Categories Of Customers Research Articles

A data-driven approach for discovering heat load patterns in district heating

Understanding the heat usage of customers is crucial for effective district heating operations and management. Unfortunately, existing knowledge about customers and their heat load behaviors is quite scarce. Most previous studies are limited to small-scale analyses that are not representative enough to understand the behavior of the overall network. In this work, we propose a data-driven approach that enables large-scale automatic analysis of heat load patterns in district heating networks without requiring prior knowledge. Our method clusters the customer profiles into different groups, extracts their representative patterns, and detects unusual customers whose profiles deviate significantly from the rest of their group. Using our approach, we present the first large-scale, comprehensive analysis of the heat load patterns by conducting a case study on many buildings in six different customer categories connected to two district heating networks in the south of Sweden. The 1222 buildings had a total floor space of 3.4 million square meters and used 1540 TJ heat during 2016. The results show that the proposed method has a high potential to be deployed and used in practice to analyze and understand customers’ heat-use habits.

THE ROLE OF MARKETING RESEARCH TO PROVIDE EFFICIENCY OF THE ENTERPRISES

It is generally recognized that marketing research determines and/or adjusts the decision-making stages at the enterprise, which ultimately determines the profit or loss from the activity. There has been a slight increase in the volume of marketing research in the hryvnia equivalent on Ukrainian market in recent years. For a complete determination of the sectoral distribution and future trends of this market development, it is advisable to supplement the classification of marketing research and to find out the mutual influence on the results of economic activity. The marketing research has been investigated by foreign researchers, such as I. Ansoff, P. Dixon, F. Kotler, M. Porter, and D. Saunders. Domestic scientists, including S. Garkavenko, Y. Krykavskyy, І.Lylyk, P. Pererva, T. Reshetilova, A. Starostina, Y. Yakovets also concentrated on these issues. However, some aspects of marketing research for ensuring the effective operation of enterprises need to be improved and further developed. The of the article is to study the nature of marketing research, generalize and add classification. Besides, the aim is to determine and to monitor market research in Ukraine and their impact on the results of economic activity of enterprises. In the article defined the marketing research as a process of recognizing a problem, collecting, identifying, and interpreting data. It should be in accordance with the purpose of the study to make a decision or confirmation of a previously approved one. It has been summarized the classification according to the subject of the study: research of market and counteragents, research of the marketing environment, research of the complex of marketing instruments. It has been stated that marketing research should be systematic and complex. It is necessary to identify the problem and opportunities for further decision. Besides, it also needs to consider marketing research as a coherent and pre-planned process to cover most aspects of the subject. The Ukrainian market of marketing research in 2017 has undergone significant changes. According to the Ukrainian Association of Marketing (UAM), the turnover of the market in 2017 amounted to about 992.07 million UAH. or $ 35.35 million [8]. It was observed that peak volumes of Ukrainian market were in 2008 and 2013. However, the smallest mark of UAH 32.3 million was in 2016. It should be noted that the volume of the market has been growing in the hryvnia equivalent throughout the period under study. The results of the analysis show a general growth of the market by 9.3% in 2017 compared to the previous one. The food industry, beer and low-alcohol beverage producers, and the perfume industry play significant role on the business-to-consumer (B2C) market. This market takes the largest share of marketing researches. Thus, in 2016, the category of the food industry had almost 10% in a whole structure; in 2017 the category has been increasing to 13.4%. Producers of tobacco products showed a significant increase from 3.23% to 8.20%. In the sectoral distribution of marketing research, the B2B market has a relatively small share, but in 2017 it was already 27.58%. The pharmaceutical industry has been growing significantly from 10.4% in 2016 to 18.7% in 2017 [8]. The existence of the link between the conducted marketing researches and increase of profit at the enterprises has been defined. It has been included the following areas: industry; wholesale and retail trade; information and telecommunications; financial and insurance activities; professional, scientific and technical activities. To summarize, the marketing researches ensure the effective functioning of the company in the market through the detection of problems, search, and collection of relevant data for decision making. It is appropriate to consider marketing research according to the category of customers - B2B and B2C, or by sectoral distribution. The growth of the Ukrainian market of marketing research has shown the gradual increase in demand, and the growth of its role for modern enterprises in the recent years.

Improved time series electricity sales forecast based on economic prosperity method

With the construction of smart grids, a large amount of equipment operating data and power consumption data have been accumulated in the national grid system. However, these data have not been fully utilized nor has their potential value been exerted. Based on the customer’s historical electricity consumption data, this paper analyzes the customer’s electricity usage behavior from different dimensions, and predicts the sales of electricity in different dimensions, which is used as a supplement to customer category information such as customer industry, electricity properties, scale and voltage level. This will help with refined management. In this paper, the gray model and time series method are used to predict the sales of electricity. Combined with the economic index analysis method and the adjustment of holiday factors, the forecast results of electricity sales are revised.

О ценовой эластичности спроса на электроэнергию

The paper provides the econometric estimates of short-run and long-run price elasticities of electricity demand for different categories of customers. Both for residential and for non-residential sectors the estimates (in absolute value) of short-run price elasticity are low, while the estimates of long-run price elasticity are high. Consequently, long-run projections of electricity demand under expectations of increase of energy prices should take into account the long-run price elasticity. The estimates of short-run price elasticity for non-residential sector can be used in models of imperfect competition in the electricity market, under a number of assumptions, such as the absence or weak attention of the regulator, when possible strategies of economic agents (such as electricity suppliers in the spot market) may depend on the short-run price elasticity of demand.

