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Home Energy Audit Helps Lower Your Energy Bill

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The spiraling energy costs are putting immense financial strain on the consumers. It is high time that people should adopt energy efficient techniques to conserve the amount of energy used at home. This requires the help of home energy audit professionals.

Prior to their visit to the home, it is necessary for the occupant to keep the energy bills, ready. The bills help the auditor to understand the energy consumption requirements. It is beneficial to provide other information like electricity usage pattern of the house, thermostat selection during winter and summer season, type of appliances used and number of rooms and occupants in the home. This information helps the auditor to clearly understand the energy needs of the home.

The home energy audit helps the occupants know the true energy requirements and helps to conserve it by pinpointing the leakages in the home and the conditioning system. A careful analysis of ductwork, heating and cooling pipes, doors, windows, basement, corners and walls by specialized instruments like infrared camera, door blower and surface thermometer help to point out the exact the location of leakage, which can be later properly plugged to make the home, well insulated. A leakage in the home saps energy out of the air conditioning system of the home and makes the equipment work longer to achieve the desired temperature. The result is, more load on the system which ultimately causes increase in maintenance and fuel bill for the occupant.

A home energy audit makes it possible for the occupants to enjoy the comforts of the heating or cooling system of the house at a reduced cost. The money saved can be well spent on the other necessities of the daily life. You can then invest more in making yours an energy efficient home and thus drive a positive cycle where you continue to save money and used the money saved to start saving even more money. Therefore a home energy audit will not only pay for itself it will set you off on the road to savings that will keep adding up for the rest of your life. And it will reduce your carbon footprint as well.

How Guided Selling Kiosks Work and What These Kiosks Can do for Retail Stores

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On a very simple level, guided selling kiosks are computerised kiosk machines that are located in retail stores to help customers to make decisions about purchases. Guided Selling ensures an optimal buying experience by intelligently walking customers through a set of key questions to determine the customer’s specific requirements, preferences and priorities. Guided selling helps consumers get to a targeted list of products based on their answers to a series of questions shown on the kiosk screen.

Guided selling kiosks are great for customers because they provide access to information, available products and product information as a catalogue would, but they can also include previous customer’s product reviews to help the customer make an informed decision.

You might assume that most customers nowadays research their purchases online before visiting the retail store. However; according to the Government statistical bulletin ‘Internet Access – Households and Individuals, 2011’, only 77 per cent of households had Internet access, rendering 33 percent of households unable to research purchases at home. Therefore; guided selling kiosks provide a premium buying experience for all customers but provides a key tool for those households without internet access.

Guided selling kiosks are also fantastic for companies. A guided selling kiosk can easily be branded and integrated into the store environment and the information that the kiosk holds can be updates quickly and easily from a central computer, all perfect for the company from the running side of things.

However, guided selling kiosks also increase sales whilst lowering costs. Guided selling kiosks provide a dynamic user experience that consumers control the length and depth of their online consultation, ensuring that each prospect receives product recommendations with the appropriate level of preparedness; guiding customers to a buying decision thereby increasing the likelihood of conversion. Furthermore, because the your retail outlet provided the guided selling kiosk and information, the customer feels confident with the transparency of the information provided, which in turn makes them more likely to make that purchase from your store.

Whilst at the other end, the kiosk cuts down on costs because specialist sales people are no longer need. Since customers, dealers and sales representatives have direct access to all relevant knowledge and information, the dependence on others, such as technical specialists, is reduced.

Additionally, guided selling kiosks can strike whilst the iron is hot, taking chip and pin payments for goods and up selling extended warrantees on electrical goods whilst the customer is still accessing the kiosk. This pay at the kiosk service can be packaged as a ‘quick service’ or a ‘discreet service’, but essentially makes the conversion before the customer leaves the kiosk.

Many of the large branded companies are seeing the benefits of guided selling kiosks and more and more are being installed into retail stores. Not only are guided selling kiosks increasing sales in store, but they are also retaining customer information for future marketing campaigns and providing customer satisfaction feedback and product reviews to assist and build the confidence of future customers.

The Key Elements Of A Good Construction Safety Plan

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Now, what, to you is the real benefit of looking for an online construction site safety plan? If you are looking for one for its proper use, you will be after one which puts the safety of your workforce to the fore. Sadly, many construction site safety plans are built with simple ease in mind. This is a terrifying thought, especially since we in the construction industry have so many fatalities.

