Abstract: The continued interest in the use of distributed generation in recent years is leading to the growth in number of distributed generators connected to distribution networks. Steady state voltage rise resulting from the connection of these generators can be a major obstacle to their connection at lower voltage levels. The present electric distribution network is designed to keep the customer voltage within tolerance limit. This may require a reduction in connectable generation capacity, under utilization of appropriate generation sites. Thus distribution network operators need a proper voltage regulation method to allow the significant integration of distributed generation systems to existing network. In this work a voltage rise problem in a typical distribution system has been studied. A method for voltage regulation of distribution system with multiple DG system by coordinated operation distributed generator, capacitor and OLTC has been developed. A sensitivity based analysis has been carried out to determine the priority for individual generators in multiple DG environment. The effectiveness of the developed method has been evaluated under various cases through simulation results.
Abstract: There are various approaches to implement quality
improvements. Organizations aim for a management standard which
is capable of providing customers with quality assurance on their
product/service via continuous process improvement. Carefully
planned steps are necessary to ensure the right quality improvement
methodology (QIM) and business operations are consistent, reliable
and truly meet the customers' needs. This paper traces the evolution
of QIM in Malaysia-s Information Technology (IT) industry in the
past, current and future; and highlights some of the thought of
researchers who contributed to the science and practice of quality,
and identifies leading methodologies in use today. Some of the
misconceptions and mistakes leading to quality system failures will
also be examined and discussed. This paper aims to provide a general
overview of different types of QIMs available for IT businesses in
maximizing business advantages, enhancing product quality,
improving process routines and increasing performance earnings.
Abstract: With the rapid growth in business size, today's businesses orient towards electronic technologies. Amazon.com and e-bay.com are some of the major stakeholders in this regard. Unfortunately the enormous size and hugely unstructured data on the web, even for a single commodity, has become a cause of ambiguity for consumers. Extracting valuable information from such an everincreasing data is an extremely tedious task and is fast becoming critical towards the success of businesses. Web content mining can play a major role in solving these issues. It involves using efficient algorithmic techniques to search and retrieve the desired information from a seemingly impossible to search unstructured data on the Internet. Application of web content mining can be very encouraging in the areas of Customer Relations Modeling, billing records, logistics investigations, product cataloguing and quality management. In this paper we present a review of some very interesting, efficient yet implementable techniques from the field of web content mining and study their impact in the area specific to business user needs focusing both on the customer as well as the producer. The techniques we would be reviewing include, mining by developing a knowledge-base repository of the domain, iterative refinement of user queries for personalized search, using a graphbased approach for the development of a web-crawler and filtering information for personalized search using website captions. These techniques have been analyzed and compared on the basis of their execution time and relevance of the result they produced against a particular search.
Abstract: Mining sequential patterns from large customer transaction databases has been recognized as a key research topic in database systems. However, the previous works more focused on mining sequential patterns at a single concept level. In this study, we introduced concept hierarchies into this problem and present several algorithms for discovering multiple-level sequential patterns based on the hierarchies. An experiment was conducted to assess the performance of the proposed algorithms. The performances of the algorithms were measured by the relative time spent on completing the mining tasks on two different datasets. The experimental results showed that the performance depends on the characteristics of the datasets and the pre-defined threshold of minimal support for each level of the concept hierarchy. Based on the experimental results, some suggestions were also given for how to select appropriate algorithm for a certain datasets.
Abstract: In the past few decades, researchers have witnessed a
paradigm shift in Human Resource Management-from individual
performance to organizational outcomes with the role of Human
resource (HR) managers becoming increasingly significant to the
organization. In such a context, it is important to examine HR
practices from a strategic perspective on the sustained competitive
advantage (SCA) of the organizations. The present study explores
how Indian organisations look at their human resources strategically
when faced with competitive environment. Also, it explores strategic
initiatives being taken to manage human resources within the
organisations and how these initiatives promote SCA in terms of
enhancing the overall customer-centric delivery of goods and
services.
Abstract: Logistics is part of the supply chain processes that plans, implements, and controls the efficient and effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer requirements. This research aims to investigate the current status and future direction of the use of Information Technology (IT) for logistics, focusing on Supply Chain Management (SCM) and E-Commerce adoption in Johor. Therefore, this research stresses on the type of technology being adopted, factors, benefits and barriers affecting the innovation in SCM and ECommerce technology adoption among Logistics Service Providers (LSP). A mailed questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 265 logistics companies in Johor. The research revealed that SCM technology adoption among LSP was higher as they had adopted SCM technology in various business processes while they perceived a high level of benefits from SCM adoption. Obviously, ECommerce technology adoption among LSP is relatively low.
Abstract: For any country the project management has been a
vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world
has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve
success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in
business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue
unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business
projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to
dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of
the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in
New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the
project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than
social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the
literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not
identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies
ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based
organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering
ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase
satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony,
trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members.
This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists
linking the project success with an ethical approach.
Abstract: Business rules are widely used within the services
sector. They provide consistency and allow relatively unskilled staff
to process complex transactions correctly. But there are many
examples where the rules themselves have an impact on the costs and
profits of an organisation. Financial services, transport and human
services are areas where the rules themselves can impact the bottom
line in a predictable way. If this is the case, how can we find that set
of rules that maximise profit, performance or customer service, or
any other key performance indicators? The manufacturing, energy
and process industries have embraced mathematical optimisation
techniques to improve efficiency, increase production and so on. This
paper explores several real world (but simplified) problems in the
services sector and shows how business rules can be optimised. It
also examines the similarities and differences between the service
and other sectors, and how optimisation techniques could be used to
deliver similar benefits.
Abstract: The study will search the level of existence of the
sweethearting in Saudi Arabia's Supermarkets in Riyadh.
Sweethearting occurs when frontline workers give unauthorized free
or uncounted goods and services to customer-s conspirators. The
store managers and /or security managers were asked about the
sweethearting that occurs in the supermarkets. The characteristics of
sweethearting in Riyadh stores were investigated. Two independent
variables were related to the report of sweethearting. These
independent variables are: The effect of store environment on
sweethearting and the security techniques and loss prevention
electronics techniques used. This study expected to shed the light
about the level of sweethearting in Saudi Arabia and the factors
behind it. This study will serve as an exploratory study for such
phenomenon in Saudi Arabia as well as both descriptive for the
characteristics of sweethearting and explanatory study to link
between the environmental and security systems factors to
sweethearting.
Abstract: The objective of this study is to identify the factors
that influence the online purchasing loyalty for Thai herbal products.
Survey research is used to gather data from Thai herb online
merchants to assess factors that have impacts on enhancing loyalty.
Data were collected from 300 online customers who had experience
in online purchasing of Thai Herbal products. Prior experience
consists of data from previous usage of online herbs, herb purchase
and internet usage. E-Quality data consists of information quality,
system quality, service quality and the product quality of Thai herbal
products sold online. The results suggest that prior experience, Equality,
attitude toward purchase and trust in online merchant have
major impacts on loyalty. The good attitude and E-Quality of
purchasing Thai herbal product online are the most significant
determinants affecting loyalty.
Abstract: In the era of great competition, understanding and satisfying
customers- requirements are the critical tasks for a company
to make a profits. Customer relationship management (CRM) thus
becomes an important business issue at present. With the help of
the data mining techniques, the manager can explore and analyze
from a large quantity of data to discover meaningful patterns and
rules. Among all methods, well-known association rule is most
commonly seen. This paper is based on Apriori algorithm and uses
genetic algorithms combining a data mining method to discover fuzzy
classification rules. The mined results can be applied in CRM to
help decision marker make correct business decisions for marketing
strategies.
Abstract: The concept of flexible manufacturing is highly
appealing in gaining a competitive edge in the market by quickly
adapting to the changing customer needs. Scheduling jobs on flexible
manufacturing systems (FMSs) is a challenging task of managing the
available flexibility on the shop floor to react to the dynamics of the
environment in real-time. In this paper, an agent-oriented scheduling
framework that can be integrated with a real or a simulated FMS is
proposed. This framework works in stochastic environments with a
dynamic model of job arrival. It supports a hierarchical cooperative
scheduling that builds on the available flexibility of the shop floor.
Testing the framework on a model of a real FMS showed the
capability of the proposed approach to overcome the drawbacks of
the conventional approaches and maintain a near optimal solution
despite the dynamics of the operational environment.
Abstract: This study analyses store layout among the many
factors that underlie supermarket store design, this; in terms of what to
display in a shop and where to place the items. This report examines
newly-opened stores and evaluates their interior shop floor layouts,
which we then attempt to categorize by various styles. We then
consider the interaction between shop floor layout and customer
behavior from the perspective of the supermarket as the seller. At this
point, we focus on the “store magnets"–the main sections within the
shop likely to attract customers into the store.
Abstract: This research aimed to study the competency of health
and wellness hotels and resorts in developing use the local natural
resources and wisdom to conform to the national health and wellness
tourism (HWT) strategy by comparing two independent samples,
from Aumpur Muang, Ranong province and Aumpur Muang,
Chiangmai province. And also study in the suggestive direct path to
lead the organization to the sustainable successful.
This research was conduct by using mix methodology; both
quantitative and qualitative data were used. The data of competency
of health and wellness hotels and resorts (HWHR) in developing use
the local natural resources for HWT promoting were collected via
300 set of questionnaires, from 6 hotels and resorts in 2 areas, 3
places from Aumpur Muang, Ranong province and another 3 from
Aumpur Muang, Chiangmai province.
Thestudy of HWHR’s competency in developing use the local
natural resources and wisdom to conform to the national HWT
strategycan be divided into fourmain areas, food and beverages
service, tourism activity, environmental service, and value adding.
The total competency of the Chiangmai sample is importantly
scoredp. value 0.01 higher than the Ranong one while the area of
safety, Chiangmai’s competency is importantly scored 0.05 higher
than the Ranong’scompetency. Others were rated not differently.
Since Chiangmai perform better, then it can be a role model in
developing HTHR or HWT destination.
From the part of qualitative research, content analysis of business
contents and its environments were analyzed. The four stages of
strategic development and plans, from the smallest scale to the largest
scale such a national base were discussed. The HWT: Evolution
model and strategy for lodging Business were suggested. All those
stages must work harmoniously together. The distinctive result
illustrates the need of human resource development as the key point
to create the identity of Thainess on Health and wellness service
providing. This will add-on the value of services and differentiates
ourselves from other competitors. The creative of Thailand’s health
and wellness brand possibly increase loyalty customers which agreed
to be a path of sustainable development.
Abstract: In order to define a new model of Tunisian foot
sizes and for building the most comfortable shoes, Tunisian
industrialists must be able to offer for their customers products able
to put on and adjust the majority of the target population concerned.
Moreover, the use of models of shoes, mainly from others
country, causes a mismatch between the foot and comfort of the
Tunisian shoes.
But every foot is unique; these models become uncomfortable for
the Tunisian foot. We have a set of measures produced from a
3D scan of the feet of a diverse population (women, men ...) and we
try to analyze this data to define a model of foot specific to the
Tunisian footwear design.
In this paper we propose tow new approaches to modeling a new
foot sizes model. We used, indeed, the neural networks, and specially
the Kohonen network.
Next, we combine neural networks with the concept of half-foot
size to improve the models already found. Finally, it was necessary to
compare the results obtained by applying each approach and we
decide what-s the best approach that give us the most model of foot
improving more comfortable shoes.
Abstract: This is an applied research to propose the method for
price quotation for a contract electronics manufacturer. It has had a
precise price quoting method but such method could not quickly
provide a result as the customer required. This reduces the ability of
company to compete in this kind of business. In this case, the cause
of long time quotation process was analyzed. A lot of product
features have been demanded by customer. By checking routine
processes, it was found that high fraction of quoting time was used
for production time estimating which has effected to the
manufacturing or production cost. Then the historical data of
products including types, number of components, assembling
method, and their assembling time were used to analyze the key
components affecting to production time. The price quoting model
then was proposed. The implementation of proposed model was able
to remarkably reduce quoting time with an acceptable required
precision.
Abstract: Modern information and communication technologies
offer a variety of support options for the efficient handling of
customer relationships. CRM systems have been developed, which
are designed to support the processes in the areas of marketing, sales
and service. Along with technological progress, CRM systems are
constantly changing, i.e. the systems are continually enhanced by
new functions. However, not all functions are suitable for every
company because of different frameworks and business processes. In
this context the question arises whether or not CRM systems are
widely used in Austrian companies and which business processes are
most frequently supported by CRM systems. This paper aims to shed
light on the popularity of CRM systems in Austrian companies in
general and the use of different functions to support their daily
business. First of all, the paper provides a theoretical overview of the
structure of modern CRM systems and proposes a categorization of
currently available software functionality for collaborative,
operational and analytical CRM processes, which provides the
theoretical background for the empirical study. Apart from these
theoretical considerations, the paper presents the empirical results of
a field survey on the use of CRM systems in Austrian companies and
analyzes its findings.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to identify the most suitable
model for churn prediction based on three different techniques. The
paper identifies the variables that affect churn in reverence of
customer complaints data and provides a comparative analysis of
neural networks, regression trees and regression in their capabilities
of predicting customer churn.
Abstract: Nowadays companies in all sectors are looking for the
sources of competitive advantages. Holistic marketing approach
searches for their emergence based on the integration of all
components and elements across the organization. Modern marketing
sees the sources of competitive advantage in implementing the latest
managerial practices, motivation, intelligent project management,
knowledge management, collaborative marketing, CSR and, in the
recent years, also in the business process optimization. With the use
of modern tools including business process management and business
process modelling the company can markedly increase its internal
efficiency which can lead not only to lowering the costs but to
creating the environment for optimal customer care, positive
corporate culture and for origination of innovations as well. In the
article the authors analyze the recent trend in this area and introduce
suggestions to companies to identify and optimize the key processes
that have a significant impact of the company´s competitiveness.
Abstract: People from different cultures favor web pages
characterized by the values of their culture and, therefore, tend to
prefer different characteristics of a website according to their cultural
values in terms of navigation, security, product information, customer
service, shopping and design tools. For a company aiming to
globalize its market it is useful to implement country specific cultural
interfaces and different web sites for countries with different cultures.
This paper, following the conclusions proposed by two models of
Hall and Hofstede, and the studies of Marcus and Gould, defines,
through an empirical analysis, the guidelines of web design for both
the Scandinavian countries and Malaysia.