Fullerton, R. R. 2003. Performance measurement and reward systems in JIT and non-JIT firms. Cost Management (November/December): 40-47.

Summarized by Christin Howells
Master of Accountancy Program
University of South Florida, Fall 2004




The purpose of this article is to examine the differences between the “performance measurement and reward systems” of JIT firms and non-JIT firms in the U.S.

Fullerton states that in achieving the goals of the organization, the management accounting system of a firm should be in line with its manufacturing strategy. The management accounting system (MAS) must be able to appropriately evaluate a JIT firm’s performance with respect to the improvement of operations to aid in suitable decision-making.

Evidence indicates that those firms that have not implemented a JIT system continue to emphasize “traditional accounting criteria in performance evaluation” while the JIT system uses “nontraditional information and incentive systems” and that a significant difference exists between the two performance evaluation methods. Traditional performance measures refer to the use of “profitability and budget conformance to reward their employees” while nontraditional measures use total quality measurements such as “SPC charts, Pareto analysis, and cause-and-effect diagrams” in evaluating performance.


Survey and Firm Specifics

To address the issues mentioned above, a survey of U.S. Manufacturing firms was completed. There were 253 respondents from 14 industries. Of those, 95 had implemented JIT. The executives of the companies surveyed were asked to respond to six categories of performance measures. Their responses were then analyzed for statistical significance. The criteria and results are as follows:


Performance Measurement Techniques

This category analyzed the frequency with which companies used benchmarking measures, SPC charts, Pareto analyses, flowcharting, histograms, and cause and effect diagrams in evaluating operations. It was found that companies that utilize JIT systems use such resources more frequently than non-JIT companies in evaluating both internal and external operations. The frequency differences between the JIT firms and the non-JIT firms were found to be statistically significant.


Manufacturing Performance Measures

Manufacturing performance measures requested information about the importance of non-traditional accounting measures in regards to vendor quality, on-time delivery, setup times, rework, inventory turns, scrap, and equipment downtime. The results show a statistical difference in the importance of these measurement techniques for the firms, on average. It was found that JIT firms have found them to be more important than non-JIT firms. These results also support the idea that JIT decreases inventory and increases inventory turns.


Reporting Quality Results

In this section of the survey respondents were asked to comment on how frequently their information system “measured and reported” on quality results at each level (line supervisor, middle management, and top management). The results indicated that within each system (JIT and non-JIT), the lower level employees received these reports most frequently. However, it was shown that in the JIT systems, there was a statistical difference in the frequency of reporting, i.e., the JIT systems did so more often.


Compensation Incentives

Compensation incentives were used to evaluate the criteria for employee compensation. These results indicated that there were two determinants for compensation: quality and production efficiency or profitability and variances in volume and price. The authors also stated that for the best results, “desired employee behavior is best achieved when compensation incentives are in alignment with corporate strategy”; this is a philosophy that JIT emphasizes. As such, it was found that JIT companies use such methods of evaluating compensation more frequently than do non-JIT companies. These survey results also indicated that in determining compensation, JIT companies also place a statistically significant greater emphasis on non-financial measures such as “team performance, throughput time, and product quality”.  It was also found that for both JIT and non-JIT companies, the non-traditional performance measures were used more frequently in determining compensation incentives for lower level employees than for middle and upper level employees.


Strategic Decision Making and Employee Empowerment

It is said that when the companies' employees are aware of the strategic plan, “more consistent, supportive decision making can be done on the shop floor, as well as in company headquarters”.  Therefore, this category focused on the employees' awareness of the companies' strategic plan and their empowerment to make decisions. The results are consistent in that both JIT firms and non-JIT firms, non-management had a lesser understanding of the strategic plan and less empowerment. However, it was found to be statistically significant that within the non-JIT firms, strategic knowledge and empowerment were less than in the JIT firms.


Conclusion

Not only are there significant differences in the performance measurements of the JIT and non-JIT firms, there are also significant differences in their size. The survey results indicated that the average JIT firm was three times the size of the non-JIT firm and that the JIT firms indicated that they are more decentralized than non-JIT firms. It is also showed that these larger, decentralized firms perceived their company as “innovative in product technology, process design, and product design” more frequently than did non-JIT firms. These results are supported by the assumption that the larger firms have the resources to be innovative not only in product technology and process and product design, but also in the research and implementation of JIT systems and the accompanying changes. The results of this survey support the belief that the implementation of a JIT system is accompanied by the use of non-traditional performance measures that also “encourage and support a lean manufacturing environment”.



Source @ maaw.info

Cooper, R. and C. A. Raiborn. 1995. Finding the missing pieces in Japanese cost management systems. Advances in Management Accounting (4): 87-102.

Summarized by Chris Hourigan
Master of Accountancy Program
University of South Florida, Summer 2002


At the time of this article there was little understanding of the way the Japanese were able to bring a superior product to market in less time and for less money than their Western counterparts. This article was intended to explain this and the reason for the misconceptions held previously. The authors first set out to dispel the myth about the secrecy of Japanese production methods. They are in fact very open about their operations. It is the authors' position that the reason previous attempts to understand their methods failed was the combination of three main factors.

First, there is a large cultural gap. The visits were really controlled by the Westerners, who brought along their questions and expected full open and descriptive answers that followed their thought process. Obviously, the two cultures thought quite differently and although their questions were answered, the key issues were not revealed. This was not secretive behavior because when the right questions were posed, the answers were promptly given. The Japanese were acting in a manner consistent with their culture to avoid embarrassing the questioner by pointing out that he or she had asked the wrong question.

Second, and maybe the most obvious, is the language barrier. Even with translators, the communication process was lacking. Some words or phrases have no translation. There is no common ground or frame of reference. The Japanese language lacks the precision that the English language possesses, therefore whole conversations can be had without a mention of a subject.

The third obstacle they had to overcome was distraction. This is broken up into two areas. Questioners often were distracted by new innovations such as with "lean enterprise" and did not try to delve further into the Japanese system. They often wrote off the ability of the Japanese to create such a superior product with less cost to a single innovation. And the questioners simply asked the wrong questions. They came looking for a cost accounting system that explained all of the differences and found cost systems remarkably the same as the ones they were using back home. What they needed to understand was the Japanese cost management system. All of their questions about the cost accounting system were answered, but nobody bothered to ask about a broader dynamic.

The broader dynamic was the feedforward system, as opposed to the traditional feedback system. If you think about it, the West produces everything on a feedback method. We compile data after the product has been produced and use that to check goals, not very "kaizen-like". The Japanese use feedforward methods such as target costing, value engineering, and inter-organizational cost management systems to achieve long-term growth. All of these incorporate the goal of reducing cost overtime by increasing functionality and quality. The bigger picture is taken into consideration. The emphasis is on long-term company growth, which eventually trickles down into greater market share.

The authors also touched on another area that creates a Japanese competitive advantage over U.S. companies. It is the worker productivity created by the lean organization. The example in the article showed twice as much production from slightly fewer workers (Toyota's 1993 4.5 million vehicles with 109,000 people compared to Chrysler's 2.47 vehicles with 116,00 people).

The authors also posed several questions such as, will the Japanese cost management techniques work as well in the U.S.?; How will they affect cost accounting?; Will labor unions help or hurt?; and Would inter-organizational cost systems work or will they be considered anti-trust violations?

Although the Japanese have a different culture and a different business mentality, knowledge of the hidden aspects of the Japanese system is needed to understand the global competitive environment and to translate those secrets effectively into U.S. companies and locations.



Source @ maaw.info

Martin, J. R., W. K. Schelb, R. C. Snyder, and J. C. Sparling. 1992. Comparing the practices of U.S. and Japanese companies: The implications for management accounting. Journal of Cost Management (Spring): 6-14.

Summarized by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of Sourth Florida


Comparing the practices of U.S. and Japanese companies: The implications for management accounting

Many researchers have studied the Japanese people and Japanese management practices. We summarized that literature up to 1991. Our purpose was to compare U.S. and Japanese workers and management practices to show how the observed differences are linked to the need for different management accounting and control systems. The article is divided into four main sections as indicated below. Each section includes a table comparison that did not appear in the published version of the article. Much of this summary was taken from an earlier version of the paper that I presented at the Western Regional Meeting of the American Accounting Association in 1991.

