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The authors propose to introduce industrial visual equipment to automate visual inspection systems. In addition to a conventional TV camera system, the recent development of solid‐state image‐sensor is expected to be fruitful. This paper describes up to date visual equipment and its usage and discusses some of the problems.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

Compares the processes for decision making during the acquisition of equipment and materials among firms in the USA, Sweden, France and Southeast Asia. Reports the findings from a detailed questionnaire in which 236 firms in the four‐country area participated. The companies provided data on buying centre influences and supplier search criteria with half reporting for capital production equipment acquisition and the other half for key production materials. It was found that buying decisions in Sweden have the highest team effort while the USA has the least, even though the American and Swedish firms had very similar demographics. Sweden depended on technical staff, both their own and suppliers′, much more than the other countries. There was no consistent pattern for purchasing department involvement. Except for the USA capital equipment buying centres were much more inclusive than materials buying centres.

Overview All organisations are, in one sense or another, involved in operations; an activity implying transformation or transfer. The major portion of the body of knowledge concerning operations relates to production in manufacturing industry but, increasingly, similar problems are to be found confronting managers in service industry. It is only in the last decade or so that new technology, involving, in particular, the computer, has encouraged an integrated view to be taken of the total business. This has led to greater recognition being given to the strategic potential of the operations function. In order to provide greater insight into operations a number of classifications have been proposed. One of these, which places operations into categories termed factory, job shop, mass service and professional service, is examined. The elements of operations management are introduced under the headings of product, plant, process, procedures and people.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

Reports on the work of the National Physical Laboratory in evaluating commercial biometric authentification systems.

Reviews the results of the first round of testing, completed in 2000, and describes the new equipment to be used in the second round.

Various biometric features are being used for the unique identification of individual people, but so far the iris seems to be the most stable and is most successfully encoded for rapid and accurate recognition. Many biometric systems have an adjustable threshold controlling the trade‐off between security and user‐friendliness. By combining biometric features, for example, the geometry and texture of the face, the accuracy may be improved.

Reports on the standardization of test procedures for evaluating biometric devices, and the availability of objective evaluation results for different types of equipment.

The purpose of this paper is to make the test of flexible printed circuit (FPC) board be more efficient and accurate.

This paper aims to segment an image through applying the technology of computer pattern recognition.

The results indicate that the automatic detection system of FPC board’s defect has high efficiency and accuracy in accordance with the requirements of detection.

This paper managed image segmentation through applying the technology of computer pattern recognition.

The purpose of this paper is introducing the image processing technology used for fabric analysis, which has the advantages of objective, digital and quick response.

This paper briefly describes the key process and module of some typical automatic recognition systems for fabric analysis presented by previous researchers; the related methods and algorithms used for the texture and pattern identification are also introduced.

Compared with the traditional subjective method, the image processing technology method has been proved to be rapid, accurate and reliable for quality control.

The future trends and limitations in the field of weave pattern recognition for woven fabrics have been summarized at the end of this paper.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides: