Healthcare system aboard Freedom Ship

The healthcare system aboard Freedom Ship will provide the world standard for quality in healthcare to residents and crew who live aboard the ship. The quality of healthcare is one of many factors anticipated to promote the appreciation of real estate values aboard Freedom Ship. FSI is dedicated to providing the healthcare system with the highest quality facilities possible. We have budgeted $400 million in capital investment to build a large state-of-the-art Western-medicine and Eastern-medicine hospital and purchase medical equipment. A medical research facility will also be built and staffed by some of the world's brightest scientists. We also anticipate Universities will establish medical schools aboard the ship. Physicians are encouraged to own and operate private practices as well. Although the details of medical credentials required to practice and the guidelines for practices have not yet been finalized, FSI is dedicated to providing the medical communities an environment where all options and treatments are provided and available to the patient at a lower cost to both patient and physician when compared to current medical facilities and insurance plans.

http://www.freedomship.com/freedomship/lifestyle/healthcare/healthcare.shtml

Freedom Ship - The Most Advanced Freedom Project Yet

n conception, 'Freedom Ship' seems to be one of the most advanced freedom projects I know of. It's a project to build a huge ship, three times as long as the Empire State Building is tall -- 4310 ft. long, 725ft. wide. It will have a superstructure, rising 25 stories above its deck. It will have space for at least 50,000 residents, 15,000 personnel, and 20,000 guests and visitors.

It will be powered by 100 diesel engines and will circle the world once every two years. About 25% of the time it will be underway at sea, and about 75% of the time it will be holding in-place in coastal waters near major cities.

Other features of 'Freedom Ship':

• A commercial center with a free-enterprise economy.
• Residential and commercial condominiums.
• High-quality, fresh food and clean water.
• $200,000,000 hospital.
• Superb safety and security.
• Excellent banking and communication facilities.
• 3,800 ft. airplane landing strip.
• Fleet of commuter aircraft and hydrofoils.
• Duty/tax-free shopping.
• Educational, recreational, and entertainment facilities.
• Modest cost of living.

Check out http://www.freedomship.com/ for more details. [If you decide to reserve a condominium -- no obligation -- no funds being solicited -- please specify "Boston Tea Party II-FM" as your Sales Agent.]

I don't know whether the people behind 'Freedom Ship' have their act sufficiently together to succeed. It's a lot easier to put up a sophisticated website than to build a huge ship. Nevertheless, I'm highly impressed with what I've seen so far and with my limited contact with people involved in the project.

I've heard a rumor that 'Popular Mechanics' is working on an extensive article on 'Freedom Ship,' possibly with a picture on the front cover. If this comes about, it could boost interest and reservations substantially.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=floating-city.htm&url=http://www.buildfreedom.com/economic/eco_2.html

Freedom Ship contains various transportation systems

The infrastructure of Freedom Ship contains various transportation systems and facilities necessary to move people and goods on and off the ship as well as transportation aboard the ship. The three main forms of transportation are the airport, the port authority (marina), and the onboard subway system. One can use the airport and port authority to embark or disembark the ship at their convenience. Residents and business owners are only minutes away from a constantly changing environment and have the ability to see the beauty of the world.

The airport will be located on the top deck of the ship. The size of the ship will provide a stable and appropriately sized runway for small commuter and cargo aircraft and helicopters. Current specifications allow for aircraft as large as a STOL turboprop capable of carrying 38 to 40 passengers. Insulation and proper design will shield the residential and commercial districts of the ship from noise associated with airport operations. However, if engineering and management find noise to be detrimental to the overall quality of life aboard Freedom Ship then the airport will be redesigned to facilitate helicopters only with the remaining real estate used as an additional nature preserve. FSI will operate a fleet of aircraft; however, residents are encouraged to own and operate their private aircraft and helicopters. Hanger space below the flight deck will be available for lease to residents and visitors. A flight school will operate on the ship as well.

The port authority will be located at the stern of the ship. The stability of the ship in rough seas combined with the size of the port authority will allow for a constant flow of people to embark and disembark the ship. FSI will own and operate a fleet of Coast Guard approved Subchapter K ferries capable of carrying 350 passengers each and leaving the ship every 20 minutes. Although space is limited, residents will be able to dry-dock their own vessels aboard the ship as well. Although FSI has not finalized the design, it is feasible to have car ferries dock in the port authority and provide residents with the opportunity to lease space available in the hull of the ship for vehicle storage. Residents would be able to own their vehicles and drive them up onto a ferry and off onto land wherever they chose. Such a design would provide unparalleled opportunities to further travel and explore every region of the world.

