Publications

Regional Seminar Proceedings 1992

SESSION 7: TECHNICAL ENQUIRY SERVICE

Summary

The ILO has designed a programme to provide advisory support, information and training (ASIST) to labour-based road construction and maintenance programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa with the main objective of increasing the efficiency of the management of the programmes. One of the outputs to achieve this goal is to provide a service of information collection, research, collation and distribution on subjects related to this technology. A Technical Enquiry Service within ASIST located at the Kisii Training School in Kenya have now been established to provide these services.

During this session the participants were requested to prioritise their information and research requirements, and to make themselves available as resource persons on specific subjects.

Before this exercise Bjørn Johannessen and Gerrit Bosma gave a briefing on the purpose, development and current status of the Technical Enquiry Service.

1. Technical Enquiry Service - Background and Current Status - by Bjørn Johannessen and Gerrit Bosma.
2. Analysis of Needs - by Gerrit Bosma

I. TECHNICAL ENQUIRY SERVICE

Background and Current Status

Presented by: Bjørn Johannessen ILO, Geneva and Gerrit Bosma Technology Specialist ,ASIST,Kenya

Background

In 1988 the ILO and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works in Kenya developed and presented an international course for civil engineers and project managers on the subject of labour-based road programme management.

In June 1990 a project planning workshop was held in Kenya to review the results of this project and to plan a new phase to consolidate and expand on the achievements of the first phase. Participants to this workshop included representatives from the SDC, ILO, ESAMI, the Government of Kenya, rural roads authorities from Tanzania, and Ghana and past course participants.

The workshop concluded that the project had reached its immediate objectives in providing an appropriate course to senior staff in labour-based programmes. However, the workshop agreed that a number of complementary activities were necessary to achieve the higher objective of the project, namely:

Increased effectiveness of labour-based programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In order to achieve this objective 5 project outputs were identified:

(i) engineer and site supervisor training

(ii) senior management orientation

(iii) training of trainers

(iv) information services

(v) research and development

In order to secure these outputs, it was envisaged that the ILO under its Regional Advisory Services Project would managem a project which would consist of:

• a training adviser based in Nairobi to organise the courses identified under the outputs i, ii and iii, and
• a labour-based technology adviser based in Kisii to create and run a Technical Enquiry Service covering outputs iv, and v.

The activities to be undertaken by the Technical Enquiry Services was further specified as described in the following two tables:

ANNUAL REGIONAL LABOUR-BASED SEMINARS

Standard designs for structures (Low cost local resources)

The project has now commenced. Mr Gerrit Bosma took up his assignment as Technology Specialist in October last year and mr John Omwansa was recruited in September last year as a national professional to assist in the establishing and running of the Technical Enquiry Service.

Before the experts were recruited EMP/INFRA engaged two consultants to prepare recommendations on how to organise the service and also to extract experience gathered by related institutions such as ILO library, ITDG, INSTEAD, etc. The final reports were discussed in detail during a meeting in Geneva were the regional Adviser mr David Stiedl and the Technology Specialist together with EMP/INFRA staff produced a preliminary action plan for the Technical Enquiry Service.

Of the two information consultants hired by EMP/INFRA, doing preparatory work, Angus Austen, proposed a production strategy for information/training materials and delivery and defined information packages containing modules for specific (13) target groups (report: AStrategies for Development & Delivery of Information on Labour-based road Works@ by Construction Advisory and Training Services Ltd.

The second consultant, kanyhama Dixon-Fyle, mapped out the aspects of information technology in general and the sections within ILO-Geneva that are concerned with information collection, processing, storage and dissemination (report: APreparatory report for the Design of a Technical Enquiry Service@, July 91, and AStage II of preparations for the Design of a technical Enquiry Service@, October 1991, by Kanyhama Dixon-Fyle).

The technology specialist was thoroughly briefed and introduced to ILO officials, concerned with information technology, during his mission to Geneva. In October a useful visit to a successful operational enquiry service (ITDG-Rugby, UK) was made afterwards.

A consultant, Dr Bambrah in Nairobi assisted David Stiedl in the design of an operational strategy (report: AOverview and Proposals@ to ASIST programme by Dr G.K Bambrah, October 1991).

During meetings in October 91 (for minutes see section 1, chapter 2 and 3 of report AStage 2 of prep. For design of TES by K. Dixon-Fyle, October 1991) a number of issues were clarified.

