The Effective Delivery Of Technical Assistance

The managed flow of goods and information from raw material to final sale also known as a "supply chain" affects everythingâ€"from the U.S. gross domestic product to where you can buy your jeans. The nature of a company's supply chain has a significant effect on its success or failureâ€"as in the success of Dell Computer's make-to-order system and the failure of General Motor's vertical integration during the 1998 United Auto Workers strike. Supply Chain Integration looks at this crucial component of business at a time when product design, manufacture, and delivery are changing radically and globally. This book explores the benefits of continuously improving the relationship between the firm, its suppliers, and its customers to ensure the highest added value. This book identifies the state-of-the-art developments that contribute to the success of vertical tiers of suppliers and relates these developments to the capabilities that small and medium-sized manufacturers must have to be viable participants in this system. Strategies for attaining these capabilities through manufacturing extension centers and other technical assistance providers at the national, state, and local level are suggested. This book identifies action steps for small and medium-sized manufacturersâ€"the "seed corn" of business start-up and developmentâ€"to improve supply chain management. The book examines supply chain models from consultant firms, universities, manufacturers, and associations. Topics include the roles of suppliers and other supply chain participants, the rise of outsourcing, the importance of information management, the natural tension between buyer and seller, sources of assistance to small and medium-sized firms, and a host of other issues. Supply Chain Integration will be of interest to industry policymakers, economists, researchers, business leaders, and forward-thinking executives.

Technical assistance (TA) is designed to build the capacity of individuals and organizations to achieve desired outcomes. During the past decade technical assistance, like many educational initiatives, has been reconceptualized as a multi-tiered approach along a continuum from basic to intensive. Basic technical assistance is the most efficient foundation for facilitating change, and includes providing documentation of evidence-based options, disseminating both examples of success and materials that facilitate success, and providing overview workshops that may assist others in the planning, implementation and use of existing tools to achieve desired change. Basic TA is effective in many contexts, but like other multi-tiered models is recognized as insufficient to achieve systems change in all contexts. When the scale or depth of change is more extensive, Basic TA efforts need to be supplemented with more Intensive Technical Assistance. The purpose of this "Brief" is to define "Intensive Technical Assistance (ITA)" and briefly illustrate its use in education. [This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H326070002.].