1. Characteristics and attitudes of workers

2. Management attitudes and policies toward workers

3. Competitive focus of management and management policies

4. Management accounting and control


Workers Characteristics and Attitudes

Although it is somewhat presumptuous to generalize about the characteristics and attitudes of millions of people, some rather basic and important differences between the Japanese and U.S. workers appear to exist.

First, the Japanese concept of self is very different from the American view. In Japan, each person is believed to possess a unique spirit, soul, mind and heart, but the self concept is considered an impediment to growth. The Japanese establish identities that incorporate friends, relatives and coworkers in an open way to share feelings and improve on weaknesses. The workers relationship within the work group is very important psychologically. On the other hand, U.S. workers are for the most part individualist and strive to appear as macho and self sufficient as possible.

The Japanese also have a very strong sense of nationalism and believe that they are superior to all other races. Although Americans also have a strong sense of national pride, there are many racial conflicts in the U.S. that reduce our ability to work together. The education systems in the two countries are also very different. While the Japanese have a very rigorous system through high school, it is possible for a student to graduate from high school in the U.S. without being able to read and write adequately. These differences may have serious implications for U.S. firms seeking entry level workers.

Perhaps the fact that the Japanese are all from a single race and have an entirely different concept of self explains why, at least to some extent, they appear to be more cooperative and willing to work together in teams. To maintain and strengthen work group relationships, Japanese workers spend a considerable amount of time socializing after work. Japanese children wear uniforms to school and this is continued with company uniforms later in life. This willingness to dress alike and act alike is very different from the typical American who is taught to be competitive and engage in various political power plays to take credit for accomplishments and achieve star status.

Japanese workers also appear to have more respect for authority than their U.S. counterparts, as well as an entirely different attitude towards work. The Japanese apparently live to work and are willing to sacrifice their personal lives for the company. They are more tolerant of long hours and uncomfortable working conditions than U.S. workers, frequently work when they are sick and decline vacation time to avoid reducing productivity. One family service day per week seems to be adequate time for family matters. U.S. workers are more inclined to work to live, or for self gratification, have less self discipline and less tolerance for discomfort. In addition, American workers expect to spend more time with their families and obtain a variety of perquisites that have been won in hard fought management/union confrontations over the past several years. We do not mean to imply that these expectations are unreasonable, only that they are different from those of the typical Japanese worker.

The Japanese also keep their cities and factories crime free and spotless, where trash, graffiti and cigarette butts are conspicuously absent. Each worker keeps his or her work station clean. Even taxi drivers wear white gloves and are rather unforgiving if a patron soils the cab. Crime rates in Japan are very low relative to the U.S. where cities and factories are notorious for crime and garbage.

Japanese workers are also more loyal to their employers than U.S. workers and in many cases are essentially married to the company for a lifetime. American workers, on the other hand, tend to be loyal to themselves and sometimes their families and frequently use a company only to gain enough experience to move to a better paying position at another firm.


Management Attitudes and Policies Towards Workers

Japanese workers are expected to provide suggestions for improving their own operating efficiency, as well as the overall productivity of the organization. The rational for this expectation is that it promotes continuous improvement. Although suggestion systems are also used in the U.S., employee suggestions are viewed more as a threat to management. U.S. employees who constantly recommend changes are likely to be labeled as trouble makers.

Japanese managers seem to view the company's employees as their most important resources. To develop these resources to the fullest potential, the typical Japanese company offers lifetime employment, promotions from within, considerable cross training and job rotation and frequently a no layoff policy. In this way the Japanese use human resources as a competitive weapon.

Employment in the U.S., however is somewhat analogous to a revolving door. Workers are routinely laid-off during economic down turns and there appears to be little commitment to training. The scientific management approach used in the U.S. is based on a system of specialization where each worker performs a few repetitive tasks. In this approach, workers are de-skilled to such a low level that all are expendable. Neither management nor the workers trust each other, thus the process feeds on itself. U.S. managers appear to use a type of short run leverage in the area of human resources. Scavenging trained workers from other firms, the scavenger uses other firms' investments in human resources to achieve results.

