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The professional training of land survey field personnel has traditionally been gained through either time-consuming on-the-job experience or from costly comprehensive educational instruction. Development of an effective training program that quickly trains personnel in the most important knowledge skills to be competent in their job would help to limit these factors. In order to develop such an effective training program, analysis of the essential training needs could be conducted. In this paper a case study is presented where the conventional needs analysis methodology has been modified to identify the most critical knowledge gaps associated with competent performance of survey field personnel at a mid-sized company specializing in geospacial data collection. Through utilization of this competency-based needs analysis methodology, the company was able to efficiently determine the critical training needs for survey personnel in addition to realizing an estimated 10% savings in plan development time when compared with use of conventional training methods. Keywords: Employee training, needs analysis, competence, case study, INTRODUCTION The professional training of field personnel in the land surveying industry has traditionally been implemented through either an on-the-job/apprentice training process or from the delivery of periodic off-the-shelve training [...]

The problem addressed by this research is to implement lean manufacturing in a material handling system of a petroleum drill bit manufacturing company. Lean manufacturing has been mandated by higher level management as a tool to be used in waste reduction. Operational group must define the objectives of lean manufacturing and deploy the tools to specific work cells. A methodology that provides operational group with a tool to assist in defining the objectives of lean manufacturing is developed. A case study is used to demonstrate the lean implementation in material handling operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combined heat and power (CHP) technology is still underutilized in the building sector due to the concern of insufficient economic returns related to the seasonal heating and cooling loads and the initial costs of installing these applications. In order to justify the use of CHP systems, the thermal energy created has to be used in a fashion that is favorable to the building's environment. The thermal load is used for heating, hot water, and thermal-driven cooling and humidity controls. This includes a variety of CHP technologies along with absorption chillers or desiccant dehumidification systems. This article provides a summary on some of the CHP installations in university environment. The constant influence of changing technologies and higher utility rates has forced universities and colleges to make energy management improvements. The literature survey on these universities is not vast because the new and improved systems are still in their beginning years and have not established concrete success stories. They have, however, shown enormous decreases in consumption and begun to establish very profitable returns on their investments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this research is to determine appropriate procedures required to apply for air permitting and interconnection agreements with all necessary agencies to assist an oilfield service company in Louisiana implementing a combined heat and power (CHP) system for their day-to-day operations. The main reasons for the facility to implement CHP are twofold. The management wants to provide a climate controlled work environment for the facility personnel to ensure that a high level of productivity is achieved. The use of CHP will also reduce the greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere. The procedures required for air permitting and utility permitting are developed, followed by discussions on the challenges of implementing CHP in Louisiana. The development of a how-to guide on CHP implementation using a case study will provide insight on the procedures for potential CHP adopters in Louisiana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]