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Small companies are facing intense pressure to transform their processes in order to improve the agility of their operations. With the assistance of the Small Business Development Center for Enterprise Excellence, affiliated to the University of Texas at Arlington, small manufacturers are successfully transforming their operations by benchmarking and improving the agility of their processes. During the last six years of this center’s operation, a particular sequence of strategies labeled the cycle of success has proven to be very successful for companies attempting an agile transformation through benchmarking. The cycle of success, which includes the strategies of networking, benchmarking, mentoring and continuous improvement, is presented along with case studies of four companies which have utilized it effectively. In each case study, a brief description of how the company used the cycle of success and the results of their efforts are provided.

FEM analysis has been increasingly employed to simulate sheetmetal forming processes for industrial application purposes. From the simulation results, finite element analysts are able to predict the occurrences of splits and wrinkles therefore they can make recommendations of changes to the die design and/or to the part design to avoid possible stamping failures. The number of real die tryouts can be reduced, thus, the design cycle is shortened and manufacturing costs lowered. In the early times, application analysts were mostly concentrated on simulation of the stamping process itself starting from simple models, later running full size 3D models with large number of elements.

The investment of £108,000 in a novel robot application at the Prestwick site of British Aerospace is on target for a two‐year payback. Anna Kochan reports.

Courses of the type Mr Longden describes are likely to increase rapidly in number under the forthcoming legislation on Industrial Training — witness Sir Herbert Andrew's remarks to the BACIE annual conference (see p510). Mr Longden is Head of the Department of Engineering at Mid‐Warwickshire College of Further Education

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a dialogical approach, associated with the Russian literary critic and philosopher Bakhtin, in understanding the portrayal of managerial identity in management narratives. In particular, it applies these ideas critically to understand how managers' identities are partly shaped by the dominant discourse or idea about what a manager should “be.”

The paper draws on three written narratives of managers. It applies a dialogical approach to consider how they position themselves interactionally in the narratives in such a way as to highlight a managerial identity based on being “enterprising” and “for change,” while simultaneously voicing alternative identities negatively. The use of the written narratives of managers and the application of a dialogical approach is an important contribution to the literature.

The findings suggest that managers, when reflecting on organizational events through narrative, assume a managerial identity that reflects current dominant discourse about what a manager should “be.” In doing so they reject other possible discourses that offer alternatives, not only to managerial “being,” but also to what management and organizations might reflect and represent. The paper also, however, recognizes that some managers reject this identity and its implications for organizational activity.

The paper suggests that managerial identity is partly a product of a dominant discursive/ideological formation rather than individual choice. Although managers may reject this interpellation creating an alternative is constrained by the regime of truth that prevails about what management is at any given time. The approach might be considered overly deterministic in its view of managerial identity.

The paper extends the understanding of managerial identity and how it is portrayed through narrative by using a dialogical approach to interpretation.

This article discusses the basics of computer‐room air conditioning, an important component of the special environment required by mainframe computers and many mini‐computers as well. Computer room air conditioners differ in some significant ways from “comfort” air‐conditioners, which are designed for the comfort of people rather than machines. These differences make it less than ideal to use air conditioning systems designed for human comfort for computer cooling. The author describes several different types of air‐conditioners, considerations related to the construction of a computer room, and factors that determine air‐conditioning requirements.

THIS YEAR — that seemed like a New Year (as indeed it was) not so long ago is already a third gone. We can wonder at its speed of passing, and wonder, too, what it will have in store for us for the rest of the time before us.

Peru is among several underdeveloped countries that is developing its industries at such a rate as to lead to a serious shortage of skill craftsmen and technicians. Though in the past its skilled fine metalwork, pottery and textiles were among the best in the world — today's industrial situation demands totally different skills. Due to lack of training facilities and of experienced personnel to man them, the working population has been unable to keep pace with the rate of industrial development. To counter this acute shortage the Peruvians have established a National Apprenticeship and Industrial Labour Service — SENATI — which is described in detail below.