The typical Japanese incentive system also appears to be quite different from U.S. systems. The Japanese place considerable emphasis on employee recognition including simple pats on the back, business cards for all workers, trophies, company pins, plaques, medals, group approval, and charts over work stations to show goals and achievements. Although there are some small cash awards for suggestions and employee profit sharing systems, Japanese workers seem to respond reasonably well to the psychological incentives. American incentive systems are for the most part monetary systems based on salary increases, promotions and bonuses.

Japanese companies also have worker participation systems that are very different, at least conceptually, from their U.S. counterparts. Workers are expected to participate in consensus decisions where the group attempts to come to a unanimous decision. The final decision is made by the group leader, and all members of the group are expected to accept it as their own decision. Voting is not allowed however, because voting denotes winners and losers. In the consensus system, there are, supposedly, only winners. U.S. workers do not participate in work related decisions to the same extent as Japanese workers and may frequently provide only pseudo participation in decision making. Most work related decisions are made by autocratic supervisors. When group or committee decisions are made, the democratic voting process prevails with the inevitable winners and losers.

Another difference between Japanese and U.S. companies is the accessibility of managers to workers. In Japanese factories, managers tend to wear the same uniforms as line workers and work in offices that are inside the factory and open to workers. U.S. managers, above the supervisory level, are generally inaccessible to workers and are perceived by workers as aloof. American managers work in air conditioned offices separated from the factory by long infrequently used corridors.


Management Competitive Focus and Policies

The overall focus of Japanese management is on the firm's long run competitive strategy as opposed to U.S. managers who appear to be more concerned with short run financial performance. Perhaps, to some extent, this difference may be explained by the variations in reporting requirements in the two countries. For example, Japanese companies are not required to submit quarterly reports to stockholders. However, there are other more fundamental differences in the way the Japanese manage. In fact, the concept underlying the very foundation of Japanese management is substantially different from the traditional U.S. concept of management.

Japanese management policies and techniques are grounded by the concept of continuous improvement (kaizen). On the other hand, traditional American management practices are derived from the concept of optimization which grew out of the scientific management era of the early 1900's and developments in the operations research discipline in the 1950's. Understanding the differences between these two concepts is extremely important because they have a pervasive influence on the design and implementation of every management policy, technique, performance measurement system and decision. The fundamental difference is that management based on the concept of continuous improvement is dynamic, i.e., constantly seeking perfection by removing constraints, while the concept of optimization is static, i.e., find the optimal solution given a set of constraints.

In the area of resource management, the Japanese use the sub-concept of just-enough-resources (JER), commonly referred to as just-in-time (JIT or Kanban) for inventory. The idea is to squeeze out three kinds of waste including "muda" which represents waste caused by idle resources and unnecessary motions (e.g., looking for misplaced tools), "mura" which is waste caused by the irregular or inconsistent use of a resource, and "muri", which is waste caused by placing excessive demands on resources. In the JER approach, all resources are minimized, including inventory, workers, equipment, job classifications, and product parts and subassemblies.

Traditional U.S. managers use an entirely different concept that some authors have referred to as just-in-case (JIC). In the JIC approach to resource management, large amounts of slack resources are kept on hand to guard against contingencies such as late deliveries, poor quality, production bottlenecks and fluctuations in demand. Of course, these concepts have some very important implications for the resources themselves. JER and JIT require highly skilled and highly dedicated cross trained workers, as well as high quality raw materials and well maintained equipment. In the JIC environment, high skill levels and high quality materials and equipment are not as critical. For example, in the area of inventory and production lot sizes, the idea, according to the applicable sub-concept of optimization, is to find the economic order quantity or batch size (EOQ) that will minimize the conflicting costs involved in the decision, (e.g., ordering and carrying costs or setup and carrying costs).

