manufacturing Regardless of the type of facility design, a central goal of the design process is to streamline operations and thus increase the operating income of the system, one method that can guide this process for all three designs is the theory of constraints(TOC). The TOC means that operating income can be increased by carefully managing the bottlenecks in a process. The TOC relies on the use of three measures;1) throughput contribution;2)investments and 3)operating costs. 3 1) Throughput contribution: the difference between revenues and direct materials for the quantitiy of product sold. 2) Investment:the materials costs contained in raw materials,work-in-process,and finished goods inventories. 3) Operating costs;are all other costs except for direct materials costs 14 1) Process Layouts To understand why inventories stockpile in conventional processing systems and thus increase cycle time,we must understand the conventional way that factory or office facilities a re organized.In a process layout,all similar equipment or functions are grouped together. But,some oraganizations have developed innovative approaches to eliminate many of costs relating to moving and storing,which are siginificant non-valueadded cost associated with process layout systems. 15 In a product layout, equipment is organized to accommodate the production of a specific product;an automobile assembly line or a package line for cereal or milk, for example ,is a product layout. 2)Product layout 16 5 Cellular manufacturingThe third approach to facilities layout ,cellular manufacturing ,refers to the organization of a plant into a number of cells so that within each cell all machines required to manufacture a group of similar products arranged in close proximity to each other. Exhibit 5-5 17 6 Inventory Costs and Processing Time 1)Inventory and Processing time Batch production create inventory and create the delays associated with storng and moving inventory. 2)Inventory-relat ed costs Demand for inventory lead to huge costs in organizations,including the cost of moving,handling,and storing the work-in process,in addition to costs due to obsolence or damage. 8 3)Costs and benefits of changing to a NEW Layout: An example using Cellular Manufacturing Old system : The plant manufactures 128 different products that have been grouped into eight product lines for accounting purposes, based on common product features and production processes. This production flow required storage of work-in-process inventory for a long time and at several times before the beginning of the next production stage. Manufacturing cycle time is measured as the time from the receipt of the raw materials from the supplier to the delivery of the finished goods to the distributions and customers.To evaluate how much of the old cycle time was spent in inventory,we need to know how organizations asses the efficiency of their manufacturing processes. One widely used measure is processing cyc le efficiency(PCE) and is calculated as follows: PCE= Processing time/ (processing time + moving time + storage time +inspection time) 19 20 4) reorganization: A primary objective of the reorganization of the San Rafael plant layout was to reduce the production cycle time. Thus ,the plant was reorganized into eight manufacturing cells in addition to the casting department.Exhibit 5-7 depicts the production flows under the new plant layout. When comparing Exhibit 5-6 and 5-7,notice that San Rafael Electric Corporation did not reduce the amount of time spent on manufacturing operations after the change is the same as the time spent before the change (see Exhibit 5-6). However,the cycle time is reduced substantially in the new plant layout from 28 to only 12 days. 21 22 5) Analysis of relevant costs and benefits Has this change helped improve the profitability of the Pasadena plant?The Pasadena plant controller ,identified the following costs associated with the implemantationof the ch anges in the plant layout: Moving machines ands reinstallation $600,000 Training workers for cellelar manufacturing +$400,000 Total costs $1,000,000 Three types of benefits from the plant reorganization; (1) Increase in sales because of the decrease in production cycle time (2) A reduction in inventory-related costs because of the decrease in the amount and handling of work-in-process inventory. 