The onboard subway system will provide residents and visitors with the ability to quickly reach any portion of the ship in a timely manner. It is important to note that visitors will not have access to residential districts aboard the ship. The transportation systems and commercial districts are two of many factors anticipated to promote the appreciation of real estate values aboard Freedom Ship.

http://www.freedomship.com/freedomship/lifestyle/transportation/transportation.shtml

Life at Sea

Freedom Ship will have 17,000 residential units and will be home to more than 60,000 people, including residents and all of the personnel that will be required to maintain the ship. The floating city will continuously circle the world and will travel to most of Earth's coastal regions, offering residents the ability to see the entire globe without leaving their home. All of the ship's employees will be given food, housing, uniforms, medical and dental care and a continuing education program. The ship will contain all of the features that any modern city might have, including:

• A $200 million hospital
• A 3,800-foot (1,158-m) landing strip, which will serve private planes and some small commercial aircraft that carry no more than 40 passengers
• Hangars for private aircraft
• A marina for residents' yachts
• A large shopping mall
• A school system offering K-12 and college education
• A golf driving range
• Bicycle paths
• 200 open acres for recreation

For those who can afford to live on Freedom Ship, the most attractive feature may be that it has no local taxes, including income tax, real estate tax, sales tax, business tax and import duties. However, residents will have to abide by federal tax laws in their home country.

For entertainment, residents can visit one of the many restaurants, casinos, nightclubs and theaters. Residents will also enjoy tennis, basketball, bowling, putting greens, swimming pools, gyms, a skating rink and fishing from the ship's marina. Each home will have 100 channels of worldwide satellite TV channels and local programming from nearby countries. Internet access will be available in each unit.

Just like your own hometown, Freedom Ship will have a security force onboard that will patrol the ship at all times. In addition, the ship's entire crew will receive security training. An electronic security system will be installed to offer further protection to residents.

In addition to all of these benefits, Freedom Ship will also be environmentally friendly, according to its developers. There will be no sewage treatment plant and no sewage to spill. The ship will use incinerator toilets, which cost about $3,000 apiece, to burn all sewage. The ashes will be put in the flower beds. Waste oil will be burned in an exhaust steam plant to generate electricity, instead of being dumped in the ocean. All used glass, paper and metal will be recycled and sold. Freedom Ship International estimates that each resident will produce 80 percent less waste on the ship than at his or her current home on land.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/floating-city2.htm

School system aboard Freedom Ship

The school system aboard Freedom Ship will provide the world standard for quality in education to students (US grades K through 12) who live aboard the ship. The quality of education is one of many factors anticipated to promote the appreciation of real estate values aboard Freedom Ship.

Curriculum:
Our system of schools will provide a rigorous educational curriculum developed by blending the best attributes from other school systems around the world to create a truly unique and challenging classroom environment. Although the final curriculum has not yet been determined, FSI is dedicated to providing an environment that stresses the following areas of study. History, geography, and the arts will be stressed along with foreign language; all students will be bilingual at graduation. The sciences along with mathematics and engineering will compose another major area of study. Finally, financial education will be stressed as each and every child is exposed on a daily basis to international commerce both aboard the ship and ashore. However, the time students spend in the classroom will be limited.

The Real Classroom:
A portion of the education will happen outside of the classroom as daily field trips to see the world firsthand will be the norm. In effect, students will board ferries instead of buses to visit their classroom…the world in its entire splendor! The ability to see and experience other people and their cultures firsthand is what sets Freedom Ship's school system apart from the rest.

Sports:
Athletic facilities aboard the ship will facilitate organized sports for the school system. Basketball, tennis, track, swimming and diving, gymnastics, American football, soccer, hockey, and facilities for a variety of other sports from around the world will be an integral part of the school system. Students will compete against other schools aboard the ship and with other schools around the world. In effect, students will have their own World Cup for each sport as they travel ashore to compete against schools from around the world and, likewise, as those teams travel to Freedom Ship to play our students for home games as well.