To promote high quality, the Japanese use the sub-concepts of total quality control (TQC), or zero defects, and quality at the source (jidoka). Jidoka places emphasis on correcting problems when and where they occur. Implementing these quality concepts obviously requires dedicated workers. High quality also requires close relationships with vendors to insure that the firm receives defect-free raw materials and close relationships with customers to insure that customers' specifications are met. The Japanese view this as a co-destiny relationship with their vendors and customers. These partnerships provide linkages across the entire value chain that lead to fewer, more reliable vendors and more frequent deliveries from vendors, as well as to customers. U.S. firms have traditionally used multiple vendors and placed more emphasis on price variances and quantity discounts. Thus, quality has not received the highest priority. Determining the optimum level of quality has been the norm for American firms. This is evident when one considers the traditional standard cost systems so common in U.S. accounting textbooks and manufacturing practice. Although there appears to be a new emphasis on quality in the U.S., the newer American approach is still grounded in optimization theory. In this new approach, which has been referred to as the "Optimal Economic Conformance Model", prevention and appraisal costs are balanced against internal and external failure costs. This is fundamentally different from the dynamic TQC approach advocated by Deming in which a company cannot have too much quality.

The continuous improvement concept also affects Japanese decisions in the area of equipment acquisition and utilization. Many Japanese companies tend to design and carefully maintain their own equipment with preventive maintenance centered at the operator level. Equipment parts are replaced before they break to prevent idle time (muda) from occurring during production runs. In house equipment development also promotes innovation and allows the Japanese to maintain technological leadership. U.S. firms, on the other hand, are somewhat more inclined to buy turn-key systems and replace parts only when they break down. In the Japanese JER or JIT system, maintenance is mandatory, not a discretionary decision to be used for shifting costs from current to future periods. It is also important to note that buying production equipment from others is another form of leverage that provides certain short term benefits to the purchaser. However, the disadvantage of this policy is the higher long term risk of losing market share to the technological leaders. Buying technology off the shelf prevents the firm from competing on the basis of product differentiation, or innovation, since competitors will have access to the same technology.

The Japanese union also plays an important part in supporting the continuous improvement concept and it's many related sub-concepts. In Japan, unions are company sponsored and are more of an extension of management than a separate entity established to represent workers. The union typically works to promote teamwork by supporting a small number of job classifications, considerable cross training and a no strike policy. U.S. union policies conflict with the JER and JIT concepts by requiring a large number of job classifications that prohibit cross training. The American union has an adversary relationship with management and uses the strike as a weapon to achieve higher wages and benefits for union members.

Another way that Japanese and traditional U.S. management practices differ is in the area of production. The Japanese tend to build smaller more focused plants where work is performed in sequential order to remove inconsistencies (mura) according to program work sheets. The idea is to remove wasted or unnecessary motions to improve efficiency. U.S. plants tend to be larger and less focused where American workers generally perform the work in the order of their preference.


Management Accounting and Control

Japanese accounting and control systems are subservient to corporate strategy and are essentially used to influence behavior. In the U.S., on the other hand, accounting and control systems have been used mainly to inform management about the company's performance. In Japan, planning and control is based on a bottom up approach where workers and lower level managers participate in developing goals and receive considerable feedback as the plans are implemented. In the U.S., planning and control is based on a top down approach where the financial budget is rolled down into the organization. The view that the Japanese are highly committed to planning and feedback is supported by their almost fanatical use of a system called Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA). In this system, the plan step includes identifying the problem and the underlying cause, plus developing a plan for the problem's solution. The Do step involves a trial run to determine if the plan works. In the Check step, the trial run is evaluated and revisions are made if necessary. The final Action step is to implement the plan. The PDCA approach is a never ending activity for the Japanese who are very meticulous about providing documentation for nearly every decision.

The Japanese compare actual costs to market driven target costs. Target costs are established somewhere between standard costs and allowable costs which are determined by subtracting a target profit margin from the target price. The target price is the price that would provide the company with a competitive edge in the market. This approach is dynamic since the target costs are continuously reduced, both during and after the design stage to promote continuous improvement. The traditional American approach is to compare actual costs with flexible budgets based on engineer driven standard costs. However, standard costs are based on the static optimization concept where standards are set based on the current plant and resource constraints. The emphasis is on achieving the internal standard rather than continuously reducing costs to achieve the external goal.