• the immediate target group were to be practitioners in Sub-Saharan Africa. TES is not only the future EMP/INFRA information service, with an extended target group, but will be part of it (min. 6,8).
• The information needs of the target group will be identified in the Annual Regional Seminars (min.10).
• The TES will be directed by the ASIST Programme Director (min.5).
• R&D and TES are equally important within the ASIST Programme Director (min.5).
• Due to unreliable communications with Kisii, information will go via the Nairobi office.
• For the function of information specialist (national expert) an engineer with labour-based background with interest in computing is preferred above a librarian (min.19)
• TES should be operational soon even at the expense of the quality of document processing (min.11).
• Processing of documentation will be done in Kenya, data system and terminology should remain compatible with the ILO library, future EMP/INFRA database system and should not be too specialised (min.13, 16, 18).
• EMP/INFRA professionals will select recommended material and value their contents (min.1, 26).
• EMP/INFRA will produce key concepts to be used for abstracting (min.15, 20).
• Especially on other issues than labour-based technology good referral services should be provided.
• Topics of material to be acquired were divided as follows (table 3.1):

1. programme and project experiences

2. tools and equipment

3. standards and design

4. maintenance

5. administrative and monitoring systems

6. contractors

7. ILO conventions and recommendations

• The sources of material, concerning above mentioned topics, to be collected and stored were defined as follows:

1. periodicals

2. firms

3. ILO published

4. ILO unpublished

5. people

6. institutions

• The topics Tools & Equipment (an ASIST priority) and Adminstration & Monitoring Systems (an EMP/INFRA priority), and all ILO published and unpublished material, were prioritised (min.25)

Proposed Set-up

The TES/R&D team is designed to contain 1 technology specialist, 1 information specialist and 1 R&D specialist. Occasionally the team may receive assistance from a student/apprentice or librarian.

Aquisition of documents will depend on the priorities set by the seminar, ASIST and EMP/INFRA. Since acquisition will occur at regular intervals the document processing is expected to become a continuous activity for this year.

• We intend to create databases for:

• Library

• Technical Enquiries

• Technical Briefs and Responses

• Resource Persons

• Resources for Referral Information

• Addresses of Personnel, Projects, Firms, Institutions, etc.

Next to retrieving technical experience from existing reports or documents and approaching identified resource persons, experts should become assertive in publicising their experience. A possibly efficient way of securing technical experience gained in the future is to require reporting on technical aspects in annual and terminal reports of which a copy should be sent to ASIST. Often bad performance of a method or design remains unreported to avoid blame. This attitude will mean that malfunctioning Abread and butter@ methods remain uncritisised.

Dissemination will occure at request. It is however not the idea to distribute publications (originals) of the library, but photocopies, extracts, or letters. Requests for ILO publications can be forwarded to EMP/INFRA. Purchase should happen through EQUIPRO or locally. We may help with adresses of distributors. Promotion or expansion of the target group of the Enquiry Service should occur only when the current target group is relatively satisfied with the service.

Choice of R & D subjects greatly depends on this seminar. Since funds are limited and experiments are likely to become costly, R & D activities should be implemented in projects with project funds and ASIST contribution.

After the seminar has set the R & D subject priorities, it should determine where the experiments should take place. This choice should greatly depend on the projects management=s enthusiasm and capability to organize, follw-up and monitor. ASIST=s role is limited to assistance in all aspects, that does not need permanent availability.

State of Affairs

With the assistance of the Kisii Training School, on which premises the ASIST technology unit is stationed, the unit is operational. With the arrival of the ordered photocopier, fax/modem, scanner and more labour-based literature the unit will be independently operational. For library database Micro-Isis is being used. Micro-Isis is a programme specially created by UNESCO and iLo and is widely used in libraries and institutions with large databases. Proper support seems to be available through the Kenyan Isis association. Other databases (skeletons in dBase3 +) for Technical Enquiries, Resources, Volunteers (Resource Persons) and Responses were supplied by ITDG. EMP/INFRA will update us with data on addresses. So far only 2 enquiries (about construction in loose sand, selection of contractors and request for publications) reached us via David Stiedl. Responses were given in the form of photocopies from reports and forwarding the request for publications to EMP/INFRA.

Of the 350 publications ordered or requested from institutions and firms so far 180 documents (mostly from EMP/INFRA) have arrived of which 120 have been summarised.