Facilities:
FSI is dedicated to providing the school system with the highest quality facilities possible. Technology will be incorporated into every aspect of classroom learning. The International Library and athletic facilities will provide further opportunities for growth. However, the caring and highly qualified teachers and other professionals will prove invaluable to your child's education. A boarding school for non-residents is also being considered. Universities are expected to have adjunct campuses aboard as well. FSI is dedicated to providing this educational environment to students at a lower cost to parents when compared to the average yearly cost in taxes to send a child to a public school in the United States.

http://www.freedomship.com/freedomship/lifestyle/education/education.shtml

The World's Biggest Ship

No cruise ship that has ever been built can compare to the enormity of Freedom Ship. Imagine a mile-long stretch of 25-story-tall buildings in New York City; now imagine that floating on the water. If you can picture that, then you get the general idea of Freedom Ship's size. At 4,320 feet (1,317 meters) long, 725 feet (221 m) wide and 340 feet (103 m) tall, the ship is taller than the length of a football field and wider than two football fields put together. And not only can a ship that size float on water, but it may be navigating the world's oceans as early as 2005.

Freedom Ship will dwarf any ocean-going vessel operating today -- it will be more than four times longer than any current cruise ship. Here's a comparison of Freedom Ship to Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Explorer of the Seas, the largest cruise ship as of December 2000:

Freedom Ship will be built on top of 520 airtight steel cells that will be bolted together to form a sturdy base. Each cell will be 80 feet (24 meters) tall, between 50 and 100 feet (15 and 30 m) wide and between 50 and 120 feet (15 and 37 m) long. These cells will be assembled to form larger units that are about 300 x 400 feet (91 x 122 m). These larger units will then be taken out to sea, where they will be put together to form the ship's nearly mile-long base. The rest of the ship will be constructed on top of this base. Norman Nixon, who developed the idea of a floating city, has said that it will take about three years to finish the ship once construction begins.

It will take a tremendous amount of engine power to push the gigantic ship through the water. The vessel will be equipped with 100 diesel engines that can generate 3,700 horsepower each. Developers project the cost of each engine to be about $1 million. That may give you an idea of how expensive the project is, although the total cost of Freedom Ship has not been released. The ship's high construction cost will be passed on to residents, who will pay up to $11 million to purchase living space on the floating city. In the next section, you'll find out what these residents will get for such a price.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/floating-city1.htm

Commercial districts aboard Freedom Ship

he commercial districts aboard Freedom Ship will provide business owners and professionals an unparalleled atmosphere in which to conduct business. Residents, crew, daily and overnight visitors will shop in an environment of architectural beauty and convenience. Although final drawings have not been released to the public, the commercial district will depict many of the same architectural features as a large commercial district in a major city, such as New York. There will be streets and blocks (or districts) within the commercial area of the ship. Each district will depict a different architectural theme; as one walks through the city one feels as though they are walking around the world.

The real estate sold in various districts will cater to different forms of commerce from professional offices and corporate world headquarters for major international corporations, to retail and open-air markets, to restaurant facilities. Real estate will be developed to facilitate specific forms of commerce indicative to various cultures from around the world. A truly global and international business community will flourish aboard, as goods from ashore are constantly being bought and sold. In addition, real estate is available for light manufacturing, industrial, and warehousing applications. Restaurants aboard the ship will provide fresh cuisine from around the world in atmospheres ranging from fast food to true fine dining at tables with unparalleled ocean views.

An elegant, world-class hotel and casino will also be operating aboard with a large convention center capable of hosting sporting and entertainment events and trade shows…a place truly worthy of hosting The World's Fair. People will have access to various history, technology, and art museums aboard as well as aquariums and nature preserves featuring exotic plants and animals from around the world.

The commercial district aboard Freedom Ship will sustain a population of 100,000 people comprised of 40,000 residents, 20,000 full time crew, 30,000 daily visitors, and 10,000 overnight guests to the hotel and casino.

FSI is committed to providing residents and other individuals with an environment capable of sustaining a vibrant commercial community. Your imagination is the limit when it comes to operating a business aboard. We desire to foster the entrepreneurial spirit within our residents and business owners and will strive to help them whenever possible. It is the people who own and visit the real estate aboard Freedom Ship that create a truly unique environment.

http://www.freedomship.com/freedomship/lifestyle/commerce/commerce.shtml

How Floating Cities Will Work

Millions of people take cruises each year; but when their cruise ends, they usually return to their homes on land. Wouldn't it be great if there were a cruise that never ended? That's the basic idea behind a new ocean vessel called Freedom Ship. Unlike a cruise ship, Freedom Ship will be a floating city with permanent residents. The ship will circle the globe every two years and offer everything available in your hometown, including a hospital, college and one of the world's largest shopping malls.

