Health service procurement policy / Healthcare Materials Management Board

DOHC / 200

Improving construction materials management practices in construction sites

Construction Materials Management is a vital function for improving productivity in construction projects. Poor materials management can often affect the overall construction time, quality and budget. Currently, the construction material management practice in Somalia is believed to be poorly performed. Lack of standardized construction materials management system is one of the key issues facing by the building industry in Mogadishu-Somalia. The aim of this study was to investigate the current practices of material management at construction sites in Mogadishu-Somalia. A questionnaire survey study design was used to explore construction materials management practices. Fifty questionnaires were distributed to project managers, project engineers, site engineers, engineer, and foreman, and they were received and analysed. The following data analysis techniques were used: descriptive statistics were conducted to report sample characteristics, reliability and validity analyses were performed to confirm robustness of the instrument, graphical presentation such as bar charts were developed, and finally Average Mean Index Scale were constructed. The study results reveals that, 46.7% of respondent’s organization obtain materials for sites without site requisition by site engineer provisions, while 28.9% of respondent’s organization procure materials for sites with site requisition by project manager provisions and 13.3% of respondent’s organization procure materials for site by engineer. The results indicated that currently there is no standardized and computerized construction materials management system applied in Somalia. The researcher concluded that all contracting companies are interested in using some techniques of managing construction materials such as creating and updating database for materials categories from local and international suppliers. Finally, researcher recommends to use computerized construction materials management systems to reduce effort and time, and to achieve more accurate results

Learning roadmaps for Higher Education

An integrated platform for the support of teaching activities as been developed and deployed at the Aveiro Norte Polytechnic School of the University of Aveiro. In this paper we present an approach to Learning Roadmaps for Higher Education based on this platform. The aprend.e platform – Electronic Integrated System for Learning and Training - has at its core a Learning Management System with a number of plugins. It represents a new challenge for the University of Aveiro for higher education and is already being at its core is the concept of learning roadmaps that act upon two fundamental axes: education and learning. For the teachers, it aims at becoming a self-supporting tool that stimulates the organization and management of the course materials (lectures, presentations, multimedia content, and evaluation materials, amongst others). For the students, the learning roadmap aims at promoting self-study and supervised study, endowing the pupil with the capabilities to find the relevant information and to capture the concepts in the study materials. The outcome will be a stimulating learning process together with an organized management of those materials

Properties and functions of organic materials in poor agricultural soil condition

A field experiment was conducted under different soil strata in poor agricultural soil condition. Each soil stratum was treated separately with different organic material for soil fertility management. These organic materials are cow dung, sheep dung, goat dung, donkey dung, rice husks, millet husks, Acacia albida, Acacia nilotica, wood ash, house refuses, and combination of all ‘ani-cro-ber’. In the first assessment, soil structure, texture, colour, consistency, bulk density were determined in the field, while in the second assessment N, P, K, Na, Ca, OC, OM and pH were determined under specific laboratory analysis. It is believed that the use of organic materials in soil management is a good way to improve and maintain soil quality and soil fertility rehabilitation in poor agricultural soil condition

Information logistics: A production-line approach to information services

Logistics can be defined as the process of strategically managing the acquisition, movement, and storage of materials, parts, and finished inventory (and the related information flow) through the organization and its marketing channels in a cost effective manner. It is concerned with delivering the right product to the right customer in the right place at the right time. The logistics function is composed of inventory management, facilities management, communications unitization, transportation, materials management, and production scheduling. The relationship between logistics and information systems is clear. Systems such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Point of Sale (POS) systems, and Just in Time (JIT) inventory management systems are important elements in the management of product development and delivery. With improved access to market demand figures, logisticians can decrease inventory sizes and better service customer demand. However, without accurate, timely information, little, if any, of this would be feasible in today's global markets. Information systems specialists can learn from logisticians. In a manner similar to logistics management, information logistics is concerned with the delivery of the right data, to the ring customer, at the right time. As such, information systems are integral components of the information logistics system charged with providing customers with accurate, timely, cost-effective, and useful information. Information logistics is a management style and is composed of elements similar to those associated with the traditional logistics activity: inventory management (data resource management), facilities management (distributed, centralized and decentralized information systems), communications (participative design and joint application development methodologies), unitization (input/output system design, i.e., packaging or formatting of the information), transportations (voice, data, image, and video communication systems), materials management (data acquisition, e.g., EDI, POS, external data bases, data entry) and production scheduling (job, staff, and project scheduling)

Addressing data management training needs: a practice based approach from the UK

In this paper, we describe the current challenges to the effective management and preservation of research data in UK universities, and the response provided by the JISC Managing Research Data programme. This paper will discuss, inter alia, the findings and conclusions from data management training projects of the first iteration of the programme and how they informed the design of the second, paying particular attention to initiatives to develop and embed training materials

The logistics of merchandise

Customer service, The forecast of demand, Information management, Materials handling, Order processing

JISC Research Data MANTRA Project at EDINA, Information Services, University of Edinburgh: Evaluation

This document reports on the findings of an evaluation of the Research Data MANTRA project at the University of Edinburgh. The MANTRA project ran from 1 August 2010 to 31 July 2011 and, as part of the JISC Managing Research Data programme's training materials projects, produced training materials in research data management for postgraduate researchers of specific disciplines. This evaluation is intended to provide, after a light-touch review, an impression of the extent to which the project achieved its goals and suggestions for where further work may be useful

Why do research on commercial property management? Somebody HAS to!

This paper identifies some significant gaps in our knowledge of the configuration and performance of the property asset management sector. It is argued that, as many leading academic property researchers have focussed on financial vehicles and modelling, in-depth analysis of property assets and their management has been neglected. In terms of potential for future in-depth research, three key broad preliminary research themes or questions are identified. First, how do the active management opportunities presented, costs of management and the key management tasks vary with market conditions, asset type and life-cycle stage? Second, how is property asset management delivered and what are the main costs and benefits of different models of procurement? Finally, what are the appropriate metrics for measuring the performance of different property managers and approaches to property management? It is concluded that the lack of published materials addressing these issues has implications for educating property students

Parts and materials application review for space systems

Parts and materials application review for project management of space systems engineerin