News Briefs
| Pages | 32-33 |
| Date | 01 July 1982 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057274 |
| Published date | 01 July 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
News Briefs
Ignoring Safety Can Be Costly
It is easy for managers to push safety to
one
side,
leaving it
to look after
itself.
But ignoring safety
can be
costly, if not
fatal.
"Too few middle managers face up to their safety
responsibilities," says Jean Reynolds who runs RoSPA's
occupational safety training centre in Acocks
Green,
Birm-
ingham.
"Managers have a lot to contribute to the safety
of their workforce through enthusiasm and leadership but
they need a good background knowledge too." That
knowledge can be obtained from a two day seminar called
Safety is Your
Responsibility,
organised by the Royal
Society for the Prevention of
Accidents.
The seminar gives
plenty of opportunity for managers to take part in the
discussions and there are case exercises for practical
guidance. Attendance at
the
seminar on
3 and 4
November
costs £75.
For the manager who already understands the impor-
tance of safety and accident preventions RoSPA also runs
a two-week residential course leading to the Safety Inspec-
tors Certificate. This is designed to help middle manage-
ment, personnel and training officers and newly appointed
safety officers to introduce accident prevention program-
mes and safe systems of work in their own companies. The
course begins on 7 November at Beeches College, Bourn-
ville,
Birmingham. The attendance fee is £529. Further
details can be obtained from Mrs Jean Reynolds, RoSPA
Training Centre, 22 Summer Road, Acocks Green, Birm-
ingham
(Tel:
021 706 8121).
BP Introduces Electronic Notice Boards
Five thousand BP employees in the City of London are
having no problems keeping up with their Company's
travel arrangements or latest news — thanks to
a
television
screen information display system designed and installed
by Jasmin Electronics. From 8.15 a.m. until automatic
switch off
at 7
p.m.
ten
screens,
inescapably
placed
in main
foyers and near staff
restaurants,
form compulsive viewing
for all BP
news
— attracting far more attention than notice
boards ever could.
The system is run by the Central Information and
Library Service Department. The Jasmin Editing Terminal
makes it possible to produce, quickly and easily, pages of
information to run in sequence on the screens. The latest
BP share price, a British Rail strike, important meetings,
press releases, social club news, company film shows, ex-
treme weather arrangements, news headlines — in fact any
important information can be on the screens within
minutes of the facts becoming known. Relevant Ceefax
and Oracle pages and television pictures can be shown.
For further information contact Tim Coyle, Jasmin
Electronics Ltd, St Matthews Way, Leicester, LE1 2AA.
(Tel : Leicester (0533) 58128).
New Business Matching Scheme
A new service designed to place skilled people in the
assignments most ideally suited to them and to provide
those opportunities in seconds rather than weeks or mon-
ths, is announced by Irex (Ideas and Resource Exchange
Ltd).
The scheme, known as the Irex Clearing House, pro-
vides immediate access to a resource of people who are
able to offer professional or technical skills for either short
or long-term periods. It is a natural extension of the com-
puter matching service launched by Irex last year to match
business potential to business requirements.
In essence, the scheme is a two-way flow with members
either
seeking
or offering specialist skills in areas
as
diverse
as accountancy, finance, manufacturing, engineering,
management consultancy, electronics, data processing and
computing. The cost depends entirely
on
how often
the
ser-
vice is used, but in any event for a member seeking addi-
tional staff it is a mere single figure percentage of conven-
tional costs.
For further information contact Sean Blake, Ideas and
Resource Exchange Ltd, Snow House, 103 Southwark
Street, London SE1 OJF
(Tel:
01-261 1543).
Computer Centre Disaster Report
Many large company computer centres carry insufficient
protection against natural or man-made disasters; many
also have no credible comprehensive planning or facilities
for the continuation of company business in the event of
serious interruption to data processing arrangements.
These are among the conclusions of a recently published
report. Commissioned after requests from some of its
customers by main-frame computer manufacturer Amdahl
Corporation, the report,
Computer Disasters
and
Con-
tingency
Planning,
identifies the main potential sources of
danger
and
makes recommendations
on
their prevention or
containment. It also sets out the advantages and disadvan-
tages of various feasible contingency plans. Twenty-four
large scale computer-user companies in Northern Europe
and North America were interviewed and researched in
confidence. None is identified in the report.
The survey, which cites the fact that only some 20 per
cent of the companies had both a formal backup arrange-
ment and a written contingency plan, provides lengthy
32 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT + DATA SYSTEMS
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