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Describes the process used by the Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast in 1992 to achieve high quality care (seamless service), motivate staff to deliver and measure performance. Aims of the project included focusing the organization on the customer, improving teamwork and motivation. Opinions of staff, patients and GPs were examined and key issues for improvements were identified. Interface from every single interaction between Mater and customers was measured, taking into account customer perception of service, and staff perceptions of service. Data collection methods included taped interviews, video vox pops and questionnaires. Concludes that a mismatch was found between service offered and service required. Workshops launched ongoing activities and a small steering group designed a series of management forums to gain future support.

Describes the process used by the Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast in 1992‐1994 to achieve high quality care (Seamless Service), motivate staff to deliver and measure performance. Aims of the project include focusing the organization on the customer, improving teamwork and motivation at all levels. After comprehensive data collection from GPs, patients and staff management forums developed a full TQM strategy to gain support and maintain momentum including innovative staff events (every staff member was given the opportunity to attend) where multilevel, multidisciplinary workshops enabled staff to design customer care standards, develop teams and lead customer‐driven change.

There are many features which have been regarded as having a critical role in supporting service quality. The purpose of this research is to identify which management practices support service quality.

A questionnaire survey of medium and large‐sized mass and technological services in the UK was conducted.

It was found that service quality and the management practices were all significantly associated in mass services, but this was not the case in technological services.

Further research should consider those management features which were found to be non‐contributory to service quality in technological services.

This research has clarified the ranking of the management practices in terms of the contribution they have made to support service quality, and also found the differences between the two types of services.

There are many features that have been regarded as having a critical role in supporting service quality. The purpose of this article is to identify those features that are fundamental in supporting service quality.

A literature review was conducted covering total quality management (TQM), internal marketing, and the service quality literature, especially the study of service quality gaps. All of these are concerned with the search for service excellence.

From a comparative study of these three areas of the literature, it was found that there are seven common features: recruitment and selection, training, teamwork, empowerment, performance appraisals and reward, communication, and culture of the organisation. Each of them is argued to be critical for the management of service quality.

Although there are other factors that can influence service quality, the identification of fundamental features provides managers and academics with a valuable framework with which to start in pursuit of service quality across a variety of service businesses.

Although management of service quality has been regarded as notoriously difficult due to the characteristics of services, by identifying fundamental features supporting service quality, this article provides focal points for the management of service quality.

Previously, a questionnaire survey was conducted and it was found that some management practices were more influential to service quality than others. The purpose of this paper is to identify in more detail the reasons behind the survey findings.

Eighteen in‐depth interviews into a range of management practices which support service quality were conducted.

It was found that there were difficulties in implementing some of the management practices due to the type of staff employed and to the nature of tasks undertaken.

As the purpose of this research is to facilitate interpretation of the quantitative data, the investigation did not go in detail beyond mass and technological services. Hence, individual organisational characteristics, individual circumstances, or details of the service offered to customers are not considered beyond the category of either mass or technological services.

The paper identifies that the actual contribution from different management practices to service quality varied, and explains the reasons behind the diverse contributions in each type of service business.

This study explored how intermittent work capacity (IWC) presents in workplaces in order to advance conceptual understanding of this phenomenon and establish a set of initial principles to assist in its management.

The study followed a grounded theory approach in a multi-stage data collection process. In total, 25 employers representing diverse employment sectors were recruited with a goal of exploring their experiences with IWC. The first phase of the study comprised individual interviews with all employers. A subset of these employers later participated in two focus groups organized by company size. Finally, in-depth case studies were conducted with two information rich organizations to understand their approaches to managing IWC. Analysis methods consistent with grounded theory were used.

Although employers have a variety of positive motivations for supporting employees with IWC, they are challenged by the uncertainty arising from the unpredictable work patterns associated with IWC. Five distinct expressions of uncertainty were identified. Negotiation of this uncertainty involves attention to a range of factors, including intrapersonal factors, workplace relations and morale, specific job demands, communication processes, and structural and organizational factors.

The findings of this study advance understanding of the expression of IWC, and factors that influence its impact. This paper presents a series of workplace strategies that both enable the well-being and capabilities of employees who experience IWC, and ensure productive and diverse workplaces.

The findings of this study advance understanding of the expression of IWC, and factors that influence its impact. This paper presents a series of workplace strategies that both enable the well-being and capabilities of employees who experience IWC, and ensure productive and diverse workplaces.

The purpose of this research was to conduct an environmental scan describing publicly available resources focussed on working with an episodic disability and providing information and advice about communication and accommodation to support working people living with episodic disabilities.

The authors conducted an environmental scan of English language, freely available, online resources relevant to episodic disabilities in the workplace. The authors used Google™ to conduct structured keyword searches. Resources were reviewed and data extracted about episodic health condition(s) addressed, intended audience(s), resource format and content about health, legal rights, workplace issues, and accommodation and communication needs.