The Japanese also use a long run life cycle approach to product cost and place a substantial amount of emphasis on non financial measures of performance such as quality, lead time and flexibility. Some of the more specific measurements include: the average number of jobs mastered per employee, average setup times, number of line stops, down time, process times, amount of inventory and number of customer complaints. U.S. firms have traditionally placed more emphasis on short run variances from standard costs, with considerable attention directed to labor efficiency measurements. However, the standard cost control concept has been criticized because the traditional variances can motivate managers to act in ways that reduce, rather than enhance the company's competitive position. Thus, the standard cost methodology appears to be inconsistent with the concept of continuous improvement.

Japanese investment justification decisions are based on a long term perspective where emphasis is placed on growth, increasing market share, flexibility and customer needs. Decisions are made using the Namawashi approach which includes more involvement by lower level managers. When compared to the Japanese, U.S. companies seem to place more emphasis on the short run financial effects of investment decisions and quick paybacks. Thus, traditional American investment decision techniques have not adequately considered the intangible factors involved that affect the company's long run competitive position. The Japanese also appear to be in a better position to exploit interrelationships among business units to achieve, or maintain, a competitive advantage. A horizontal strategy that coordinates investment decisions across a large group of interrelated divisions, may well produce greater corporate benefits in the long run, than a series of independent investment decisions made at the unit level.



How U.S. Firms Are Becoming World Class Competitors

The comparison of the U.S. and Japanese workers and management attitudes and policies paints a rather bleak picture of America's position and potential in the global economy. However, it should be emphasized that the summary comparisons provided above are based on a great many generalizations that do not apply equally to all workers and companies. Many American companies began to develop a different strategic mind-set in the 1980's and currently use many of the concepts previously attributed exclusively to the Japanese. One of the most notable examples of the changes taking place in the concepts underlying U.S. management practices is provided by the CAM-I cost management systems (CMS) conceptual design document. The CAM-I publication embraces the overall concept of continuous improvement and most of the accompanying sub-concepts including just-in-time, total quality control, life cycle costing and a portfolio approach to investment management. The CMS conceptual design was developed by a large group of individuals employed by CAM-I's sponsoring firms and organizations who continue to work together to develop better cost management and performance systems.



Source @ maaw.info

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"ဘယ္သူမျပဳ မိမိမူ"
============

ဘာကိစၥေတြ ဘယ္လိုပဲျဖစ္လာျဖစ္လာ ေကာင္းရင္ ကိုယ္ေကာင္းလို႕၊ မေကာင္းရင္ မေကာင္းလို႕ဆိုျပီး ေျပာတတ္ဆိုတတ္တာဟာ လူ႕သဘာဝပါ။

ဒါေပမယ့္ ေကာင္းက်ိဳးခ်မ္းသာေတြရလာရင္ ေက်းဇူးတင္ထိုက္သူကို ေက်းဇူးမတင္တာထက္ အျပစ္ျဖစ္လာရင္ သူမ်ားကိုလႊဲခ်တာမ်ိဳးကေတာ့ မလုပ္သင့္၊ မျဖစ္သင့္တဲ့အရာ ဆိုတာသိရမယ္။
မိမိတို႔ရဲ႕ဘဝတစ္ေလွ်ာက္ ျဖစ္ပ်က္ေတြ႕ၾကဳံခဲ့တဲ့ အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ားကို ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာစဥ္းစားပါ ပညာရွိနည္းနဲ႔သုံးသပ္ၾကည့္ပါ။

မိမိကိုယ္တိုင္ၾကံဳေတြေနရတဲ့အရာ အဆိုး၊ အေကာင္း အားလံုးဟာ မည္သူ႕ဆီ၌ တာဝန္အရွိဆုံးလဲ?