Any good construction site safety plan should have, as its first and only priority, your workforces safety in mind. The goal of making the site managers life a little easier is one which too often gets involved in the search for a plan. Similarly, budgeting is something that factors in quite heavily, when really it shouldnt at all. The trouble is that both the ease of the site managers life, and the safety of the workforce can all be encompassed in one fell swoop, even at lower costing brackets.

What makes a good construction site safety plan, then? At its heart, it should be suitable for the management of all construction work. This word suitable is important here. Remember, this is the most important document in your safety planning, and unless it is utterly comprehensive, it is useless.

It should also aid the compliance with health and safety legislation. Sure, while this is an important element of the document, its by no means the be all. Even if it highlights the compliance with regulatory bodies, this in no way means that it it wholly suitable. A good test for this is whether you can buy one, and it still be applicable to a different site.

A construction site safety plan ensures that on site workers develop the awareness of risks in the workplace. It should also inform every member on the site of how to minimize the risks to themselves and their co-workers. If it fails to do this, it is near useless. Keep that in the fore of your brain if you are looking for a construction site safety plan.

Design and survey information should be in evidence, which means any number of appropriate schematics, sketches and architectural drawings. The locale should be detailed here as well, which may include local amenities, stores, materials, hazards and local infrastructure. A fire safety plan should also be present, as its probably the single most important aspect of fire safety.

Its very important for any construction site safety plan, or indeed documentation relating to construction safety, that it is written in plain English. The addition of legislation and regulatory laguage has little or no validity on a construction site. Indeed, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of construction legislation. When we, as construction workers, use language which is as pragmatic as possible, very often the Safety and Health legislation concerning us is filled with little of intelligible worth. Remember to look out for this plain english in any literature to do with this document.

A construction site safety plan is entirely for the safety of the site, not the ease of the site manager.

Procurement solutions for Automotive

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Its just a great feeling to drive my new car! With this pearl of technology I can conquer the world and experience lots of adventures. The leather smells really nice and with my new sunglasses I am completely the king of the world.

Did you however made any thoughts about the complexity of designing and manufacturing your fancy car full of great and modern things? Creating a safe, nice, dynamic and environmental friendly quality car is not an easy task.

Just not difficult to understand that all the processes secured by car manufactures and their tier suppliers will need to reflect all these requirements in a shorter and shorter timeframe. Changed market expectations have indeed forced the automotive guys to accelerate nearly everything . with occasionally negative consequences in terms of quality.

Also the procurement solutions used in the automotive industry are known to be one of strongest of all industries and are often referenced by many other people as the target or objective to be reached.

Hereby just some examples of the high maturity level in this functional field:

– elements like just-in-time (JIT) and just-in-sequence (JIS) are on top of the logistical pyramid

– the audit mechanisms used to validate suppliers are very detailed and challenging

– the end-to-end process and cost-effective approach from innovation up till industrialisation are strongly followed and documented

– risk analysis and creation of contingency plans is a well-known sport

– the early involvement of specialized suppliers with the engineering community of car manufacturers speeds up the process while (hopefully) securing an intense and early match

– the more sophisticated cost-reduction methodologies like VA/VE, reverse auctions, standardization or simultaneous engineering are used on a daily basis

– the streamlining of material flows and reduction of inventories is well developed

– the push for yearly cost-reduction or productivity via supportive process improvements is a quite familiar topic Without any doubt there are major differences between the various players. Just like a Jaguar is different to a Mercedes or a Volvo is different to a Peugeot.

Also the supply chain models and organizations are not exactly the same for the after-market compared to the original (high volume) market.

Just talk to specialists in procurement solutions for automotive to learn more. Lets hope you are not driving your car blindly!

Austin Insurance Done Right!

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Whether you are looking for business insurance, home or car insurance you need to have a trusted resource to help you navigate the maize of options in the market today. You can’t turnaround without being bombarded with ads about how a Gecko or Caveman or groovy waitress-looking chicks are telling you that all you have to do is call them and you will save $487. Or switch to xyz insurance company and save 15%. Are all of these ads right? Are they all the lowest cost solutions? How can this be? Who can I believe? Something just isn’t adding up!

Take a peak here to get an insider’s look at the insurance industry Insurance companies price their policies on a multitude of factors ranging from their overall underwriting profit (or combined ratio), their expense ratios, returns on their investment income and the competitive landscape.

