Benchmarking for continuous performance improvement: Tactics for success

Benchmarking is a powerful management technique that can help improve an organization's environmental performance on a number of dimensions. Benchmarking is not a cookbook solution but a systematic process of searching for the organization that is the best at a given process (“best-in-class”) and continually adopting or adapting new processes to accelerate improvement. As a continual process including planning, analysis, integration, action, and maturity phases, benchmarking should be integrated into the planning stage of the management system. Once processes are strategically identified, they can be improved within the company's Total Quality Management program. Many benefits, such as teamwork and job satisfaction, accompany benchmarking, but the greatest companywide advantage is becoming more competitive. Finding a suitable partner is crucial to the success of the benchmarking process. This article shows the traditional one-on-one approach is the most effective because it saves time and money that allows organizations to learn from each other. In addition, examples of where benchmarking partners may be found, as well as several success indicators in the benchmarking process, are presented. Since the ultimate intent of benchmarking is positive change, the difference between reengineering and continuous performance improvement and the role benchmarking plays in each is also discussed.     

Recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST): Is there a limit for biotechnology in applied animal agriculture?

The intent of this article is to outline, integrate, and interpret relevant scientific, economic, and social issues of rbST technology that have contributed to the acceptance dilemma for this product. The public is divided into social groups, each with its own set of criteria on which they base rbSTs acceptability. Criteria for the scientific community may best be described as physiological. However, for consumers, criteria may be more practical, or procedural, including human health, animal welfare, environmental concerns, and overproduction. Because the business of dairy production depends on demand from the consuming public, the criteria for acceptance of rbST by producers largely reflects those of the consumers. Of necessity, producers are also critical of rbST from a business and animal improvement standpoint. Although this article demonstrates that rbST has met most physiological criteria for acceptance, the consuming public has treated the acceptance issue with forceful skepticism. The question this article addresses is, why? The authors comment that with rbST and other biotechnologies applied to agricultural animal production, it will be the responsibility of government health agencies, scientists, and manufacturers of the products to provide early, adequate, and honest public education. Attention to the concerns of the public may be the only means to prevent hysteria over this and future agricultural products of biotechnology and will, therefore, allow the public to form logical and thoughtful criteria assessments with respect to acceptance or rejection of each product.     

An Alternative Process Model of Preferential Contaminant Travel Times in the Unsaturated Zone: Application to Rainier Mesa and Shoshone Mountain, Nevada

Simulating contaminant transport in unsaturated zones with sparse hydraulic property information is a difficult, yet common, problem. When contaminant transport may occur via preferential flow, simple modeling approaches can provide predictions of interest, such as the first arrival of contaminant, with minimal site characterization. The conceptual model for unsaturated zone flow at Rainier Mesa and Shoshone Mountain, Nevada National Security Site, establishes the possibility of preferential flow through lithologies between potential radionuclide sources and the saturated zone. After identifying preferential flow as a possible contaminant transport process, we apply a simple model to estimate first arrival times for conservatively transported radionuclides to reach the saturated zone. Simulated preferential flow travel times at Rainier Mesa are tens to hundreds of years for non-ponded water sources and 1 to 2 months for continuously ponded water sources; first arrival times are approximately twice as long at Shoshone Mountain. These first arrival time results should then be viewed as a worst-case scenario but not necessarily as a timescale for a groundwater-contamination hazard, because concentrations may be very low. The alternative approach demonstrated here for estimating travel times can be useful in situations where predictions are needed by managers for the fastest arrival of contaminants, yet budgetary or time constraints preclude more rigorous analysis, and when additional model estimates are needed for comparison (i.e., model abstraction).     

A plasma display window?-The shifting baseline problem in a technologically mediated natural world

Humans will continue to adapt to an increasingly technological world. But are there costs to such adaptations in terms of human well being? Toward broaching this question, we investigated physiological effects of experiencing a HDTV quality real-time view of nature through a plasma display “window.” In an office setting, 90 participants (30 per group) were exposed either to (a) a glass window that afforded a view of a nature scene, (b) a plasma window that afforded a real-time HDTV view of essentially the same scene, or (c) a blank wall. Results showed that in terms of heart rate recovery from low-level stress the glass window was more restorative than a blank wall; in turn, a plasma window was no more restorative than a blank wall. Moreover, when participants spent more time looking at the glass window, their heart rate tended to decrease more rapidly; that was not the case with the plasma window. Discussion focuses on how the purported benefits of viewing nature may be attenuated by a digital medium.     

Contaminant geochemistry—a new perspective

To date, the field of contaminant geochemistry—which deals with the study of chemical interactions in soil and aquifer environments—has focused mainly on pollutant toxicity, retention, persistence, and transport and/or on remediation of contaminated sites. Alteration of subsurface physicochemical properties by anthropogenic chemicals, which reach the land surface as a result of human activity, has been essentially neglected. Contaminant-induced changes in subsurface properties are usually considered as deviations from a normal geological environment, which will disappear under natural attenuation or following remediation procedures. However, contaminants may in many cases cause irreversible changes in both structure and properties of the soil–subsurface geosystem between the land surface and groundwater. The time scales associated with these changes are on a “human time scale”, far shorter than geological scales relevant for geochemical processes. In this review, we draw attention to a new perspective of contaminant geochemistry, namely, irreversible changes in the subsurface as a result of anthropogenic chemical pollution. We begin by briefly reviewing processes governing contaminant–subsurface interactions. We then survey how chemical contamination causes irreversible changes in subsurface structure and properties. The magnitude of the anthropogenic impact on the soil and subsurface is linked directly to the amounts of chemical contaminants applied and/or disposed of on the land surface. This particular aspect is of major importance when examining the effects of humans on global environmental changes. Consideration of these phenomena opens new perspectives for the field of contaminant geochemistry and for research of human impacts on the soil and subsurface regimes.     

Restoring piscivorous fish populations in the Laurentian Great Lakes causes seabird dietary change

Ecosystem change often affects the structure of aquatic communities thereby regulating how much and by what pathways energy and critical nutrients flow through food webs. The availability of energy and essential nutrients to top predators such as seabirds that rely on resources near the water's surface will be affected by changes in pelagic prey abundance. Here, we present results from analysis of a 25-year data set documenting dietary change in a predatory seabird from the Laurentian Great Lakes. We reveal significant declines in trophic position and alterations in energy and nutrient flow over time. Temporal changes in seabird diet tracked decreases in pelagic prey fish abundance. As pelagic prey abundance declined, birds consumed less aquatic prey and more terrestrial food. This pattern was consistent across all five large lake ecosystems. Declines in prey fish abundance may have primarily been the result of predation by stocked piscivorous fishes, but other lake-specific factors were likely also important. Natural resource management activities can have unintended consequences for nontarget ecosystem components. Reductions in pelagic prey abundance have reduced the capacity of the Great Lakes to support the energetic requirements of surface-feeding seabirds. In an environment characterized by increasingly limited pelagic fish resources, they are being offered a Hobsonian choice: switch to less nutritious terrestrial prey or go hungry.