Engineering manpower planning in an airline

Next to the crew on the flight deck of an aircraft, the engineers and technicians form the core of the manpower requirement of an airline. The aviation industry is a specialised one. There are mandatory requirements regarding the airworthiness of an aircraft and certification of engineers and technicians working on or inspecting an aircraft. The requirements of Engineers and Technicians cannot be directly met from the products available from Engineering Colleges and Technical Institutes. Furthermore, 3–4 years of experience in aviation industry is a prerequisite laid down by Civil Aviation Departments for obtaining their licence or approval to work as Engineers and Inspectors in Inspection Organisations. Hence planning of Engineering manpower requirements well in advance is a must for an Airline. The objective of this paper is to discuss the long term planning for engineering manpower resource, in an airline.     

Identifying managerial potential for manpower planning

This article describes the approach of a South African retail store organization to the problems of Manpower Planning, The emphasis is upon the assessment of potential using the Assessment Centre technique.     

Personnel planning and information systems

Today the need for long-range planning is seen by most private and public organizations. Therefore growing attention to it is required of management in companies, in public services, in the armed services and in the school and university area. Some parts of the long-range planning problems have been widely discussed and practised. But there are some parts, which have received less attention in the business world. One of the relatively neglected areas, but one of special importance is long-range planning for personnel from the shop-floor up to top-management. This lack is remarkable, as one finds a lot of research and practical work on the use of other operations research planning systems, which cover for example queueing, inventory, production or investment problems. But in no field, is planning ahead more important than in personnel. Company growth and effectiveness depend on it. For unless a business organization has people with skill, imagination and a capacity for leadership, at the right time, its other plans may well be worthless.     

Managerial manpower planning— A systematic approach

At what ages should managers be recruited? Are the young managers receiving the right sort of experience at an early stage in their careers? What effect will the proposed merger have on the career prospects in the company.....? Questions such as these are likely to face every company from time to time, but finding the answers can be very difficult. The task may be made much easier through the application of some simple analytical techniques. These techniques are discussed here in the form of a case study.     

A manpower planning model for organizational effectiveness

In this article the author argues that micro-manpower planning is finally beginning to emerge as a process for helping individuals and firms to play an active role in developing integrated approaches and facilitating interrelationships within an organization. Additionally, that it is in a unique position where it can relate many of the foundations formulated by many segments of organizational theory and mathematical modeling into a cohesive and practical application format for practicing administrators.Naturally, the developed Markovian model is a stable process and assumes stable probabilities of movement with the system. Additionally, it assumes that movements between the states are dependent solely upon the previous state of location which is usually false in a business organization where movement is also dependent upon length of time in state, previous states occupied, and personal variables. But, the Markovian process can be viewed as a relevant modeling technique even with these constraints.These factors are combined to examine and discuss the organization's effectiveness and its bargaining position in terms of manpower resources. Additionally, policy decisions which would be made based upon the interrelationships of the personnel and industrial relations departments and the firm's technical core are discussed.     

Discrete simulation modelling for corporate manpower planning

Manpower planners within South African companies have very few, if any, decision support tools at their disposal to assist them in the formulation of their manpower strategies. Such quantitative tools as do exist are mathematically too sophisticated to be easily understood and implemented by manpower managers who are, on the whole, non numerate. The approach proposed in this paper, namely simulation modelling, discusses and demonstrates a powerful quantitative method which is conceptually easy to understand and whose results are easily interpreted. This particular simulation model examines the impact on organisational staffing levels over time as a result of specific present/proposed manpower policies in the areas of procurement and promotion. Through manipulating the inputs, the manpower planner can, with relative ease, examine the consequences of a range of alternative policies within a very short period of time.     

Some statistical aspects of manpower planning in the civil service

A special feature of modern manpower planning methods is the use of computer-based statistical models, and the Civil Service Department is taking the lead in their development and use for manpower planning in the non-industrial Civil Service. Account is being taken of related data requirements in the development of a new Personnel Record Information System which will replace a range of existing records.Development work in hand covers both the “demand” and “supply” aspects of manpower planning and a bank of generalized “supply” models is in operation. Stationary population, renewal and Markovian principles are involved, and the particular statistical problems of modelling small manpower groups are being met in the development of a “small group” simulation model.     

An integrated approach for manpower planning in the service sector

The manpower planning problem receives considerable attention by the management of service organizations because they are typically labor intensive. Not only must optimal staff sizes be determined over an extended horizon, but optimal staff schedules which assign labor to tours of duty and specific tasks, given the available staff size, must also be found. Adding to the complexity arising from the interrelatedness of the staff-sizing and staff-scheduling problems is the existence of the conflicting multiple objectives of minimizing costs and maximizing customer service. The few methodologies reported in the literature which treat the complete manpower planning problem as stated above have several shortcomings. Some techniques place a severe strain on computational capabilities. Also, these methods confound the specification of the goal levels with the analysis of the relative goal weightings. Often the specification of the desired goal levels is made at a different level in the organizational hierarchy than the specification of the relative importance of the various goals. This paper suggests an approach which overcomes these shortcomings. The methodology utilizes a simulation model with an imbedded heuristic procedure for the staff-scheduling problem to identify realistic aggregate staff-size goals to be used in a multiple-objective staff-sizing model. The methodology is applied to the manpower planning problem of a large sectional center post office and the managerial benefits are discussed.     

The corporate energy policy: A management planning perspective

The energy problems facing the world have been receiving increasing attention in the press and in business journals. This article examines the attitudes of 224 U.S. business executives toward the energy crisis and examines the role of a corporate energy policy in minimizing the economic impact of future energy price increases and/or shortages. A plan for a corporate energy policy is proposed.     

Long range planning and regional policy 1 Britain— a European pioneer

What is the significance of “regional policy” in Europe today? It is certainly a political force. It was a major factor in the resignation of General de Gaulle last year and a European Conference of Ministers of Regional Planning is being convened to consider it this year. But as a subject it is not always easy to grasp. It seems to touch on many things-environment, employment, democratic participation and long range planning. Its actual shape varies from country to country. At the same time, many Europeans, including the Commission of the European Communities, are convinced that there are common European problems that urgently require a European regional policy to solve them. This article, which will be in four parts, begins by examining the experience of regional policy in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and the European Communities. Its last part will discuss the role of long range planning in achieving an effective regional policy at European level. The author is carrying out research into regional policies in the European Communities and the United Kingdom with financial support from the Social Science Research Council.     

Information technology in banking

This paper argues that since the use of information is a fundamental part of all forms of activities, both corporate and private, throughout society the introduction of a new technology for using information inevitably has widespread effects. These effects are particularly far reaching in those service industries, such as banking, the very heart and essence of whose business is the handling of information.A review of the developments so far in the use of the new information technology in payment systems brings out the essential nature of its effects and shows the all-pervasive influence of the form and capability of the technology itself. It tries to illustrate where the benefits are derived and the nature of illusory gains and undesirable effects. An attempt is then made to derive an historical perspective.To try to anticipate future events, current trends in the technology and in the ways in which its use might change, are identified. The change in the technical means by which financial and other information-based services are delivered is seen to be salient feature of these developments and the important influence upon institutional relationships is discussed under the heading of the politics of the technology. Parallels in the introduction of other new technologies are drawn by way of illustration.The final part of the paper tries to develop a broader perspective and sketches out a longer scenario of the development of information technology indicating the major influence which this is likely to exert upon the development of society throughout the world.     

Competition in retail banking

This article analyses the reasons for increased competition in retail banking. The author emphasizes the willingness of his and other banks to respond to the changing requirements of customers and describes innovations in the banking industry. The conclusion suggests how the banks' range of products and services may develop in the future.     

Integration and efficiency convergence in EU banking markets

Evidence of financial integration and convergence are considered of importance in assessing the outcome of EU deregulation policies aimed at improving the efficiency and performance of banking sectors. This paper evaluates the recent dynamics of bank cost efficiency by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA). Borrowing from the growth literature, we apply dynamic panel data models (GMM) to the concepts of β-convergence and σ-convergence to assess the speed at which banking markets are integrating. We also employ a partial adjustment model to evaluate convergence towards best practice. Results seem to provide supporting evidence of convergence of efficiency levels towards an EU average. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of an overall improvement of efficiency levels towards best practice.     

Total factor productivity and shareholder returns in banking

This paper examines shareholder value drivers in European banking focusing on the efficiency and productivity features of individual banks. In particular, we analyse the value relevance of bank cost efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) (in all its components, including technological change, pure technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change) to see how these influence shareholder value creation in European banking. The paper focuses on the French, German, Italian and U.K. banking systems over the period 1995–2002 and includes both listed and non-listed banks. We find that TFP changes best explain variations in shareholder value (measured by market-adjusted returns, MAR, for listed banks and by the ratio of EVA_bkg to invested capital at time t−1 for non-listed banks). In both samples, we also find that technological change seems to be the most important component of TFP influencing shareholder value creation in European banking.     

Branch banking in the year 2000

The topic of branch banking in the United States in the year 2000 is obviously one that has been in the minds of California bankers for some time because California is the largest state in the United States to permit virtually unlimited statewide branch banking. It is a topic that must also be in the minds of a large number of European and Asian bankers as well because several non-U.S. banking systems have already established large branch networks in the United States. It is a difficult topic because no one knows precisely what will be the status of branch banking in the year 1990, let alone the year 2000. This article makes some predictions.     

Markov and renewal models for total manpower system

This study compares the predictive utility of three stochastic models for both total manpower system and cohort personnel movement. The models are all discrete time versions, including a first order Markov chain, a Markov chain with duration of stay (semi-Markov) and a vacancy model having both renewal and Markov properties. The analysis covers a continuous 20 year period: 1950–1970 for a state police (U.S.A.) internal labor market. The simple Markov chain model is inadequate for long term cohort forecasts, but reasonably adequate for long term organizational forecasts. The semi-Markov model outperforms the simple Markov model for cohorts, but is surprisingly less accurate for the total organization. The heuristic information it portrays for the cohort is, however, quite informative. The best model for intermediate (5 year) and long term (10 year) forecasts in both cohort and organizational tests is the renewal type vacancy model. This finding is viewed as particularly important both in terms of empirical performance, which we expect can be improved due to the initial simplifying assumptions used, and in terms of further theoretical explication of the underlying causal process since internal staff flows are conceptualized as contingent on the opportunities available.     

National policy making in a global economy: The case for U.S. economic planning

In 1980 the Joint Economic Committee completed the Special Study on Economic Change. This 20 volume, 3-year project, was premised on the fact that: ‘fundamental economic, social, political, international and technical conditions have changed, and are still changing markedly’. This suggests that conventional wisdom and established economic tools may not be equal to meeting the challenge of making sound policies in the economic sphere. The so-called laws of economics have not been repealed, but all guiding principles presuppose a certain environment of conditions, customs and practices—and when these change, the implementation of new policies and the modes of adjustment have to change also. This paper examines the problem of devising policy instruments for economic management, identifying the facts of the changing economic environment and the main difficulties facing world economic development.