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The purpose of this study is to investigate the supply and productivity improvements derived from implementing manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) practices.

The approach is a case study in a Greek aerospace company, using Hellenic Aerospace Industry, SA (HAI). The closed loop business operating system, MRP II is recognized as being an effective management system that has an excellent planning and scheduling capability, which can offer an increase in customer service, significant gains in productivity, higher inventory turns and reduction in material cost.

The implementation has included setting clear goals, following a formal implementation plan, using a project steering committee and project teams. However, some aspects such as limitations by Greek legislation, constraints in hardware, incomplete education and training of the personnel and the BOM data accuracy are discussed in the context of HAI Productivity and supply issues resulting from the implementation process are reviewed.

Although, the use of the MRP II system in industrial developed countries is extensive, in Greece it is still in its infancy.

This study contributes to the literature on MRP II in the Greek aerospace industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences that people with HIV faced as they navigated through the intricate processes of trying to access adoption services in the south of England. It proposes the need to pay more attention to people living with HIV (PLWHIV) able to adopt children. The study aims to develop an increased focus on PLWHIV able to adopt.

The paper is an exploratory study using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach. Open-ended interviews were conducted with seven participants including individuals and couples. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using IPA’s cross-case and ideographic analysis.

The paper provides empirical insights about the challenges that PLWHIV experienced with social workers. Positive experiences were in the minority. Lack of information, inadequate support, stigma and discrimination, cultural insensitivity and disempowerment were frequently reported. The paper suggests that greater understanding and better education for social workers would improve access to adoption by people with HIV.

Given the chosen approach and small sample size, results may not be generalisable.

This study increases knowledge, promotes positive attitudes and improved support for PLWHIV who are stable and able to offer permanency to adoptive children.

This paper provides new ideas in an area that is scarcely researched. It identifies the need to undertake further studies to understand how social workers assess PLWHIV and what can be done to provide adequate support.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

In his article ‘Regional strategies of service sector multinationals’, Rugman (2003) came to the conclusion that most MNEs in service industries are home region-based, i.e., they have more than 50% of their sales in the home region. In a more recent article, Rugman and Verbeke (2004) found that the vast majority of MNEs included in the Fortune 500, are home-region based. That was a surprising result, as the increasing economic interdependence among nations, the presence of substantial demand for high knowledge intensive goods and services throughout the triad of North America, the European Union and Asia, and the presence of large MNEs in each of the triad regions, all suggest that fierce rivalry for market share would take place throughout the triad. A transaction-cost economics explanation offered by Rugman and Verbeke (2005a) was that the required, location-specific linking investments are far more substantial when firms establish activities outside their home region than inside the home region. Linking investments are critical to permit the profitable deployment of the MNE's non-location bound FSAs across borders. Linking investments are necessary to develop or access location-bound FSAs in host countries (thus permitting national responsiveness), and sometimes to create new, recombined bundles of non-location bound FSAs (permitting increased economies of scale, scope or exploitation of national differences).

NOW here is Mr. Leslie Huckfield speaking at the annual conference of the British Council of Productivity Associations. He (but of course!) is Parliamentary Under‐Secretary of State at the Department of Industry. He said “The Budget recognises the need to increase incentives at all levels in industry and particularly to improve the position of skilled workers and middle managers.”

This monograph looks at the growing use of the outdoors for management development on both sides of the Atlantic. The author suggests the term “Outdoor Development” to describe a systematic use of outdoor activities which incorporate process reviews and the application of experiential learning methods.

BOOKS and Libraries for the Blind form the subject of a paper by Dr. Robert C. Moon in the May Library Journal. The writer is the son of William Moon, the inventor of the system of embossed writing bearing his name. He describes the systems of writing for the blind in use, and the various agencies for circulating literature. After examining the existing departments for the blind in Public Libraries, he comes to the conclusion that “all the libraries need more books, and if they are to reach and teach the adult blind they must have a fair proportion of them in the Moon type. All Public Libraries should possess a few works printed in the various types, care being taken to have a good supply of those embossed in the special type which is taught in the schools for the blind of the immediate locality, in order that the pupils in vacation time, and the graduates of the schools may be provided with reading matter, but the infirm and aged blind will be found in almost all communities, and for them books printed in the Moon type are indispensable. Alice S. Tyler describes the League of Library Commissions. “The success of the experiment in co‐operation which was inaugurated in 1901 by the library commissions of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, whereby printed matter of common interest and equal necessity and value to these commissions was issued jointly, led to the suggestion that a national organization might more economically carry forward these and other lines of co‐operative work, leaving to the overcrowded state commission workers more time and money for the peculiar problems of each state.” This suggestion was brought up at the St. Louis conference, and resulted in an organization being formed under the title of the League of Library Commissions, consisting of one representative from each of the commissions included. The particular directions in which the League will promote co‐operative work are: carefully prepared lists of books for first purchase for small libraries; lists of new books which, upon examination, had been found desirable ; handbook of suggestions and direction as to the organization and management of small libraries; printed statement regarding the aims and methods of state library commissions, with comparison of their laws; definite help and suggestions on the subject of library buildings, especially floor‐plans arranged for economic administration, growing out of the experience of the library commissions in connection with the erection of Carnegie and other library buildings within the last few years; united effort to bring to the attention of book publishers the urgent need of good, durable binding, adequate indexing, &c.

EVERY so often a new “in” word comes into fashion and everybody seems to use it whether it fits or not. Words like “situation”, “productivity” and “management”. Words like “y'know” or “Oh yeah?”. Usually they are started by comedians or pop singers. For a while they drive us mad. Then, gratefully, they fall into disuetude. They are quickly forgotten.

This paper describes the change of dominance, in the provision of engineering education and training, from that of major large scale industry to that of the UK public sector. Using aerospace engineering as an example, it emphasises the need for education to demonstrate more openly and effectively its ability to provide world class support for UK industry. This industry is now dominated by small and medium enterprises and in aerospace, as well as other high technological areas, it is facing increasingly severe competition from overseas. Ways of helping the further and higher education institutions to achieve such support is described by their initiation of the well established Association of Colleges of Aerospace Technology (ACAT) and the relatively new Association of Aerospace Universities (AAU). These bodies comprise mainly aerospace engineering teaching staff but there are some members from industry. Their aims are to continually improve the image, effectiveness and relevance of aerospace education. Details of ACAT and AAU are given in the appendices together with ideas for collaboration with Internet initiatives of Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology (MCB University Press Ltd) and the Aerospace Academic Network (AAN).