It has been our experience in the Austin insurance market that carriers go through cycles in their pricing structure. A big reason for this is their loss history for a given market segment as well as the company overall. If an insurance company experiences lower than normal claims and makes more of an underwriting profit, they typically get more aggressive in the insurance discounts they offer.

One of the keys to managing your business and home insurance programs is to test the waters with other insurance companies at least every other year to make sure you are taking advantage of the carriers who are in an aggressive rate cycle. Yes this sounds like a very time consuming and frustrating process, but if you get with a knowledgeable and reputable independent insurance agent they can do most of the work for you and typically save you significant dollars.

Up-front premiums, however are only one part of the equation in securing an optimal insurance program. Today there are so many different types of carriers and types of insurance coverages that it is literally a full time job understanding all of the issues involved. Don’t assume that since an agent is merely licensed that they are truly qualified.

Make sure your insurance agent has advanced certifications such as a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) or a Certified Property & Casualty Underwriter (CPCU). A Certified Insurance Counselor can not only help you find the optimal price, can help you diagnose and then prescribe the proper coverage. Having a lower premium becomes quickly irrelevant if you have an uncovered claim!

Here Is A Brief Synopsis Of Some Of The Types Of Coverage You Need To Evaluate For Your Austin Business Insurance:

Austin General Liability Insurance

A broad commercial policy that covers liability exposures of a business that are not specifically excluded. Coverage typically includes product liability, completed operations, premises and operations, and personal and advertising injury. It is recommended that all businesses operating have general liability coverage in place.

Business Owners Policy

An Austin business insurance policy that combines property, liability and business interruption coverages for small to medium-sized businesses. Coverage is generally cheaper than if purchased through separate insurance policies. A Business Owners policy is typically available to businesses and industries that are typically viewed as having relatively low liability exposures.

Austin Workers Comp & Employers Liability

This coverage pays for medical care and physical rehabilitation of employees injured at work and helps to replace lost wages while they are unable to work. Additionally this coverage protects an employer from being sued by an injured worker in most cases. A commonly overlooked exposure for companies who employ mostly office workers is the potential injury to employees while driving their own vehicles on company business. This could be as simple as an employee driving to a sales call, the bank or office supply store. If you have employees it is critical that you secure this important coverage.

Professional Liability Insurance Austin

E&O insurance covers professionals for negligence and errors or omissions that injure their clients. In addition to covering licensed professionals such as accountants, attorneys, insurance agents, architect and engineers to name a few, technology companies frequently have a professional liability exposure. This typically arises from the fact that the general liability policy excludes damage to data. Technology E&O can protect your company in the event that your negligence, error, or omission causes damage to a third party’s data. It is recommended that all professional and technology companies have E&O coverage. Contact an Agent today for more information business insurance.

Austin Umbrella Insurance

This Cedar Park business insurance policy provides coverage for losses above the limit of an underlying policy or policies such as General Liability, Employers Liability and Automobile Liability. While it applies to losses over the dollar amount in the underlying policies, terms of coverage are sometimes broader than those of underlying policies. Due to the unpredictable nature of jury awards, it is recommended that your business insurance program have this coverage.

Austin Employment Practices Liability Insurance

Employment Practices Liability Insurance for employers that covers employment related liabilities other than on the job injuries. EPLI will cover legal fees and damages for suits such as wrongful termination, discrimination, sexual harassment, and other alleged violations of employees’ legal rights. Although only three percent of Employment Practices lawsuits go in favor of the plaintiff, the average cost to defend yourself in one of these is well over $200,000.

Austin Commercial Auto Policy

This Texas business insurance policy provides coverage for bodily injury liability and property damage, for injuries/damage the policyholder causes to someone else. Medical payments or Personal Injury Protection (PIP) for treatment of injuries to the driver and passengers of the policyholder’s car are also offered. Optional property coverages for damage to the insureds vehicles are also available in the form of collision, for damage to the policyholder’s car from a collision and comprehensive, for damage to the policyholder’s car not involving a collision with another car (including damage from fire, explosions, earthquakes, floods, and riots), and theft. Uninsured motorists’ coverage, for costs resulting from an accident involving a hit-and-run driver or a driver who does not have insurance is also recommended.

These are just a few of the Cedar Park Insurance coverages for businesses. If you have questions, feel free to contact Inspire Insurance solutions, your one-stop solution for all your Austin Insurance needs.