3) An improvement in quality since defective process are detected much faster ,before many defective items have been produced. 23 6) Summary of Costs and Benefits The information on cost saving resulting from the change in the plant layout(see the exhibit 5-10). He estimated that annual benefits were $829,620. In comparison,the one-time costs of implementing the change were only $1,000,000. If benefits from the change layout continue to accrue at the same rate for at least 3 more months,the total benefits will exceed the amount that San Rafel invested in the project: $829,620 ? 5/12 =$ 1,037 ,025 In particular, we have seen that financing is a principal inventory-related cost. It is important to consider the cost, although financing costs are often not emphasised in many traditional cost accounting systems. 24 7 Cost of Nonconformance and Quality Issues(p. 226) The premise underlaying cost reduction efforts today is to decrease costs while maintaining or improving product quality in order to be competitive. If the quality of products and services does not conform to quality standards, then the organization incurs a cost known as the cost of nonconformance to quality standards. 1)Satifying customer expectations regarding the attributes and performance of the product ,such as in functionality and feasures. (2) Wnsuring that the technical aspects of the product’s design and performance ,such as whether it performs to the standard expected,conform to the manufacurer’s standards. 25 1)Quality standards 2) Costs of Quality Control 3) Prevention Costs Appraisal C osts Internal Failure Costs External Failure Costs Exhibit 5-12 Example of quality-related costs Prevention costsQuality engineering Quality training Statistical process control Suppler certifications Research of customer needs Internal failure costs Downtime due to defects Waste Net cost of scrap Rework costs Appraisal costs Inspection /testing of incoming Maintenance of test equipment process control monitaring product quaility audits external failure costs Product liability lawsuits Repair costs in the field returned products product liability recalls service calls warranty claims 26 8 Just-in-time manufacturingA compehensive and effective manufacturing system that integrates many of the idea discussed in this chapter is just-in-time manufacturing. 1) Implication of JIT manufacturing JIT manufacturing is simple in theory but hard to achieve inpractice. At the core of the JIT is a highly-trained workforce whose task is to carry put activites using the hightest standards of quality . 27 2) JIT manufactuirng and Management Accounting JIT manufactuirng has two major for management accounting.First,management accounting must support the move to JIT manufacturing by monitaring ,identifying, and communicating to decisions makers the sources of delays,error,and waste in the system. (1)Defect rates (2)Cycle times (3)Percent of time that deliveries are on time (4)Order accuracy (5)Actual production as percent of planned production (6) Actual machine time available compared with planned machine time available. 28 9 Tobor Toy Company Revisited 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) We return into see how Tobor Toy company fared after its adoption of the JIT manufacturing system.Production flows Effects on work-in-process inventory Effects on production Costs Cost of rework Cost of carrying work-in-process inventory Benefits from increased sales Summary of costs and benefits 29 30 Summary 1) The impact of managerial decision and actions that affect the organization’s activities and processes is evaluated by managers. 2) Managers evaluate the financial impact of recent activiy and process decisions,such as improved plant layouts 3)The JIT manufacturing systems has many possitive effects on the level of work-in-process inventory,the cost of support activities of handling and storing work-in-process inventory. 31

The Allegory of New York City Essays

The Allegory of New York City Essays The Allegory of New York City Essay The Allegory of New York City Essay I want you to go on to picture the enlightenment or ignorance of our human condition somewhat as follows. Imagine you are in the confusion of New York, people rushing past you, pushing you, taxis beeping at you, pollution glooming around you. The buzz of city life. One man stands out from the crowd. He is off to work carrying his nice and warm coffee. He is tall, handsome, the boss of a large textiles company. His name is Stephen.  Not far away, in a near by apartment there is a woman, an author typing away in her typewriter and occasionally starring into space. Imagine the concentration in her eyes. Her name is Helen and shes in the middle of writing a novel. Her novel is about the life of a man in New York. Suddenly her eyes turn and fix on Stephen walking to work. Its not that hard to imagine, is it? It just seems like every day life in a city.  She types away into her typewriter, He lives a life of solitude. He walks to work alone, He walks home alone, and he eats alone.  Stephen is almost at his office. Hes waiting to cross the road,  Hey! Im not a loner! He shouts randomly. He glances around him and sees the disturbed look on peoples faces. He walks across the road and pretends that nothing had happened.  He eventually arrives at work. He couldnt concentrate. He had too much on his mind. He starts to worry about himself and goes to see a psychiatrist. He is in there talking to the man for quite a long time,  So, Stephen. What is wrong with you this time? The psychiatrist asks sarcastically. I have a voice in my head  Ah, come one everybody does. Some people call it their conscious, others their inner self, or God or maybe even their soul. Its perfectly normal.  No, its not. Its a womans voice. A womans voice is following me around!  So, you have a womans voice in your head speaking to you?  Not to me, about me, accurately and with a better vocabulary.  At this point, the psychiatrist talks to him a bit more to calm him down. Dismisses him and tells him to come back next week. Stephen makes his way back to work, walking along the busy streets of New York.  Helen writes away in here typewriter, He found himself exasperated. SHUT UP! Shouts Stephen in the middle of the street. Helen carries on typing,  Cursing the heavens in futility  No Im not! Im cursing YOU, you stupid voice so shut up and leave me alone! Stephen shouts starring into the sky.  Yet again people give him strange looks and try to keep their distance from him. Imagine a crazy man in the middle of the street having a random outburst. What would you do if you saw him cursing into the sky Imagine further that he tries to ignore his outburst and carries on making his way to work. He walks slowly and effortlessly gazing at everything around him. He walks into an electrical store for no reason and starts to watch the televisions. He sits down in one of the arm chairs and hears a familiar voice,  My latest novel will be sold nationwide and will be in a book shop near you! Stephen jumps from the chair and puts his face right up to the television. The voice, he recognises it. Its the voice from his head, the womans voice. She carries on speaking,  Yes David, I will be available for book signing. I will be at Sallys Book Store the whole of tomorrow, the 23rd June.  Sallys book store, Sallys book store, 23rd June, Sallys book store, 23rd June, 23rd June. Stephen mutters to himself as his sits down again looking extremely pale. Imagine that you had just heard and seen what you thought was your conscience. Im sure that you would feel baffled and unsure of what to do. This opportunity was the only way to sort out this voice in his head and tell her to leave him alone. Dont you think that it would be a loss for Stephen if he didnt grasp this opportunity?  He went for it. He couldnt stop thinking about meeting the voice in his head. It puzzled him; he felt extremely agitated the whole night and didnt get any sleep.

Perfect Custom Essays

Perfect Custom Essays Nowadays, paper writing for college students has proved to be rather a difficult task for most of them. Consequently, this has pushed them to seek essay writing services from various agencies that offer such services. Various factors have contributed to the students turning to custom essay writing companies for help. These factors include lack of adequate material to complete the assignments, others may be non-natives and the English language appears to be difficult to comprehend. Most college students prefer English essay writing from English native speaking individuals. This is because English is their second language, and they would want their work immaculately done. This may seem unethical to some, but it is quite helpful to many as these companies offer templates that assist students in composing their original work. Additionally, these companies offer various services such as thesis writing, research papers, dissertation chapters, course work and reports among others. Proofread ing and editing of previously done work are also services offered by these companies. Subsequently, such services help in avoiding common grammatical errors such as run-on sentences, punctuation mistakes, spelling mistakes, subject verb agreements and other common typos. It also helps in eliminating plagiarism by correct citations where work has been borrowed and paraphrased to represent originality. These companies accomplish all these by employing expert writers who offer excellent and professional English essay writing skills. Some of these professional writers are English language natives while others have English as their second language but still offer excellent services to the clients available.

Three Diversity Case Studies on the Automobile Industry (Ford, Honda, Research Paper