မိမိသာလွ်င္ ပထမတာဝန္အရွိဆုံးပါ။ မိမိစိတ္ဆႏၵမပါဘဲ အတင္းအဓမၼေစခိုင္းခ်က္ေၾကာင့္ ျပဳလုပ္ရေသာကိစၥေတြမွလြဲ၍ တျခားကိစၥမ်ားတြင္ မိမိသာ တာဝန္အရွိဆံုးလူျဖစ္သလို မိမိကိုယ္ကိုသာ မိမိအျပစ္တင္ပါ။

လူတိုင္းက ကိုယ့္စိတ္ႏွင့္ကိုယ္ဆိုေသာ္လည္း အခ်ိဳ႕ကိစၥရပ္မ်ား၌ ကိုယ့္စိတ္ႏွင့္ကိုယ့္ကိုယ္ မတြဲမိသည္မ်ားရွိႏိုင္သည္။ ဥပမာအေနနဲ႔ "တံငါနားနီး တံငါ" တံငါသည္ဝမ္း၌ဝင္စား၍ လူျဖစ္လာတယ္ဆိုပါစို႕။ မိမိရဲ႕ပတ္ဝန္းက်င္၊ မိမိရဲ႕ဘဝေပးအကုသိုလ္ေၾကာင့္ အဲ့ဒီအလုပ္ကို ႏွစ္ျခိဳက္၍ (သို႔) မႏွစ္သက္ေသာ္လည္း လုပ္ကိုင္ေနရသည့္အေျခအေနအတြက္ ဘယ္သူ႕ကိုအျပစ္တင္ရမလဲ?

ဗုဒၶဘာသာဝင္အမ်ားစုက ကံ၊ ကံ၏အက်ိဳးကို ယံုၾကည္တယ္။ အတိတ္ဘဝ၊ ယခုဘဝ၊ ေနာက္ဘဝေတြရွိတယ္ဆိုျပီးေတာ့လည္း သိထားပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္အခုလိုျဖစ္ပ်က္ခံစားေတြ႕ၾကံဳမႈမ်ားဟာ အတိတ္ဘဝအဆက္ဆက္မွအစျပဳ၍
ယခုလက္ရွိအခ်ိန္အထိ မိမိျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့ေသာ ကုသိုလ္၊ အကုသိုလ္ ကံအေၾကာင္းတရားမ်ားေၾကာင့္
ေပၚေပါက္လာေသာ အက်ိဳးတရားမ်ားလို႔ မွတ္ယူၾကတယ္။

ဟုတ္ျပီ။ ဗုဒၶဘာသာဝင္မဟုတ္လို႔ ကံ၊ ကံ၏အက်ိဳးကို မယံုၾကည္ခဲ့လွ်င္လည္း မိမိကိုယ္မိမိအရင္ဆံုးေမးပါ။ ဤအလုပ္၌ ငါေပ်ာ္ေမြ႕ေနသလား၊ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ အကုသိုလ္အလုပ္ျဖစ္လို႔ မေကာင္းေသာအသက္ေမြးမႈလို႔ ထင္ျမင္ေနသလား။ ဒီအလုပ္ကိုမလုပ္ခ်င္လွ်င္ တျခားအလုပ္တစ္ခုခုကို ေျပာင္းလဲလုပ္ကိုင္ဖို႔ ဆိုတဲ့အေတြးမ်ိဳး ဦးေႏွာက္နဲ႔စဥ္းစားရမွာမိမိရဲ႕တာဝန္။

ေနာက္ဆံုးရဲ႕ရလာဒ္ကေတာ့ အေပၚမွာေျပာခဲ့သလို အဆိုး၊ အေကာင္း အားလံုးအတြက္ မိမိကိုယ္ကိုသာ မိမိအျပစ္တင္ရမွာပဲ။

ကိုယ္စိုက္တဲ့အပင္က မာလကာပင္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ မာလကာသီးပဲသီးမယ္။ သရက္သီး သီးခ်င္လို႔ေတာ့ မျဖစ္ႏိုင္ဘူး။ သရက္သီး မျဖစ္လာလို႔ ကိုယ္လိုခ်င္ေသာအသီးမျဖစ္ႏိုင္ေကာင္းလားဆိုျပီး အပင္ကိုအျပစ္မတင္ခ်င္ပါနဲ႕။ ထိုအပင္ကိုစိုက္ေသာသူကိုယ္တိုင္သည္သာ တာဝန္အရွိဆုံးျဖစ္၍ အပင္စိုက္သူကိုသာ အျပစ္တင္ပါ။

