Search results

The Taylorisation of the Production area over the last decades has brought mass manufacturing coupled with a dramatic decrease of unit costs, thus making most goods cheaper and, therefore, generally affordable. At the same time, however, a most costly and valuable resource, namely the employee's personal capacity, most notably his problem‐solving ability, has become greatly underutilized.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a low cost fully automatic computer controlled oxy‐fuel cutting system for tubular members. Operation of the system should be easy even for unskilled technicians.

The robot consists of one revolute axis and two linear axes. As the pipe rotates, two cutting torches move linearly at both ends of the pipe to complete the cutting process in one rotation. Both torch's cutting paths are calculated in a computer offline. Tool paths are then loaded in a micro control unit for each cutting. When the pipe is attached to the system, the whole cutting process can be completed automatically. The mathematical method for calculation of the geometry of intersecting cylinders is also explained in this paper.

The automation of oxy‐fuel cutting process brings enhancement in the final product quality, considerable increase of repeatability, reduction of rework and reduction of the cutting time.

The use of this automated flame cutting system proved to be extremely viable. Although, there are commercial devices for cutting tubular members, the product shown here is completely different than the previous systems. This device can be called a CNC system due to its capability of being completely programmable and automatically carrying through all cutting activities. This is the first system cutting both sides of pipe simultaneously to reduce cutting time.

Despite preventive efforts from some companies to offer some sport and physical activity (SPA) to their employees, French participation rates remain very low, which limit impacts in terms of health and economic benefits. The aim of this study was to better understand the factors influencing SPA participation in the workplace.

A cross-sectional study was conducted based on an electronic questionnaire survey disseminated to 24 companies based in France that offered SPA to their employees. An independent sample t-test was conducted to explore the differences between the most common facilitating and constraining factors, in relation to “being a sporty person” self-perception, leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) level and demographic information. Predictors of SPA in the workplace were determined using a binomial logistic regression.

A total of 1,318 employees completed the survey, of which 60% were women, mostly highly educated and white collar. “Being a sporty person,” self-perception has been a predictor of SPA participation in the workplace.

More multicomponent work-based interventions, including incidental physical activity, might be necessary to increase participation and overcome time constraint.

Although SPA participation in the workplace is considered to promote numerous positive organizational and individual consequences, this is the first study to assess the associations between facilitating and constraining factors of SPA participation in the workplace setting and physical self-perception.