Three Diversity Case Studies on the Automobile Industry (Ford, Honda, Toyota websites) - Research Paper Example It is also stated that Ford embraces diversity of thought, experience, perspective, race, gender and faith in their own company culture by learning of their emotional and intellectual roots to enable effective communication. And this inclusion principle has helped them organize a diverse staff to work towards the satisfaction of the needs of very diverse customers. It can also be observed that their website is available as well in Spanish language to cater to their numerous Spanish speaking website visitors that also comprise a significant percentage of their target market. Ford company’s awareness of the big diversity of their product enthusiasts has driven them to provide a social platform in their website where articles, stories and ideas of various persons are featured. It must be a good experience to be able to work at Ford, as they have depicted good corporate values in their websites. Their corporate system maximizes the diversity of their community to create informatio n that enables the company to deliver better products and communicate well to satisfy customers’ needs and preferences.... II. Honda, http://www.honda.com/ â€Å"Honda The Power of Dreams.† Honda website is characterized with simplicity of text presentation with minimal images on a white background. Its featured products are shown in text logos that can link the website visitor to another page that provides more car images and useful information to a potential customer, supplier or employee. Automobile shopping tools, ownership resources and car model research tools are also provided. The website also banners Honda’s environmental commitment by featuring their Hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles and more related news and stories about it. They also include future car models and concepts. This depicts Honda’s good organization skills and focus on car innovation and environmental leadership. Diversity is addressed generally through the â€Å"About† section in the welcome page. And the website is also available in Spanish language. The corporate structure is said to be built on â€Å"respect for the individual† principle that deals with trust, initiative and equality. Honda tangibly adopted diversity through diverse workforce, dealer body, team of suppliers and building of strong community through promotion of national events that benefit the company’s associates. Honda also recognize diversity in non-tangible ways by embracing viewpoints and concerns regarding their product design and marketing, the daily staff interactions, and sensitivity and responsibility to the diverse needs of the automobile communities. They adhere to the understanding that society, and the needs of their customers and associates and even the public, change. This must be their company’s motivation to produce more innovations. Honda further shows their commitment to

A Study of the Access Women Have in Male Dominated Sports Dissertation

A Study of the Access Women Have in Male Dominated Sports - Dissertation Example 2) Background to the study The challenges that hinder women from participating in male dominated sports are1 2.1. Female invisibility: discrimination in management, funding, media representation. 2.2. Discrimination in providing proper access to sporting facilities. 2.3. Body consciousness and Abhorrence of physical activity. 2.4. Attitudes and prejudices about sexuality. 2.5. Fears of personal safety, sexual harassment and abuse. 2.6. Parental and adult influence. 2.7. Stereotyping and prejudices about ethnicity. 2.8. Academic performance priority. 2.9. Lack of self-confidence 2.10.Lack of money 2.11.Lack of time 1= http://www.helpforclubs.org.uk/pages/download.aspx?id={4CC7A28A- 46A9-469B-A848-5F6AC358C615} 3. Justification A detailed explanation of each of the foregoing points is provided below. 3.1. Female invisibility: discrimination in management, funding, media representation At all levels, women’s sports and games attract less funding that men’s. Prize money at all major sports and games is vastly higher for men as compared to women. Women are under-represented in sports organisations. Girls miss out on involvement in sport because of lack of female role models. The four points mentioned above are hyper-inflated when it comes to women’s involvement in physical contact sports like football and rugby. Girls’ teams of such sports attract less sponsorship from local businesses because of the low revenue they generate, less spectators and low profile media coverage of their games.