အဲ့ဒီလိုစဥ္းစားေတြးေခၚတတ္မယ္ဆိုလွ်င္ (သို႔) စဥ္းစားေတြးေခၚႏိုင္စြမ္းရွိမယ္ဆိုလွ်င္ မည္သည့္ကိစၥမဆို မိမိသာ အေရးၾကီးေၾကာင္း သိလာလိမ့္မယ္။ တာဝန္သိတတ္ေသာစိတ္မ်ား ျဖစ္ေပၚလာမယ္။ ဒါ့အျပင္ သူတစ္ပါးကို လႊဲခ်တတ္သည့္စိတ္မ်ား သိသိသာသာ ေလ်ာ့နည္းလာမယ္။

အဲ့ဒီေတာ့ ဘယ္လိုအေၾကာင္းရာေတြပဲျဖစ္ပါေစ မိမိမလုပ္ခင္ ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာအရင္သံုးသပ္၊ ေတြးေခၚ၊ အမွန္ႏွင့္အမွားကိုခြဲျခား၊ ျပီးမွဆံုးျဖတ္။

ပိုင္စိုး

I was in that project for almost 4 years since the beginning of project 2010 to the end 2014, as my company Hirose (Singapore) Pte Ltd Project Coordinator.

This is one of my unforgettable memory of experiences with McConnell Dowell Company (Main Contractor). All of my colleagues from McConnell Dowell are helpful, cooperative, share experiences each other and well manage the project.

The protests of "8888"

The “8888” uprising refers to a series of protests that took place in Burma during 1988 that culminated on the date 8/8/1988, giving this uprising its name. These protests, which began in March of 1988, were initially incited largely by students to express their disgust with the military government’s hostile economic, political, and monetary policies. The one-party rule led by the Burmese Socialist Program Party (BSPP) suppressed the democratic desires of the people, and the economic situation in Burma placed it on the “Least Developed Country” list by the United Nations Economic and Social Council by 1987. The government at that time was headed by General Ne Win, who ruled Burma from 1962-1988 as an oppressive and violent ruler. Despite Ne Win’s resignation in July of ’88, the protests and anger continued since his successor, Sein Lwin, was also hated by the Burmese people, and he refused to address the issues that the protesters were calling for action on.

Although the center of the uprising was in the Burmese capital city of Rangoon, rural areas were also the scene of protests and strikes. From August 1-7 of that year, the protests intensified as students called upon everyone to become involved and to participate in the mass demonstration planned for August 8. The people responded, and the streets were filled with monks, workers, intellectuals, and members of all ethnic groups and walks of life. The August 8 demonstration stretched into a 5-day strike that took the Burmese military government aback, with promises from the leadership that the people’s demands would be considered, although of course, these promises were never meant to be fulfilled. Rather, during this time, it is estimated that around 3,000 people were killed as the police and military massacred peaceful protestors under orders from the BSPP.

With the surprise resignation of Sein Lwin on August 12, the protests only paused for a few days before resuming again, with increased violence on all sides as the Burmese people fought for their rights, and the regime stepped up its repression. It was towards the end of August when Aung San Suu Kyi first entered the political arena as she addressed the masses of people gathered by Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. She became a symbol of democracy and freedom to not only the Burmese, but to the rest of the world. When congress met in September, 75% of the delegates voted for a multi-party system, but the BSPP rejected any changes. The rioting continued, and members of the army and police forces began to side with the protesters. Finally, on September 18, 1988, the Burmese military again took power of the government and quickly suppressed the protests using extremely violent measures. Led by General Saw Maung, the 1974 constitution was repealed and martial law was instituted with the establishment of the “State Law and Order Restoration Council.”

Many believed that had the United Nations or the United States become involved during these protests or refused to recognize the coup during its takeover, the military regime would have failed to take hold and would have collapsed. To commemorate the bloody “8888” uprising, groups around the world have been holding remembrances on August 8 since then, and on the 20th anniversary of the uprising, Burma Center Prague, like other groups around the world, held a special event to honor the past and present victims of the Burmese dictatorship.


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