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Construction plant breakdown affects projects by prolonging duration and increasing costs. Therefore, prediction of plant breakdown, as a precursor to conducting timely maintenance works, cannot be underestimated. This paper thus sought to develop a model for predicting plant breakdown time from a sequence of discrete plant breakdown measurements that follow non‐random orders. An ARIMA (1,1,0) model was constructed following experimentation with exponential smoothening. The model utilised breakdown observations obtained from six wheeled loaders that had operated a total of 14,467 hours spread over a 300‐week period. The performance statistics revealed MAD and RMSE of 5.03 and 5.33 percent respectively illustrating that the derived time series model is accurate in modelling the dependent variable. Also, the F‐statistics from the ANOVA showed that the type and frequency of fault occurrence as a predictor variable is significant on the model's performance at the five percent level. Future work seeks to consider a more in depth multivariate time series analyses and compare/contrast the results of such against other deterministic modelling techniques.

It is just a year ago that the RICS launched the House Buyers Report and Valuation scheme as a genuine attempt and in the sincere hope that it would provide for the lay member of the public contemplating the purchase of a house, the answers to all those essential questions about which the house purchaser is particularly concerned, while at the same time providing the assurances we, as Chartered Surveyors, believe the house buyer needs in order to make that important decision as to whether or not to proceed with the purchase.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000000603. When citing the article, please cite: Frances Edwards, Tony Spawton, (1990), “Pricing in the Australian Wine Industry”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 24 Iss: 4, pp. 11 - 17.

Much of the literature on Multinational Companies (MNCs) and Human Resource Management (HRM) is concerned with the extent to which such companies diffuse practices developed in one subsidiary to a subsidiary in another country. Some of the research into the HRM practices of foreign‐owned companies in the UK, for example, is concerned with whether the home country management style and accompanying practices have been introduced into their British plants (e.g. Buckley and Enderwick, 1985; Oliver and Wilkinson, 1992). This can be thought of as forward diffusion in the sense that the direction of diffusion is from home to host countries. This can be contrasted with reverse diffusion in which the direction occurs from host to home countries. The first aim of the paper is to analyse which types of MNC are most likely to seek to diffuse practices from host to home countries. Another emerging strand of the literature on diffusion has examined precisely how MNCs can achieve the diffusion of practices: Mueller and Purcell (1992), for example, have investigated how MNCs in the automotive industry gain acceptance on the part of worker representatives to the diffusion of practices. Coller (1994) and Edwards et al (1993) have provided evidence on the mechanisms through which MNCs are able to diffuse practices. The second aim of the paper is to build on this literature in assessing the mechanisms through which reverse diffusion is achieved.

The complex issue of wine pricing is addressed with reference to the Australian wine industry. The influence of the costs of production, government policy and legislation, the image sought for the wine, competitive forces, distribution channel costs and consumer behaviour are detailed.

Explores the relationship between educational providers and company clients on tailored MBA programmes. Examines the potential benefits and disadvantages of such programmes in terms of the relative number of providers/companies involved, and describes and evaluates the authors′ experience of developing and operating a consortium MBA involving two providers and nine companies. Presents both provider and company perspectives, and concludes that the resolution of potential conflicts resulted in a programme which satisfied the requirements of providers, companies and participants. Further, increased collaboration between educational providers may more accurately respond to the needs of clients, who may wish to use a number of providers in constructing “their” MBA programme.

Do multinational companies (MNCs) transfer employment practices across their operations in different countries? In other words, are they innovators in national systems of employment relations or do they adapt to them? This question lies at the heart of much research in the field of international HRM, yet the debate is characterized by two quite different approaches to this question – the “global – local” perspective and the “segmentation” thesis – that have not engaged satisfactorily with one another. Drawing on data from a case study of an American multinational in China, we argue that analysis must be sensitive to the sector-specific conditions that create variation between MNCs in this respect. Specifically, the way that multinationals build international processes of production and service provision is a crucial factor in shaping whether they look to transfer practices and, therefore, whether they are innovators or adapters.

Armstrong Fastenings Ltd have appointed a sales manager based in Spain, and will soon announce a similar appointment for Germany. Walsall based Armstrong, one of Europe's largest industrial fastenings groups, already have strong links with Germany and Spain, and intend to develop these further.