Impact of Technology on Print Media

Impact of Technology on Print Media Print and electronic media plays an important role in communication effectively as the world has been globalized. The technology used for communication should not be overlooked, because the interchange of information is necessary in current era. Print and electronic media has globalized the world. The news or communication can be done easily from corner to corner just in few seconds. Technology has impacted the communication in a positive way. In the current world the communication has been distributed between print and electronic media. These two Medias are playing a vital role in communicating between individuals and the society. News, comment, information and entertainment, are the complex set of newspaper, and the arrangement of these contents differs from paper to paper. Most people choose their daily paper to match their specific tastes, and individual newspapers have developed in different ways to provide for these. Many changes have taken place over the period, in the newspapers. The newspapers are filled with advertisements and have many pages on carrying different news. Today journalism has become one of the prosperous professions (Oghakpor, 2007). The number of newspapers has risen sharply which has made the communication to its optimum level whilst profits have also boomed. Development of information and communication technology has made the work of newspaper publication easy and less laborious. Todays newspapers have lots of investigative stories/reports. This contributes to bringing in light big scandals and scams resulting into fall of a person. Which creates negative influences the society and shows that the technology is not been used for the purpose in the right way, as it has to be used for. Magazines charm to an expanding range of reading flavours and happiness. They are designed for standardized or special interest groups. Regardless of their design for special groups, they developed as a mass medium because they appeal to large numbers in a national market that cut across social, economic and educational class lines (Oghakpor, 2007). The magazines can be categorized into two different categories, General interest magazines and special interest magazines. General interest magazines attempt to cater to a wide variety of reading interests. Special interest magazines are mainly focused on one thing. For instance, The Women magazine covers all the things about the women while, Muscles magazine covers all the stuff about building the muscles of either men or women. Its most notable function; however, is correlation that is, interpreting the society by bringing together diverse facts, trends and sequences of events. According to Kipphan 2001, Magazines in essence, are the great interpreters of what is happening in society. There are several magazines in the world, which are published internationally as well, so that people can benefit from them. Or people from the foreign countries order the magazines to remain update, although most of the magazines can be viewed online. According to Hamelink   Linnà © 1994, magazines have been much more visually innovative than newspapers. Their covers blaze from newsstands and market racks, thus attracting the readers attention with colour and allure of advertisements besides their articles. Magazines are published according to the information gathered, i.e. weekly, fortnightly etc. These are basically news magazines but they include sections on arts, culture, sports, films, business, politics, industry, and environment. There are about 500 such general interest magazines focusing on news and current affairs, having largest readership. Textbooks, other books, booklets, pamphlets, brochures, folders, periodicals, wall newspapers, publicity and promotional literature also constitute media for mass reading, information and enlightenment, they less extensively used as compared to the newspapers and magazines, are called the best way of effective communication. Books are non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding the cover page, published in any country and are made available to public.  These are published as weeklies, fortnightlies, quarterlies, annuals or dailies, so magazines do. There are bimonthlies and half year lies also. Electronic communication has become almost an essential part of peoples lives. The Internet has been the catalyst for electronic communication, and rarely in human history has anything risen to such prominence in such a short period of time (Hirst Harrison, 2007). There are now many ways to communicate electronically, with, no doubt, more variety to come in the near future. Currently, Televisions, radios, internet, mobile technologies, ipads, e-books, e-magazines etc. are versatile ways to communication technology. Over internet, email has had its critics, notably for the brevity of messages and for the rapidity of reply, which often negates clear thought. But all new things will have critics. Writing to someone by conventional email and waiting for a response takes days or weeks. Waiting sometimes just a few minutes for a response by email seemed quite magical in the early days of the internet. Now this is taken for granted. The problem of spam has never been dealt with satisfactorily, but being able to email photographs on the day they were taken to a loved one on the other side of the world makes up for some of the negatives. Mobile technology has made a tremendous change in terms of communication. In current years the phone contains the features of 3G internet facility which is called the fastest internet on mobile, through which the communication and sharing knowledge becomes easier. Facebook, tweeter, internet browsing, Skype, VoIP technologies can be excessed anywhere without any hurdle. Similarly, Ipads and IPods have also made paradigm change in this global world. It facilitates in the same way as smart phones does, although they are bigger in size. Newsgroups and chat rooms began as early types of social media. Newsgroups rely on peoples posting messages to a relevant group, and members of that group can then comment instantaneously. In recent years, newsgroups have, to a large extent, been replaced by slick social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Chat rooms still have a dubious reputation on the net, because though they can be great places for friends spread around the globe to meet up, unwelcome visitors will often use them inappropriately. Standalone video conferencing, used for business, has also now been matched by instant-messaging programs. Social media may be seen by many as even more important than email now. Facebook and MySpace have an email facility and instant messaging, and Twitter has a direct-message and instant reply facility. Instant messaging, which is also available from the likes of Yahoo! and MSN, is becoming increasingly more advanced. Whereas in the early days of Yahoo! Messenger you could save money on a phone call to someone overseas, now you can not only talk but look at a live video image of that person at the same time. It might be concluded from this that the communication technology have a great impact on the print media and electronic media. Newspapers, magazines, broachers, newsletters, pamphlets have made the vigorous change in communication. All these have to face different audiences and are mainly the most important technological tools to communicate and deliver the message. Despite, the electronic media is massively taking place of print media and globalizing this village. Mobile devices, Ipads, Ipods, Television, radios have made the thing accessible within few seconds.

