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Achieving breakthrough improvements and ongoing organisational learning in complex and dynamic situations requires systematic management processes for logical, customer‐driven and team‐based planning and implementation, such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Policy Deployment (PD). QFD is a rigorous approach to customer research, market positioning and strategic planning, whereas PD provides a disciplined approach to policy deployment and progress control. The combined approach was recently used for planning industry research and development in the Australian beef industry.

This paper outlines the use of quality function deployment (QFD) for strategic planning. QFD provides a comprehensive process for defining the issues facing an organisation in terms of customer and stakeholder outcomes, natural segments and key strategic opportunities.

An explanation and overview of the two core stages of strategic planning using QFD are followed by three case examples.

Strategic QFD avoids complex matrix analysis and instead moves directly to concept generation and evaluation. One of the main benefits of strategic QFD is the level of commitment and support for the resulting strategy throughout the organisation. This paper also shows how strategic QFD can be used to identify and optimise internal capabilities and to find and address specific customer opportunities.

Strategic planners will find that QFD‐based philosophy and methods are useful tools for the creation of a customer‐driven strategy.

This paper provides insight for practitioners and academics into how strategic QFD systematically translates vision into action, targeting opportunities and creating innovative strategies that are stable even in fast‐changing environments.

This paper aims to describe a partnership visual arts project between Richmond Fellowship (a national mental health charity) and the Bluecoat arts centre in Liverpool involving participants with mental health problems.

The paper details the development of the project since September 2010 and, most importantly, the artistic development of the individuals who are still taking part and the improvements in their mental health and wellbeing. It also describes the development of the group in becoming an independent organisation.

Evaluation was undertaken at regular intervals through wellbeing questionnaires, one‐to‐one interviews and observation, which led to the following findings: with support, individuals with mental health problems experience significant benefit in engaging with the arts, to their mental health, their personal development and development as artists. Given time, they require less support and are willing to take on responsibilities, which has enabled them to become an independent organisation.

This paper makes the case for the effectiveness of partnership working between mental health and arts organisations to improve mental health and social inclusion.

The paper adds to the body of evidence concerning the use of arts in recovery and of use to mental health organisations who are interested in using the arts in the process of support.

The purpose of this study is to extend a novel numerical method proposed by the first author, known as the dual mesh control domain method (DMCDM), for the solution of linear differential equations to the solution of nonlinear heat transfer and like problems in one and two dimensions.

In the DMCDM, a mesh of finite elements is used for the approximation of the variables and another mesh of control domains for the satisfaction of the governing equation. Both meshes fully cover the domain but the nodes of the finite element mesh are inside the mesh of control domains. The salient feature of the DMCDM is that the concept of duality (i.e. cause and effect) is used to impose boundary conditions. The method possesses some desirable attributes of the finite element method (FEM) and the finite volume method (FVM).

Numerical results show that he DMCDM is more accurate than the FVM for the same meshes used. Also, the DMCDM does not require the use of any ad hoc approaches that are routinely used in the FVM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the idea presented in this work is original and novel that exploits the best features of the best competing methods (FEM and FVM). The concept of duality is used to apply gradient and mixed boundary conditions that FVM and its variant do not.

Information as a resource in newspaper journalism is a widely‐discussed issue, for which surveys have revealed a range of findings and from which conclusions can be drawn. However, newspaper journalists exhibit a mercurial approach to formal information sources and often acknowledge their value even less substantially. Consequently, the value of newspaper articles as information sources in their own right has often been questioned and studies reveal how use of language can distort not only meaning but also interpretation.

It is to be noted that there is prevalent widespread opposition, specially by the left parties towards FDI in retail trade in India. May be in the early 1990s employing safeguards to protect domestic retailers was the need of the day. Almost more than one and a half decades down the line there is a need for Foreign Direct Investment in retail trade. It is a flawed argument that the Wal‐Marts’, Tescos’ and Asdas’ will lead to the winding up of the small scale domestic retailers. Instead it is going to provide a stiff competition to the Pantaloons’ and the Westsides’. This paper starts by stressing the need of FDI in India. It uses the argument that FDI is allowed in multiple sectors and the effects have been quite good without harming the domestic economy tries to stress on the fact that FDI in retail sector must be allowed.