Searches yielded 5,300 links to websites which was supplemented by 101 links identified by partners. Screening for relevance found 210 resources for which data were extracted. Of them, 158 addressed specific episodic disabilities or episodic disabilities generally. Most resources provided useful information addressing communication and accommodation of episodic disability. However, information specific to the episodic nature of disability was not consistently available. The resources generally lacked interactivity which could potentially limit users in applying the information to their personal circumstances.

The findings suggest there are good resources to help workers and managers/supervisors navigate accommodations for episodic disabilities. Research should aim to improve the interactivity of information to personalize resources to worker and workplace needs, as well as formally evaluate resources and their outcomes. Practitioners may wish to recommend resources that specifically address workplace challenges for their clients.

The authors believe this is one of few studies that examined publicly available resources relevant to working with episodic disabilities.

An engine test rig has been designed and built for evaluation of monolithic ceramic components and metal components protected by ceramic shields or coatings for operation in the high temperature environment of the combustion gases of an uncooled diesel engine. Tests on the first monolithic ceramic components have shown thermal shock capability to be more critical than resistance to tensile bending, or vibration induced stresses. Configuration design can reduce the effects of the latter more readily than it can deal with thermal shock.

In the development of engine components a number of special techniques are used to combat the hostile operating environment which usually includes high and cyclic forces, high and cyclic temperatures, sliding and often corrosion and/or erosion. Examples of the use of these techniques, namely the development of special materials for substrate and surface, of mathematical modelling verified by telemetry, and of special machining, to solve the problems of the operating environment, are given in respect of piston rings, cylinder liners, bearings, camshafts and valve seat inserts. It is noted that of these techniques the development of special surface and substrate materials provides the most assistance. The application of materials technology to surface and substrate is illustrated with respect to ceramics, including silicon nitride, silicon carbide, zirconia and alumina. Applications under development include insulation, improvement of wear resistance, reduction of mass, increase of operating temperature and the reinforcement of metals, for example reinforcement of aluminium alloys using alumina fibres incorporated by squeeze casting. The several means open to improve the properties of gravity cast aluminium silicon alloys are reviewed and the improvement of properties obtained by squeeze casting without reinforcement are illustrated. The further enhancement of these properties by the design of an appropriate fibre reinforcement system, incorporated by squeeze casting, is then described. Its application to the reinforcement of a combustion bowl subject to high thermal stress is discussed and the performance of the resulting piston in relation to unreinforced pistons is described. In conclusion the market, product and process aspects of the development are correlated to demonstrate its overall value and to identify further applications.

The Professors of the Imperial College of Science and Technology have addressed to Lord Crewe, the Chairman of the Governors of the College, a memorial urging the necessity of the encouragement of science and of research. In commenting upon this document the Journal of Chemical Technology observes that “a satisfactory feature of the memorial is the recognition on the part of the signatories that scientific education should be on broad lines.” “We have always contended that an indispensable preliminary to a professional career should be a thoroughly sound general education. Whether or not the study of science is the best kind of study may be a debatable point, but it is certain that exclusive attention to science is thoroughly bad. A man's mind is narrow when he is unable to recognise the importance of things outside his own particular sphere of action, and it is precisely this state of mind that the exclusive study of science tends to produce. It is, therefore, the more necessary, in seeking to secure greater attention to scientific studies in the reform of our educational system, to take care that nothing be done which may curtail the period required for the acquisition of general knowledge. It is far better to delay than to hasten specialisation. A step in the right direction has been made when scientific men themselves state that they do not believe that “an education which includes good teaching of science need be a narrow education,” but we wish that this opinion had been positively rather than negatively expressed. The memorial refers to the “lethargy, misconception, and ignorance” of the public regarding national education. It is pertinent here to remark that when anything goes wrong and no particular individual or individuals can be held to be, or will acknowledge themselves to be, responsible, the “public” is blamed; the public being everybody with the exception of the denunciator and his friends. In the present instance the fault is not, even for the greater part, with the people. They are, naturally enough, interested in education only in so far as it is expressed in terms of school and college accounts and of wage‐earning capacity. Of the bearing that improvement in education and the advancement of physical science has on the welfare of the community the average man knows little and cares less. He has to be educated in the value of education. He is not, and probably never will be, interested in education as an abstract good. What interest he has in it is purely utilitarian. If he sees that the knowledge which he himself does not possess carries with it but doubtful prospects for the future, poor remuneration in the present and a social position little better than his own, he is unlikely to be impressed with the value of education. The fact is that there is a lamentable want of opportunity for the intellectual classes in this country and until this state of things is remedied the public will continue to display—and with every justification — “lethargy, misconception, and ignorance” in respect to national education.