Freedom Ship will most likely become a home for the rich and famous. Suites start at $121,000 for a 300-square-foot room and go up to $11 million for a 5,100 square foot suite on the ship's exclusive 21st floor, where prices start at $3 million!

Photo courtesy Freedom Ship International
Freedom Ship will contain a city with 50,000 residents
and many amenities.

If you've ever wanted to live on the open sea and see the world, check this out. In this edition of How Stuff Will Work, we'll take a look at the early plans for the Freedom Ship, see how it compares to today's largest cruise ships and find out what life will be like on this floating metropolis!

Q: What will the cruise ships of the future be?

A: One proposed cruise ship of the future is called Freedom Ship. Freedom Ship will be a floating city with permanent residents. The ship will circle the globe every two years and offer everything available in your hometown, including a hospital, college and one of the world's largest shopping malls.



http://travel.howstuffworks.com/floating-city.htm

Remodelling ERP for an agile future

Oracle and SAP will embrace service oriented architecture in their next-generation products, but the companies are taking different approaches.

As enterprises demand greater agility in applications software to meet changing business needs, suppliers of enterprise software are increasingly embracing service oriented architecture and business process management. The result will be enterprise applications unlike any seen previously.

The two largest providers of enterprise applications are pursuing different paths to their next generation products, giving prospective users a real choice. The differences are stark. Oracle will continue to build through acquisition SAP will rely more on internal development and partnerships.

SAP promises to release its next-generation business application suite in 2007, Oracle in 2008. The two competitors will focus on master data management, analytics and repository architectures. SAP has stronger market momentum, better articulated value for next-generation applications, and a better partnership strategy than Oracle.

But Oracle's strong middleware platform and greater support of standards make it a better choice than SAP for firms that will rely on custom development as well as packaged products

Earlier this year, Oracle president Charles Phillips and key executives provided a progress report on Project Fusion, Oracle's next generation of enterprise applications.

Phillips' presentation demonstrated that Oracle has made progress in assembling a foundation for the new applications suite and provided more details on the functional rationalisation of Oracle's existing application suites (see box).

Oracle also reaffirmed its commitment to deliver its first set of Oracle Fusion applications in 2008, but the company still has much hard work to do to meet its schedule.

Oracle has also discussed how it will integrate its latest large acquisition, Siebel Systems, but has not yet described exactly how it will incorporate Siebel's customer relationship management functionality into Fusion applications.

Assuming that Oracle releases the first Fusion applications in 2008, significant adoption and reference implementations are unlikely before 2010.

This lag will be the result of the time needed for product hardening and large-scale roll-outs customary for any new generation of applications.

Peter Zencke, president of SAP's research and innovation division, revealed details about Business Process Platform, SAP's next-generation application platform (an evolution of Netweaver), and the technical plan for the 2007 release of MySAP Business Suite (MySAP 2007) at the company's analyst conference in December 2005.

SAP is positioning MySAP 2007 as its first fully service-enabled software release, using SAP's Enterprise Service Architecture. SAP published a timeline for MySAP 2007 three years ago and says it is on schedule.

In the meantime, SAP will build billing engines, electronic payments management, and other new applications separately under its xApps brand and eventually move those to Business Process Platform as well.

Assuming that SAP keeps its promise to ship MySAP 2007 on time, SAP is likely to need 12 to 24 months in the field before MySAP 2007 is demonstrably rock solid and enterprise-ready. This means that significant adoption and enterprise performance cases are likely in 2009.

Where to start with service oriented architecture

Forrester Research recommends businesses gearing up for service oriented architecture focus initially on data hubs, portals, service development, integrated analytics, business activity monitoring and Business Process Execution Language (BPel). These are the major technologies and techniques used in Oracle's Fusion Applications and MySAP 2007.

Select the "entry point" to SOA that is most important to your business, as opposed to trying to master all elements at once, said Forrester.

Build an initial application to start the learning. Each of these technologies has applicability to current applications and can be used to supplement them - for example, by building a composite application using existing applications.

It is important to acquire enough Oracle Fusion middleware and SAP Netweaver to start learning. If you are an Oracle applications user and do not have licences for Oracle Application Server and BPel Process Manager, get them.

These products are available at a low licence cost relative to competitive alternatives and contain the key new technologies on which Fusion applications will be based.

If you are an SAP applications user, start gaining experience by acquiring the SAP Web Application Server, Portal Server, and Exchange Infrastructure SAP has low-cost trial offers to reduce the financial risk of initial exploration.

Along with these options, you should take the opportunity to evaluate the other options available to you in plotting your course to SOA-based applications. You have "buy" and "build" alternatives.

IBM and Microsoft are the largest alternatives to Oracle and SAP, but many smaller providers also have products and offerings worthy of consideration if you decide that either custom development or a specialised industry package is your best course, said Forrester.

John Rymer is vice-president and research analyst at Forrester Research, specialising in application servers and platforms. This article is taken from his paper "Oracle Versus SAP In Enterprise Applications: Let The Battle Of Architectures Begin!"

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/10/03/218782/remodelling-erp-for-an-agile-future.htm

ERP Consulting Services

Consulting team is typically responsible for your initial ERP implementation and subsequent delivery of work to tailor the system beyond "go live". Typically such tailoring includes additional product training; creation of process triggers and workflow; specialist advice to improve how the ERP is used in the business; system optimization; and assistance writing reports, complex data extracts or implementing Business Intelligence.

The consulting team is also responsible for planning and jointly testing the implementation. This is a critical part of the project, and one that is often overlooked.

Consulting for a large ERP project involves three levels: systems architecture, business process consulting (primarily re-engineering) and technical consulting (primarily programming and tool configuration activity). A systems architect designs the overall dataflow for the enterprise including the future dataflow plan. A business consultant studies an organization's current business processes and matches them to the corresponding processes in the ERP system, thus 'configuring' the ERP system to the organization's needs. Technical consulting often involves programming. Most ERP vendors allow modification of their software to suit the business needs of their customer.

For most mid-sized companies, the cost of the implementation will range from around the list price of the ERP user licenses to up to twice this amount (depending on the level of customization required). Large companies, and especially those with multiple sites or countries, will often spend considerably more on the implementation than the cost of the user licenses -- three to five times more is not uncommon for a multi-site implementation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning

The future of ERP in the public sector

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Government Finance Review, published by Government Finance Officers Association on August 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1683 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Government institutions provide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies another big opportunity to do business as its market in the private sector matures. The huge size of the government market as well as its need for the advantages ERP system offers in private organizations are enough to boost the ERP market. Although government institutions are primarily service-delivery oriented, such elements of diverse industries as natural resources, manufacturing, utility, finance and retail also exist.

Citation Details
Title: The future of ERP in the public sector.(enterprise resource planning)
Author: Milford Sprecher
Publication: Government Finance Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 1999
Publisher: Government Finance Officers Association
Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Page: 49(2)

This article examines the evolution of enterprise solutions and likely trends in the future for the public sector.

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that transformed private-sector organizations now are gaining acceptance in the public sector. Although many system acquisitions in the public sector still tend to focus on one aspect of an ERP system (such as human resources, payroll, or accounting), some jurisdictions are beginning to look across all areas for their applications. Many governments look for a vendor that provides a full suite of products rather than just a single functional application. Because of the public sector's interest in more comprehensive enterprise systems, the major ERP vendors have developed specific public-sector functionality and have started planning...

http://www.amazon.com/future-sector-enterprise-resource-planning/dp/B000996BIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205727371&sr=1-1

ERP Configuration

Configuring an ERP system is largely a matter of balancing the way you want the system to work with the way the system lets you work. Begin by deciding which modules to install, then adjust the system using configuration tables to achieve the best possible fit in working with your company’s processes.

Modules - Most systems are modular simply for the flexibility of implementing some functions but not others. Some common modules, such as finance and accounting are adopted by nearly all companies implementing enterprise systems; others however such as human resource management are not needed by some companies and therefore not adopted. A service company for example will not likely need a module for manufacturing. Other times companies will not adopt a module because they already have their own proprietary system they believe to be superior. Generally speaking the greater number of modules selected, the greater the integration benefits, but also the increase in costs, risks and changes involved.

Configuration Tables – A configuration table enables a company to tailor a particular aspect of the system to the way it chooses to do business. For example, an organization can select the type of inventory accounting – FIFO or LIFO – it will employ or whether it wants to recognize revenue by geographical unit, product line, or distribution channel.

So what happens when the options the system allows just aren’t good enough? At this point a company has two choices, both of which are not ideal. It can re-write some of the enterprise system’s code, or it can continue to use an existing system and build interfaces between it and the new enterprise system. Both options will add time and cost to the implementation process. Additionally they can dilute the system’s integration benefits. The more customized the system becomes the less possible seamless communication becomes between suppliers and customers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning