This is the first major revision of the Field Management Directives Manual since its inception in 1970. The revision was undertaken to provide the Manual's users with more current information and improve usability. Responsible offices reviewed all Field Management Directives for appropriate content. As a result, some Field Management Directives were canceled, some were reissued unchanged, and others were updated as needed. Two new Field Management Directives were also issued.

A standardized document format was introduced which includes:

• consistency in typeface used for all documents
• consistency of internal document headers and footers
• page numbering
• full text justification
• use of the new ORA logo

An addition was made to the bottom of each page to include the August 1996 publication date of the revised manual. This date differs from the date in the first page header which refers to the specific Field Management Directive's origination date or, if revised, the most recent revision date of the Field Management Directive's contents.

We are currently in the midst of a developmental effort to provide a complete keyword-driven subject index for the Manual. We anticipate providing this as a future update to the Manual. To this end, we have included an abbreviated subject index for your evaluation and comment as to its potential usefulness in more quickly identifying the location of desired information. We will be soliciting those comments in a survey planned to assess your interest in a number of areas such as, producing the Field Management Directives as a bound volume rather than the current three-ring binder publication.

Our goal in this Field Management Directives Manual improvement initiative has been to provide ORA and FDA with a current and useful manual. We are committed to continuing this initiative and welcome your suggestions at any time to the Management Control and Review Branch (HFC-23), Division of Management Operations, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857.