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Many companies are spending large sums of money and considerable management effort in pursuit of one or more of the recognized quality awards. There are, however, critics who question whether it is all worthwhile. Reviews the experiences of speakers at the BPICS Conference, relating their approaches to and rewards from, BS 5750, the Baldrige Award, the European Quality Award and the UK Best Factory Awards to determine whether the payback justifies the effort. While winning awards is a measure of success, it is recognized as no substitute for achieving both profit and delighted customers. However, it appears that the process of taking part does deliver worthwhile benefits to the companies.

The first paper, entitled “Crime and the design of residential property: exploring the theoretical background” (Property Management, Vol. 19 No. 2), has argued that “perceptions” and the “image” of housing designs remain a largely untested avenue of investigation in the design‐effects‐crime debate. Presents and discusses exploratory research into the perception of crime/deviancy, fear of crime and “defensible space”, in relation to a range of characteristic UK housing designs. This investigation concerns the perceptions of planning professionals, convicted burglars and other users and provides both qualitative and quantitative analysis of results from a series of interviews which presented slide representations of terraced, semi‐detached and detached housing designs in addition to low‐rise/walk‐up flats and high‐rise flats. Where possible, two contrasting versions of the same design were presented to probe the influence of “image” in the perception of crime and “defensible space”. The results from this exploratory investigation underpin Newman’s theory of “defensible space” in that a “hierarchy of place” appears to exist with regard to housing designs. However, the “image” of each design is perceived to be a significant contributing factor in relation to the criminogenic capacity of each design presented. Wilson and Kelling’s “Broken Windows” theory is also supported by these research findings.

This paper provides a critical review of “Defensible Space” (Newman, 1973) and traces the development of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) in America and Canada, and Secured By Design (SBD) initiatives in the UK. It is argued that various aspects of the theory have avoided consideration and require further investigation and research. It is opined that “defensible space” is the theoretical foundation to both CPTED and SBD and it is posited that a thorough re‐examination of Newman’s ideas will serve to deepen our understanding of the complex relationship between the built environment and crime. British (BS8220) and European (CEN TC/325) Standards relating to urban planning and environmental design and crime reduction are currently receiving detailed deliberation and are based firmly upon Newman’s ideas. The projected need for some 4.4 million new homes in Britain (DOE, 1995) by 2016 and Lord Roger’s call for improvements in urban design to reduce suburban migration from cities (DETR, 1999) reiterates the importance of the subject matter. This paper (the first of two) recognises that design per se does not represent the panacea for reducing criminogeneity, rather, that “defensible space” CPTED and SBD should be considered as crime prevention strategies, which can, in common with all other initiatives, contribute to tackling the problem of residential crime. In conclusion, it is argued that further research concerning how “defensible space” is perceived by various crucial stakeholders in society is the way forward in this regard. A second, forthcoming paper (PM, Vol. 19 No. 3) will present these research findings.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the core findings from recently published place‐based crime prevention research. The paper aims to critically evaluate the available evidence on the contribution of crime prevention through environmental design as a crime prevention strategy.

Large‐scale evaluations of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) are reviewed with a view to clarifying current knowledge on the evidence of crime prevention through environmental design.

The review concludes that there is a growing body of research that supports the assertion that crime prevention through environmental design is effective in reducing both crime and fear of crime in the community.

Although the paper may not review all the evaluations of CPTED, it nonetheless provides a detailed compilation and overview of the most significant research in the area, including an extensive and modern bibliography on the subject. Research implications will be the subject of a forthcoming paper.

CPTED is an increasingly fashionable approach and is being implemented on a global scale. Additionally, individual components such as territoriality, surveillance, maintenance, access control, activity support and target‐hardening are being widely deployed. However, the evidence currently available is inconclusive and much criticised, which effectively prevents widespread intervention and investment by central government. The paper details the difficulties associated with demonstrating the effectiveness of CPTED.

The paper concludes that although empirical proof has not been definitively demonstrated, there is a large and growing body of research, which supports the assertion that crime prevention through environmental design is a pragmatic and effective crime prevention tool. This review provides an extensive bibliography of contemporary crime prevention through environmental design and a follow‐up paper will discuss the future research priorities for it.

Furniture is as important as buildings in aiding and influencing new educational ideas. Both design and the methods of economic requisition are priorities which concern all local education authorities. Some have tackled this individually some have organised themselves into consortia and behind them all is the Department of Education and Science.

WAS IT ONLY the pure in heart (such as myself) who found the Great Christmas Holiday Shutdown the biggest bore of the year? Four days of actual Christmas lay‐off had me pining to be back at the office on the Wednesday morning, although most of Britain, including a number of academic libraries, reckoned it wasn't worth switching on the heating for only three days before the New Year holiday, and stayed in bed or sprawled in front of the telly for a grand total of 11 days.

This Institute announces a joint Printed Circuit Symposium to be held in conjunction with the European Institute of Printed Circuits, known as the ‘European Printed Circuit Convention’. The venue will be The Old Ship Hotel, Brighton, and the dates 4th and 5th June, 1986.

Diabetes is regarded as a global epidemic with 382 million people globally suffering from diabetes. It also has major implications on patients’ quality of life. There are also high cost of treatment associated with diabetes for both patient and healthcare provider. Telemonitoring represents an excellent technology opportunity to redefine health care delivery. Using technology for home-based care promises the ability to deliver more cost effective care whilst also enhancing quality of care and patient satisfaction. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The current research aims to contribute to the methodological design of action research projects in their use to implementation health technologies such as telemonitoring. In particular, it seeks create a model which can be used to demonstrate the efficacy of the use of the action research method as a viable alternative to the traditional randomised control trials methodology currently employed in healthcare.

The paper contributes towards the methodological design to investigate the area of practice making use of the telemonitoring programme within a Victorian Health Services Network using action research.

It intends to address the research problem of the low utilisation of telemonitoring within Monash Health as a whole, and more specifically within the diabetes unit. In this context the research intends to utilise the benefits of telemonitoring to improve clinical outcomes of patients by increasing insulin stabilisation. It is also intended the research organisation benefits by increased efficiency by decreasing clinical workforce time spent on managing patient insulin data.