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The careers service covers such a range of activities, each brushing against those of so many other agencies, that it would be hard to find any two officers following the same job specification. This leads to a situation where external commentators are seldom able to identify the specific contribution of the careers officer. Careers officers themselves have the same problem — they attempt a little bit of everything over an impossible range of duties, alternatively they act out a role in response to a particular local need. There is almost always such a volume of work that standards inevitably fall in an attempt to meet all needs.

There are many challenges to be addressed in today's world. Futurists have a process, methods and skills to submit to a positive advancement of these challenges, which is the purpose of this paper.

The approach is the author's synthesis and reflection of the more positive aspects of addressing the problems facing contemporary society.

The author concludes the visioning operation needs to be near the beginning of the future's practice with the focus on presencing “what does the future want from us in this matter?” How can people serve “it” instead of their ego? This will take maturity, being conscious, and having an attitude of gratitude and service to something bigger than ourselves.

When futurist practitioners practice the approach of foresight planning, the viewpoint examined here is that the vision exercise should be placed at the beginning of the process. The priority of the visioning activity should include an inquiry of what wants to emerge from the “evolutionary integral future.” This consideration widens the perspective to include the well‐being of the whole ecosystem, with the possible benefits of resilience, waking up, growing up, and showing up.

To investigate the application of multi‐attribute utility theory (MAUT) to aid in the decision‐making process when performing benchmarking gap analysis.

MAUT is selected to identify the overall best‐in‐class (BIC) performer for performance metrics involving inventory record accuracy within a public sector warehouse. A traditional benchmarking analysis is conducted on 14 industry warehouse participants to determine industry best practices for the four critical warehouse metrics of picking and inventory accuracy, storage speed, and order cycle time. Inventory and picking tolerances are also investigated in the study. A gap analysis is performed on the critical metrics and the absolute BIC is used to measure performance gaps for each metric. The gap analysis results are then compared to the MAUT utility values, and a sensitivity analysis is performed to compare the two methods.

The results indicate that an approach based on MAUT is advantageous in its ability to consider all critical metrics in a benchmarking study. The MAUT approach allows the assignment of priorities and analyzes the subjectivity for these decisions, and provides a framework to identify one performer as best across all critical metrics.

This research study uses the additive utility theory (AUT) which is only one of multiple decision theory techniques.

A new approach to determine the best performer in a benchmarking study.

Traditional benchmarking studies use gap analysis to identify a BIC performer over a single critical metric. This research integrates a mathematically driven decision analysis technique to determine the overall best performer over multiple critical metrics.

Focuses on the development and testing of software for reading and formatting digitized data and exporting it to rapid prototyping (RP). Research and development over two years has involved the implementation of special computer‐aided sculpting software that runs on UNIX workstations and which imports 3D polygonal mesh data in STL, OBJ and DXF formats, then re‐shapes it, much like the pushing and pulling on the surface of a rubber membrane. Specifying a wall thickness gives the model volume, prior to exporting an STL file. Describes how data has been imported form laser digitizing systems, had its shape changed and then how RP parts have been created from the model data.

Outlines the Metropolitan Police′s approach towards developing performance indicators to assist in gauging the quality of their service and the use of surveys as an indicator of public satisfaction. Details the ′PLUS′ Programme and its natural progression into Total Quality Management. Concludes with a list of demands likely to be made of management during the planning and implementation of a TQM programme.

The paper aims to review all the techniques for developing scenarios that have appeared in the literature, along with comments on their utility, strengths and weaknesses.

The study was carried out through an electronic search using internet search engines and online databases and indexes.

The paper finds eight categories of techniques that include a total of 23 variations used to develop scenarios. There are descriptions and evaluations for each.

Futurists can use this list to broaden their repertoire of scenario techniques.

Scenario development is the stock‐in‐trade of futures studies, but no catalog of the techniques used has yet been published. This list is the start at developing a consensus list of techniques that can be refined as the field matures.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for flight line maintenance (MX) activities in the US Air Force.

The BSC development process consists of three stages: groundwork, design beginning with structuring of organizational strategic elements through performance measure identification and construction of the BSC framework, and finalization for continuous improvement.

Based on logistics expert responses the authors validated a case BSC for flight line MX activities within an aircraft maintenance unit. Validation was done with respect to perspective measures including mission, influencing factors, management, and information enhancement.

BSC development through identification of mission critical performance measures should improve performance of aircraft scheduling and achievement of mission objectives. Guidelines were used to develop a case validated by Air Force logistics personnel.

Last month saw two major developments for the future of the Careers Service. An all‐party Expenditure Committee published their views on the Youth Employment Service and almost simultaneously Mr Maurice Macmillan, Secretary of State for Employment, presented his Employment and Training Bill to Parliament for its second reading.