The impact of maintenance practices on operational and business performance

Maintenance and plant engineering are considered to be important parts of the strategy underlying successful manufacturing. The aim of this paper is to investigate the deployment level of good practice in these areas compared to other manufacturing processes and what impact they have on an organisation’s performance. It draws empirical results out of the data provided from a large-scale benchmarking study carried out in a specific region of the UK and tests part of these with case research. The findings are discussed, highlighting any variations between company size, sector and world-class status and the significance of any correlation found between practice and performanc

Business excellence in the public sector - A comparison of two sub-groups with the "private" service sector

Over the past decade, the public sector in the UK has made great effort in adopting business excellence thinking. To what extent have such practices taken root and what has been their impact? Presents some of the key results from a recent empirical study of 119 public sector organisations in North-East England. They show considerable strengths in some of the related HR practices, leadership issues, service delivery and quality matters. Equally, many of them face major challenges in adopting appropriate performance measurement systems, in eliminating waste and reducing costs, and in being innovative in service design

Manufacturing management in the North East of England Are we adopting the best practice and achieving world-class performance? : findings from 450 organisations

Includes bibliographical referencesAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:m03/31668 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Service operations in the North East of England Are we adopting the best practice and achieving world-class performance? : findings from 450 organisations

Includes bibliographical referencesAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:m03/31669 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Transmission of Bulk Power from DC-Based Offshore Wind Farm to Grid Through HVDC System

Trends in growth of the wind energy is getting additional pace by offshore technology. This chapter investigates a suitable control strategy for a DC-based offshore wind farm to transmit bulk power to an onshore grid through a high voltage DC (HVDC) transmission line. The offshore wind farm is composed of variable-speed wind turbines driving permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG). Each PMSG is connected to the DC bus through a generator-side converter unit to ensure maximum power point tracking control. The DC voltage of the DC-bus is stepped up using a full-bridge DC-DC converter at the offshore HVDC station, and the wind farm output power is transmitted through the HVDC cable. The onshore HVDC station converts the DC voltage to a suitable AC grid voltage. Detailed modeling and control strategies of the overall system are presented. Real wind speed data is used in the simulation study to obtain a realistic response. The effectiveness of the coordinated control strategy developed for the proposed system is verified by simulation analyses using PSCAD/EMTDC, which is the standard power system software package