XIAMETER® Business Model Expands Silicone Product Offering

The XIAMETER® web-enabled business model from Dow Corning Corporation is expanding its product offering to provide customers with even more high-quality, standard silicone product choices. New products include a variety of silicone fluids, emulsions, resins, coatings, antifoams, moldmaking and liquid silicone rubbers, as well as additional rubber bases and compounds, modifiers, primers and catalysts.

As is true of the previous XIAMETER® product offering, the new products are widely used as performance enhancers by industries such as personal care, textile, energy, construction, and automotive where they provide qualities such as durability, stability, adhesion, and weather resistance.

“We continue to expand the product availability as products mature through the product life cycle and as customers demand more efficient ways to procure their standard silicone products,” said XIAMETER® Vice President and Executive Director Jeroen Bloemhard.

The XIAMETER® business model offers customers self-service functionality and options such as tiered volume quantities and transparent pricing, credit term choices, ability to track orders real-time and other procurement activities. Local distributors also carry many XIAMETER® products, and can offer customers more customized, personal services, as well as order flexibility.

Dow Corning’s XIAMETER business model enables customers to purchase high-quality, standard silicones at market-based prices online and more efficiently as it unbundles the services offered for products that were traditionally sold under the Dow Corning® brand. The Dow Corning brand continues to give customers an edge in the marketplace with its specialty silicones and other silicon-based materials, delivering higher value innovative solutions, custom formulations, and high-performance products.

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New Network for Marseille’s School of Management by NextiraOne and Cisco

The EMD School of Management, a non-profit organisation, is committed to training tomorrow's decision-makers in management skills and the practice of business ethics, based on human values. Established in 1964 it welcomes school-leavers (post-baccalaureat) and professionals in initial or continuing training.

In order to meet its growth and be able to welcome new students, the EMD School of Management decided to construct a new building in Marseille on the Euroméditerrannée campus. These new premises will open in October 2012 and will accommodate 500 students, around 20 administrative staff and a number of teachers.

On the recommendation of a number of higher education institutions in France and abroad, the EMD School of Management chose equipment manufacturer Cisco and NextiraOne, Europe’s leading communications services expert, as the system integrator to build the school’s IT and telecoms network, including a range of connected devices. The project began in March 2012 and will be fully completed in September 2012, in time for the start of the new school year.

"With the rapid growth in the EMD School of Management, our premises were quickly becoming cramped and we could no longer accommodate new students, so the construction of a new building was an imperative," said Xavier Palou, CEO of the EMD School of Management. "We have many partnerships with universities and schools abroad with whom we work very closely, so we needed to develop an IT infrastructure that would be stable, secure, efficient and scalable enough to allow the school to continue to develop and for students to study effectively.”

The new building included in all a 450 square meter auditorium, 30 classrooms, four 70-seat lecture halls and a learning centre of 600 square meters that all had to be equipped and connected to the network. With Internet access a critical factor for the school and all its students, the EMD School of Management built its new site on the first optical fibre node in Marseille, thereby enabling very high quality communications.

NextiraOne used a Cisco LAN infrastructure and WiFi system to develop and integrate the new and complemented it with a disaster recovery system in case of failure. The implementation included 58 WiFi hubs, and a Business Edition 6000 Communication Server for IP telephony integrating Cisco Jabber Mobile which in particular will allow the 50 users to use iPhones over the school network. A redundant infrastructure firewall has also been installed and a server to manage student enrolment and other applications is being hosted in the SFR cloud (national telecoms operator with recently launched own cloud services).

A system of wireless telephony is also being deployed that will allow school employees to follow the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, as they will be able to connect their own tablets, smartphones and other devices to the network.

Video is also a significant part of the project: to provide security for the new building, 16 surveillance cameras have been integrated into the network, based on a video security infrastructure from Axis and Milestone. Classrooms are equipped with IP cameras that will send video to any desk and any room in the school and around the world (as part of the partnership activities of EMD with other schools and universities). This will allow the school to extend its strategy of collaboration with other higher education establishments in France and abroad.

Finally, the EMD School of Management had a keen desire to include a research dimension. The school's network has therefore been designed to interface, share and interact with other centres and major research networks throughout the world.

"We are delighted with our partnership with NextiraOne and Cisco, who, from the outset, created an atmosphere of trust and efficiency that entirely matched our own values, an important factor for us. Throughout the project we have found ourselves working with professionals who understood our needs and problems and provided us with relevant advice and day to day presence. We will not hesitate to call on NextiraOne and Cisco again for our future projects," added Xavier Palou.

The new premises of the EMD School of Management will be ready for the 2012 school year, accommodating up to 1,300 new students in a powerful, high performance networking environment.

Marie-Noëlle Cheisson, Sales Engineer in charge of the project at NextiraOne France, concludes: "We have been worked closely with Cisco and the EMD School of Management to put the school at the leading edge of technology and enable its students to work in an ultra-collaborative environment. We are sure this will allow the school to grow in the coming years and to welcome more and more students, who in turn will be able to enjoy these benefits. This is due to the scalable infrastructure we have implemented which will be able to adapt to the growth of the school. We are very proud of this project, and the strong relationship we have created with EMD School of Management."

