Application of the PERT scheduling technique to a nursery operation

1979 Spring.Covers not scanned.Includes bibliographical references.Improved management techniques are needed by the nursery industry as methods of control and scheduling have failed to keep pace with rapid growth. PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) is a management system which could have useful application to the nursery industry. The PERT system was developed by the United States Navy to coordinate the Polaris submarine program, and is based on a critical path network which allows the user to see important interrelationships. Analysis of these interrelationships allows for the improved coordination, control, and scheduling of a project. The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of applying PERT to nursery production and using the PERT concept in a nursery management classroom. A broad, general network of production activities was developed based on information provided by 13 nurseries. Bailey Nurseries, Inc. of St. Paul, Minnesota, supplied the estimated time durations for each activity in the network. This study deals with three species: Lonicera sp., Cotoneaster sp., and Fraxinus pennsylvanica. Time durations were assigned to each activity necessary in the production of that particular species; each activity was assigned either a date that activity would begin or a date it would be completed. This information was prepared for the computer and reports were generated. The reports which are derived from using the PERT system allow the user to see an overview of the entire operation. Therefore, the effect management's decisions have on interrelated activities can be closely observed and monitored. Though the scope of this study is general, it would appear that the logic and organization necessary in the development of PERT as a nursery management system could greatly benefit the nursery industry and be useful in teaching nursery principles of business and technology

Making SharePoint^®Chemically Aware™

Abstract Background The use of SharePoint® collaboration software for content management has become a critical part of today's drug discovery process. SharePoint 2010 software has laid a foundation which enables researchers to collaborate and search on various contents. The amount of data generated during a transition of a single compound from preclinical discovery to commercialization can easily range in terabytes, thus there is a greater demand of a chemically aware search algorithm that supplements SharePoint which enables researchers to query for information in a more intuitive and effective way. Thus by supplementing SharePoint with Chemically Aware™ features provides a great value to the pharmaceutical and biotech companies and makes drug discovery more efficient. Using several tools we have integrated SharePoint with chemical, compound, and reaction databases, thereby improving the traditional search engine capability and enhancing the user experience. Results This paper describes the implementation of a Chemically Aware™ system to supplement SharePoint. A Chemically Aware SharePoint (CASP) allows users to tag documents by drawing a structure and associating it with the related content. It also allows the user to search SharePoint software content and internal/external databases by carrying out substructure, similarity, SMILES, and IUPAC name searches. Building on traditional search, CASP takes SharePoint one step further by providing a intuitive GUI to the researchers to base their search on their knowledge of chemistry than textual search. CASP also provides a way to integrate with other systems, for example a researcher can perform a sub-structure search on pdf documents with embedded molecular entities. Conclusion A Chemically Aware™ system supplementing SharePoint is a step towards making drug discovery process more efficient and also helps researchers to search for information in a more intuitive way. It also helps the researchers to find information which was once difficult to find by allowing one to tag documents with molecular entities and integrating with image recognition software to find information from pdf documents.</p