I, Too, Sing America Analysis

Michael Morgan AP English Literature and Composition: Poetry Response10/7/12 In â€Å"I, Too, Sing America† Langston Hughes shines light on the rich history of struggle for African Americans in the United States. For example, the text states â€Å"I am the darker brother, They send me to eat in the kitchen/ When company comes. † This shows that as a people, Blacks were marginalized and treated inhumanely simply on the basis of skin color by their Caucasian counterparts.We were sent to this figurative â€Å"kitchen† because Whites were ashamed of us because we did not fit the societal expectations of what it meant to be American. In the Declaration of Independence, the very document that is symbolic of America’s freedom and triumph it states, â€Å"that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. † Regardless of origin, race, or ethnic makeup, As Americans we are all equals under this text; howev er, they regarded the existence of Blacks as if we were all children of a lesser God.The opening lines also illustrate the oppressive nature of white folks. Blacks were forced to eat in the kitchen; there was no option, nor alternative. This shows how we were trained to be subservient and give in to authority without questioning it. Langston Hughes highlights the resilience of Black folk and our ability to remain resolute in times of utter despair. For example, he writes that in the end he will eat, laugh and grow strong.With the diction â€Å"grow strong,† Hughes is foreshadowing that a day will come when the Africans living in America who have been shunned and ostracized from society will stand up in unity and reveal their power to those who have trespassed against them. For centuries we have been mistreated, downtrodden, and dispossessed, but a time will arise where we must all stand together in solidarity to overthrow those who have held us in captivity. This reminds the reader of the antebellum south, where whenever Master had company, he would send his servants to the kitchen to eat.However in his seclusion, the narrator finds humor. He laughs in the midst of this abysmal situation because he knows that his time to release the shackles that have been inextricably bound to him and his ancestors is imminently approaching. He knows that while his masters can overtake his physical being, his mind cannot be controlled. The narrator has chosen to not let his current circumstance become his condition but to demonstrate the courage and spirit of the Black slave. Hughes’ next few lines are the most elevant, considering the current political and social state of affairs in the United States. For example, the text states that, â€Å"Tomorrow,  I'll be at the table/ When company comes. Nobody'll dare/ Say to me,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Eat in the kitchen,†/Then. † This shows that the author was stating that a time would come when Blacks would be seen f or who they are as people and not what they look like. This â€Å"Tomorrow† refers to a time where Blacks and Whites will be equal. This equality is articulated through the speaker's claim that he, too, will â€Å"be at the table† the next time visitors are invited over.In a historical context, the â€Å"tomorrow† that Hughes speaks of has already arrived. With the election of America’s first Black President, centuries of defeat, and agony came to an impasse. Since the first slaves arrived in the New World, Africans have been without. We were without a voice, without human rights, without the freedoms that were promised to all Americans by the architects of our republic. In the final lines, the text states that, â€Å"Besides,  They'll see how beautiful I am/ And be ashamed– I, too, am America. Hughes uses America as a symbol of diversity to depict how he is apart his country. Those who have done Blacks wrong should feel shame for the irreparabl e damage done to innocent people. However, within the last 4 years, a glimpse of what we are capable of has been revealed. We have the ability to succeed, despite the odds that have never been in our favor. We have the audacity to hope in the face of adversity, racism, and discrimination to the highest degrees. We possess the love to pull one another up so that we may progress as a whole.