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hidden wealth: Coal technologists are involved in product evaluation in terms of specialised variables or properties.

Coal technologists are employed in the coal industry in a variety of areas such as geology, chemistry, physics, engineering and economics and in the application fields of prospecting, geological survey, coal mining, coal preparation, grading, analysis, carbonisation, combustion (in steam generators and power plants), gasification (at gas plants), research, quality control and marketing.

Coal technologists are concerned with the recovery and utilisation of all forms of coal and byproducts of coal. They are involved in geological surveys to determine the location and nature of a country’s coal reserves. They are furthermore closely involved with drilling programmes and with determining whether a coal field can be mined economically. Other tasks include determining what the available coal can be used for, for example electricity generation, supplying coal to blast furnaces or the gasification of coal for making petroleum products or byproducts.

Coal technologists are continually involved in product evaluation in terms of specialised variables or properties. Testing procedures are standardised and are internationally acknowledged in the coal industry. These quality control tests involve chemical, analytical and physical tests, the choice depending on the nature and application of the product. Normally crude coal samples, borehole samples and samples of refined products are subjected to analytical and physical procedures.

Coal technologists are also employed by various government departments and government-assisted organisations, as well as in private enterprises such as brick and cement manufacturers, gas plants, mining concerns and power stations.

Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organisation’s most valued assets — the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms human resource management (HRM) and human resource (HR) have largely replaced the term personnel management as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organisations. HRM is evolving rapidly. It is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce.

HR managers are responsible for policies and practices that deal with recruitment and selection of employees, training and development, improvement of performance and productivity, pay and fringe benefits and creating good relationship between managers and employees.

They are usually responsible for tasks such as: Recruitment and selection of employees; Development and updating of training programmes; Remuneration; Labour relations and staff welfare; Staff administration and utilisation; Research, and Organisation planning and development.

HR managers must have good communication skills. It is essential that they can work well with all kinds of people. Most medium size and larger organisations in the public or private sectors employ HR managers

A business information system (BIS) is the meeting place of information and computer technology with people and business. BIS combines business studies with informatics, which focuses on creating, applying and communicating business information.

Studying Business Information Systems, you acquire both business and technology skills. You acquire the skills to analyse business problems from two points of view: considering both the technology aspects and the business requirements. You learn how to analyse business processes, looking at the steps involved in completing specific tasks, looking at how a company does business, with a view to understanding how an organisation or company works. You learn about technology and how to use and manage technology. As you expand your knowledge of business and technology, you learn to explore how an organisation can use technology to improve or even to transform its business.

You learn how to think about exploiting the power of technology when faced with the challenges of a specific business environment. For example, a BIS graduate working in a food distribution company might have to consider the best ways to capitalise on the latest mobile phone technologies to help make the distribution process more effective and to increase the margins for the company. BIS is an exciting, fast-changing field. In today’s world BIS plays an important role in enabling organisations to meet their strategic goals, driving business innovation, and assisting businesses to comply with increasingly complex legal requirements. BIS graduates find employment in many industry sectors in all types of roles because the skills that you acquire can be transferred easily from one sector to another.

JAYAPRAKASH GANDHI

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