NEW government measures will significantly limit the ability of UK businesses to employ skilled
migrant workers from outside the EU. In line with fears voiced by the North Sea oil and gas sector, the
changes will have a huge effect on UK energy firms that rely on engineers and technicians recruited
abroad to meet severe skills shortages.

At Perkins Paper, the number one priority is shipping the right product, on time, every time. This commitment to service spurred managers at the broadline food-service distributor to implement voice automation technology to improve order selection and delivery accuracy.

Greg Ehemann and Rich Ehemann, Shoptech’s (www.shoptech.com) founding partners, have been around job shops their entire careers. While working in a machine shop in Cincinnati, Ohio during the 1980’s, Greg and his brother Rich were frustrated that they could not determine whether they were making or losing money on a job.

Working virtually and flexibly are facts of life for many of us. For some it’s a blessing, for some a curse and for many it just is what it is–the way the world is going. For those of us who manage people virtually there are two questions: a) can working remotely make us happier, and 2) do the bean counters and policy makers care about our happiness so long as the work gets done?

The best Microsoft Gold Partners all consider themselves strategic partners for their clients, not merely technology solutions providers. Larry Cohn, the Senior Partner, at Streamline Systems, www.streamlinesys.com, a Microsoft Gold Partner, has developed a unique program that demonstrates Gold Partners are not all the same. According to Cohn, “We offer and deliver Business Impact Assessments, Business Process Workshops, and Project Scoping to increase our customers’ success rate.”

Suppliers of end-of-line automation and material handling in the food sector have a distinct scope of technology to consider, including various types of palletizing robots, stretch wrapping equipment, labeling systems, pallet control systems, and laser-guided automatic vehicles.

Biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing demands scalable processes that can be
quickly developed, easily implemented, and smoothly transferred to production. Ready-to-use
technologies play a crucial role in providing the flexibility to support multiproduct facilities. They
deliver process time savings by removing steps such as cleaning and cleaning validation, and
thus allow for faster changeover between products.

Warehouse management systems for must deliver efficient and lean material distribution operation systems through unrivaled personnel, inventory, and equipment management. According to Mark Stevenson, “Warehouse Management Systems must link the logistic environment and the equipment available in the warehouse and consists of two main modules.”

Webinars are, unsurprisingly, web-based seminars that began as one-way webcasts and have now evolved into interactive online conferences. Some may have as many as 1,000 people participating in them. And while those at the back of a classroom can never see, in a webinar everyone has a perfect view – and can see everyone else’s annotations. What is more, each webinar can be recorded, and watched again.

Having had over 10,000 people register for our webinar series in 2010 we decided to ask our audience about their webinar behaviour. We had just over 1,000 responses to our survey and here are results…