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The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of NHS England (NHSE) and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) commissioners about the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway.

A thematic analysis of four semi-structured interviews with NHSE and HMPPS commissioners is conducted.

Commissioners offered a cautious but confident assessment of the potential effectiveness of the OPD pathway, drawing particular attention to its potential to enhance the confidence and competency of staff, offer better value for money and provide enhanced progression routes for offenders with personality disorders. Additionally, commissioners identified a number of potential risks for the pathway including wider system flux, funding availability, multi-agency working, offender engagement and the need to evidence effectiveness.

The analysis is based on a small number of interviews. However, there are only a limited number of commissioners involved with the OPD pathway.

While the stronger focus on progression in the OPD pathway is a welcome departure from a narrow focus on high security Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) services, the foundations of the OPD pathway ultimately lie with the DSPD programme and similar challenges are likely to follow. The system within which the pathway operates is subject to a great deal of flux and this inevitably poses significant challenges for pathway services, staff and offenders, as well as for those of us charged with its evaluation.

There has been limited empirical work with commissioners in the mental health field. The paper offers a unique insight into the perspectives of those responsible for commissioning the OPD pathway.

To provide fashion catalog distributors with an approach to reduce costs from returns processing by considering an array of characteristics related to demand, lead‐time, and inventory level.

Apparel return rates from catalog sales are frequently 10‐30 percent of shipped orders. Despite the magnitude of returns processing, return operations are characterized by high backlogs, inefficiency, and excess material handling. Typical catalog clothing returns processing considers the condition of the returned item, fashion obsolescence, and back‐order status to make disposition decisions. In the proposed algorithm, added considerations to select a disposition option for a return include inventory level, demand pattern, cost and lead‐time factors.

The current and proposed algorithms are tested using disguised data from a fashion catalog sales company. It is shown that the proposed algorithm fills back‐orders more quickly, while reducing the returns‐processing cost and time by over 20 percent.

By combining the tasks, open packaging, credit customer, and evaluate item characteristics including backorder status at the first workstation, the training for staff at the first workstation is increased.

Fashion catalog distributors should examine their returns‐processing system for opportunities to reduce returns‐processing time and costs by consolidating and eliminating tasks and by considering inventory level, demand pattern, cost, and lead‐time when selecting a disposition option for a return. The proposed algorithm can be integrated into the information technology system at the fashion catalog distributor.

This paper addresses how to reduce inefficiency and excess material handling in returns processing at a fashion catalog distributor.

The Republic of South Africa is located on the southern most part of Africa and stretches latitudinally from 22° to 35° South and longitudinally from 17° to 33° East. Its surface area is 1,219,090km². It has a population exceeding 44 million and 11 official languages namely English, Afrikaans, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga (Burger, 2004). Since becoming a democracy in 1994 it has embarked on an ambitious process of political, economic, social and legal reforms to improve the quality of life of the people of South Africa.