Suchergebnisse

Powerful and provocative, this is a beautifully written and very personal search to understand the men who were the protectors of Aboriginal people in Australia's north - their moral ambiguities, their good intentions and the devastating consequences of their decisions

Before the recent relaxation of performance controls, theatre in South Africa was shaped and controlled by the law.

Previous studies have linked human capital with performance. The studies have shown performance, measured as output, of a firm can be increased by adding more personnel and/or increasing education levels. This research uses the Cobb-Douglas Production function to build upon that relationship of inputs to outputs. The output in this study is the average cost overrun of Aeronautical Systems Center research, development, test, and evaluation contracts managed from 1994 to 2008. The inputs are the numbers of military/government employee financial managers, program managers, engineers, rated personnel, and military/government employees in those career fields possessing a graduate degree or higher. A time series regression was conducted using those inputs to outputs while controlling for other factors such as budgetary fluctuations, inflation, and individuals doing defense related work in the private sector as a proxy for contractors working in program offices. The results indicate a negatively correlated relationship exists between human capital and cost overruns.

A Mobility Readiness Spares Package (MRSP) is an air-transportable package of spare parts configured for rapid deployment in support of conflict or war. Each package is tailored to support a specific scenario, for a specific type and number of aircraft without re-supply for the first 30 days of deployment. Inventory is limited to mission-critical spares. The high cost of airlift and spares drive a necessity to keep MRSPs as small as possible, yet robust enough to meet wartime goals. Historical MRSP inventories exhibit significant volatility and the subsequent growth of their inventory creates significant cost to the Air Force. Annual MRSP growth budget estimates over FY03 FY05 ranged from $700M to $1.2 billion. This research proposes methods to reduce unnecessary growth, stabilize inventory, and still maintain a viable MRSP. Causes of inventory growth are identified by examining historical data. Controlled experiments are conducted against volatile data to evaluate the effectiveness of exponential smoothing and moving averages in stabilizing inventory. Asset-based MRSP computations are used to give greater consideration to the sunk cost of inventory. This research provides the Air Force a set of business rules that stabilize inventory, reduce spares budgets, and maintain a viable MRSP that meets wartime goals.