After summarising the more professional abstracting or indexing, using selected keywords, should take place. Since the retrievability of the content depends on this, we may have to call on a professional indexer (if available) to do this.

The R & D activities so far, testing of the Botswana setting-out system, were a continuation from the activities of the former Technology Unit of the Minor Road Programme of Kenya. The R & D specialist has assisted the roads 2000 project with an introduction to roughbess testing with a bump integrator and the compaction study by Dr. Kyulule will soon start.

With the Kisii Training School experts there was discussion on experiments with dressed block paving, alternative culvert ring design and heavy tractor towed roller.

By questionnaire and seminar the practitioners are being sensitised on their information requirements and their expertise, from which other practitioners could profit. This in order to design the strategy for operation and to create a list of resource persons.

In January 1992, 47 questionnaires were distributed to 26 Chief Technical Advisers of which 16 were returned.

I Annex 5 accumulated results are shown. Excluded are sections 3 and 4 on field experience and sources of information.

The results give us the following information;

13 of the 16 practitioners do need an information centre, would use it sometimes (monthly) and on average would have used in 5 2 times last year, mainly for copies of documents, reference and specific technical advice (research).

If the figures are reliable TES should expect from 40 practitioners between 220 and 400 enquiries per year.

All key areas were of interest and specific information requirements were wide spread.

Information requirements to other practitioners and projects are mainly general subjects for counterparts, ministries and department.

Frequently mentioned research requirements are mainly:

1. Low cost compaction, appropriate compaction tests and standards.

2. Equipment and tools

3. Performance of maintenance systems.

For 36 % of the respondents communication is difficult and unreliable. Telex and fax are mentioned as most reliable and are available to 80 % of respondents.

80 % of respondents use the computer for information storage which is more popular than a document centre.

Of the 8 additional comments to the questionnaire 6 were encouraging for TES, one doubts whether experts will be cooperative and one expects that TES will not have a measurable effect of efficiency.

II. ANALYSIS OF DEMAND FOR TES, RESEARCH AD DEVELOPMENT AND LISTING OF RESOURCE PERSONS

Prepared by Gerrit Bosma, Technology Specialist, ASIST

This TES prioritisation exercise will affect in a concerntrated effort of collecting material on prioritised subjects. The results were as follows:

Standards and Design, Contractors and Maintenance are clearly first priorities, while administration and monitoring systems is the second priority.

A similar exercise to this TES prioritisation was done for research and development. The list is as follows:

More research and development is wanted on equipment, compaction (including arid areas). Together several maintenance aspects also score high.

Finally participants were asked to volunteer to become resource persons to TES. Resource persons will be called upon if TES receives an enquiry for which TES will need the Resource Person expertise. Also in the Research and Development aspect the Resource Person will be invited to involve himself or give an opinion on concerned subjects.

The following participants volunteered:

DISCUSSION

Questionnaire

Before this meeting the participants had been requested to fill out a questionnaire which aimed at determining labour-based practioners= information needs and their present expertise which could be of use to others (the results from this inquiry are presented in Annex 5). A general comment was that such questionnaires must be very specific and that the concerned questionnaire had some questions which appeared to be repetitive.

ASIST Journal

It was felt that the Technical Enquiry Service cannot base its distribution of information only on enquiries from the field, but would have to sell itself and actively promote its services. It was proposed that the TES issues an information journal, say twice a year, presenting its ongoing activities, and available literature.

Each issue should concerntrate on one specific subject. It was agreed that the choice of topics should follow the priorities given by the meeting during this session. The first issue should concentrate on labour-based maintenance methods. The contents of this journal could include:

• a listing and summary of key publications and information on the topic in question. It is evident that field management staff does not have the time to study all literature on a given topic but would be interested in maximum 2 to 3 recommended reports covering specific information requirements,
• a description of ongoing activities in the field including contact persons. This could be new pilot projects, ongoing research and development or successfully established projects which may be of interest to replicate in other places,
• relevant information on courses, seminars and workshops. The international labour-based courses in Kisii could be described and advertised here,
• requests to the readers for additional information in the topics covered by the journal.
• a general presentation of the Technical Enquiry Service, what services can be provided, how the information can be obtained, a summary presentation of available literature, etc.

The projects will be the source of information, as well as the target audience. The intention is that the journal should be a means of communication between the various labour-based programmes in the region. The success of a labour-based journal is therefore highly dependant on the response received from the field.