About the EMD School of Management: The EMD School of Management, a non-profit organisation, is committed to training tomorrow's decision-makers in management skills and the practice of business ethics, based on human and Christian values. Established in 1964 it welcomes school-leavers (post-baccalaureat) and professionals in initial or continuing training. With a pedagogical approach concerned for the overall development of the person, the EMD contributes to the growth of its employees and the development of its business. The professions of commerce, management, marketing and business management are taught through courses that from the Bac to the Bac +5, place people at the heart of the training programme.

About NextiraOne: NextiraOne is a European multinational company that designs, installs, maintains and supports business solutions and communications services for over 60,000 private and Public Sector customers. Using its expertise in leading-edge communications, including data centres, contact centres, unified communications, secure network infrastructures and managed services, NextiraOne helps its customers to transform their organisations, making the complex simple. Headquartered in Paris, NextiraOne has a direct sales and service presence in 16 countries with more than 4,300 employees across Europe, including 2,500 qualified service experts, and an annual revenue totalling around one billion euros in 2010.

About Cisco: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the world leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and social responsibility.

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Construction Contract

Definition of a construction contract

The term Contract used in the Construction management can be defined as: “An agreement entered into by two parties under the terms of which one party agrees to perform a specific job for which the other party agrees to pay. Contract documents attached to and/or stated in the agreement form integral parts of the contract”.


Essentials of Contract validity

* The parties to the contract must be competent, and legally capable of playing their intended part. The law can not enforce the agreement on someone who has not the legal capacity to enter into an agreement. This could be due to infancy, lunacy, drunkenness, or being restricted from entering into such agreement by a prior in date agreement or scope of authority.
* The subject matter of the contract must be lawful and definite in respect of requirements and duties of each party. For example a contract violating municipal regulation is not binding and is void in courts. Also uncertainty in respect of the what is wanted may result in the contract being not enforceable by law.
* Proposal and acceptance: There must be a proper proposal by one party and its absolute and unqualified acceptance by the other party. The proposal is not binding without a clear acceptance and is not binding beyond its date of validity.
* Free consent of parties to the contract: Consent is said to be free when it is not caused by force, or undue influence or fraud or misrepresentation.

Breach of Contract

Breach of Contract is the failure to perform it. However, not every failure to perform an obligation amounts to a true breach, as there are a number of excuses for non performance. When a contract has been broken without sufficient excuse or justification, the party who suffers by such breach is entitled to receive from the party in default, a compensation for any loss or damage caused by such breach.

Data Required for Preparing an Estimate:

A Contract may be terminated or brought to an end in either of the following ways:

* Full and satisfactory performance by both parties to their obligations under the contract.
* Breach of contract, when the default of one party releases the other party from the contractual obligations.
* Mutual agreement of the parties to terminate the contract.
* Unforeseen circumstances beyond the control of either party render it impossible to perform his duties or obligations stated in the contract.
* Operation of law to terminate a void contract.

Types of contracts commonly used in construction

* Lump sum contract
* Item rate or unit price contract
* Percentage rate contract
* Cost plus percentage rate contract
* Cost plus fixed fee contract
* Cost plus fluctuating fee contract
* Target cost contrac.

More details on construction contract will be explained in next posts.

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Top industry award for Quartix vehicle tracking at Van Fleet World Honours

Quartix, one of the UK’s leading vehicle tracking providers, has won the Internet Award in this year’s Van Fleet World Honours.

The trophy was presented during a ceremony at London’s Royal Automobile Club.
John Kendall, chairman of the judges and editor of Van Fleet World, said: “Quartix uses the internet to best possible effect, ensuring that their customers are able to keep track of their entire fleet at any time from any location.”

He added: “The telematics sector has made a huge contribution to the fleet management industry in the last 10 years with an ever more sophisticated range of services from a proliferation of suppliers, large and small.

“Quartix’s success has come not just as a result of its excellent internet-based service, but also because of the prudent and professional way in which the company is run.”

Andy Walters, managing director of Quartix, said: “It is extremely gratifying to receive this prestigious award and to have the work we carry out for our customers so publicly recognised. It is also testimony to the dedication, commitment and hard work of our entire team.”

More about Van Fleet World Honours
Van Fleet World Honours are presented annually to those motor manufacturers, service companies and individuals who have, in the opinion of the judges, achieved the highest possible level of excellence in their sector.

The awards are open to all motor manufacturers and the judging process combines the expert opinion of the van Fleet World editorial team with the values provided by a number of leading leasing companies and fleet data providers.

The judging panel is chaired by John Kendall, editor of Van Fleet World, and includes Steve Moody, Alex Grant and Ross Durkin of the Fleet World editorial team.

Commenting on this year’s awards, Fleet World managing editor, Ross Durkin, said: “The LCV manufacturers continue to produce some first-class vans which every year seem to get better in terms of safety, environmental performance, reliability and whole-life cost. As well as traditionally powered vans we are now seeing the emergence of a growing number of electric vehicles and this exciting market sector promises much in the future. We are also delighted to recognise the excellent quality of some of the industry’s key fleet service providers in this year’s awards.”

More about Quartix
Founded in 2001, Quartix has grown to become one of the UK’s most successful providers of vehicle tracking systems.

Today, more than 3,500 customers across a wide range of sectors – including government organisations, housing associations, construction firms, hospital trusts, the emergency services, SMEs and large British brands – use the online service, while the company’s unique, own-design tracking unit has been installed in more than 55,000 vehicles.

The Quartix system provides users with a fast, efficient, 'point-and-click' source of real-time information, together with tailored e-mail reports. The highly-flexible service has scope to meet the needs of large corporations and owner-managed businesses alike.

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