Mersey Estuary baseline survey. Analysis of macroinfaunal samples, literature review and database production

This is the Mersey Estuary baseline survey: Analysis of macroinfaunal samples, literature review and database production report produced by the Environment Agency North West in 2002. This report presents an ecological review of the Mersey estuary along with an extensive bibliography of the available environmental literature for this system. The central objective of this programme has been to provide the information necessary to support the Environment Agency's review of existing and future consents (for discharges, abstractions etc) in the Mersey estuary. This review of consents was required because the Mersey had been designated as a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the EC Birds Directive. Therefore under Regulation 50 of the Conservation, the Environment Agency was responsible for reviewing any extant consent, or future applications, which may directly or indirectly, affected this SPA.

Assessing the responsiveness of existing production operations

Production responsiveness refers to the ability of a production system to achieve its operational goals in the presence of supplier, internal and customer disturbances, where disturbances are those sources of change which occur independently of the system's intentions. A set of audit tools for assessing the responsiveness of production operations is being prepared as part of an EPSRC funded investigation. These tools are based on the idea that the ability to respond is linked to: the nature of the disturbances or changes requiring a response; their impact on production goals; and the inherent response capabilities of the operation. These response capabilities include information gathering and processing (to detect disturbances and production conditions), decision processes (which initiate system responses to disturbances) and various types of process flexibilities and buffers (which provide the physical means of dealing with disturbances). The paper discusses concepts and issues associated with production responsiveness, describes the audit tools that have been developed and illustrates their use in the context of a steel manufacturing plant.