IDENTIFYING THE PROMOTION TECHNIQUES USED IN HOTELS IN BRASOV

This research project aims at identifying promotion techniques in the hospitality industry. It consists of identifying existing promotional techniques and finding new promotion techniques from hotel managers using the interviewing method as a research method. Over time, some hotel promotion techniques have been used to attract tourists, and these techniques have been used depending on the hotel's classification category, depending on the target market to which it is targeting, and the budget allocated to promote the hotel product. Therefore, in this research project, we will analyze the most applicable, cost-effective promotional techniques used by the managers or representatives of the hotels in Braşov through a semistructured interview made up of several questions to which interviewees will respond freely and precisely. In this project were identified the basic aspects of the research topic, the questions that come to respond to what was to be determined by the research, as well as the objectives subsequently identified. The results of the promotional actions adopted by the Braşov hotels aim to attract new customers and keep old ones, addressing directly to target customer categories as well as to the travel agency network. Also, the general public is not neglected. As a general conclusion on sales promotion techniques used in Braşov hotels, following the arguments put forward, it can be deduced that the categories of customers with income from the environment to the highest are considered for the most part but are not left apart from those with lower incomes.

Linear Programming for Multi-Agent Demand Response

This research describes a real-time optimization model for multi-agent demand response (DR) from a Load Serving Entity (LSE) perspective. Three major categories of customers and five types of energy resources are considered simultaneously to achieve efficient DR decision making in highly stochastic future energy markets. Two infinite horizon stochastic optimization models are formulated; specifically, an LSE model and a dynamic pricing customer model. The objective of these models is to minimize long-term cost and discomfort penalty of the LSE and dynamic pricing customers. Because preferences of these two agents are different, they are inseparable and difficult to solve. A deterministic finite horizon linear program is solved as an approximation of the suggested stochastic model, and computational experiments are provided.

Two-dimensional preventive maintenance optimum for equipment sold with availability-based warranty

Selecting complex equipment with availability requirements as the object of study, this article investigates an availability-based warranty policy. Under this policy, apart from providing repairs or replacements upon failures, the manufacturer guarantees a negotiated availability level of products during the warranty period. In order to satisfy the availability requirement of the warranted products with rational cost, two-dimensional preventive maintenance strategy is carried out by the manufacturer, which is scheduled by considering the age and usage of the warranted items. By optimizing two-dimensional preventive maintenance strategy, this study aims to meet products’ availability requirement with the lowest cost from the manufacturer’s perspective. Moreover, customized preventive maintenance programs are designed for different customer categories. Finally, we provide a numerical example to verify the effectiveness of the proposed availability-based warranty policy. The results demonstrate that two-dimensional preventive maintenance strategy is superior in terms of warranty cost and operational availability. Meanwhile, customized preventive maintenance policy is more beneficial to both the transaction sides.

Saving Energy From Urban Water Demand Management

AbstractWater use directly causes a significant amount of energy use in cities. In this paper we assessed energy and carbon dioxide emissions related to each part of the urban water cycle and the consequences of some water demand management policies in terms of water, energy, and CO2 emissions in urban water users, water and energy utilities, and the environment. First, we developed an hourly model of urban water uses by customer category, including water‐related energy consumption. Next, using real data from the East Bay Municipal Utility District in California, we calibrated a model of the energy used in water supply, treatment, pumping, and wastewater treatment by the utility, obtaining also energy costs. Then, using data from the California Independent System Operator, we obtained hourly costs of energy generation and transport to the point of use for the energy utility. Finally, using average emission factors reported by energy utilities, we estimated greenhouse gas emissions for the entire urban water cycle. Results for East Bay Municipal Utility District show that water end uses account for almost 95% of all water‐related energy use; however, the remaining 5% of energy used by the utility still costs over USD12 million annually. The carbon footprint of the urban water cycle is 372 kg CO2/person/year, representing approximately 4% of the total per capita emissions in California. Several simulations analyze the consequences of different water demand management policies, resulting in significant economic impacts for water and energy utilities and environmental benefits by reducing CO2 emissions.

Segmentation of business saving customer to improve average balance based on structural equation modeling (SEM) and recency, frequency, monetary (RFM): Case study Bank XYZ in Indonesia

As business players, entrepreneurs certainly need bank products and supports that provide fast and easy services with wide-spread network in Indonesia. RFM is a segmentation method based on past data and create an index on a client where the high loyalty and assume the behaviour of customers in the index will be the same in the future. Certainly, customers with high RFM score were customers who become the target of the Bank because these customers have high loyalty and valuable for the Bank. In this study, segmentation performed based on transactions which affect the increase in average balance using Structural Equation Model (SEM). The objects of RFM segmentation is to identify the customer in order to build a marketing strategy for each segment with different levels of loyalty. As the segmentation results we found three driver categories, High Recency, Middle Recency and Low Recency customer category. High Recency is considered Active customer where campaign category can be cross/up-selling and promotional accordingly with their Frequency and Monetary. Middle Recency category is considered Risky customer where campaign category can be retention program accordingly with their Frequency and Monetary. Last, Low Recency is considered Churn customer where campaign category is reactivation

Revenue and attendance simultaneous optimization in performing arts organizations

Performing arts organizations are characterized by different objectives other than revenue. Even if, on the one hand, theaters aim to increase revenue from box office as a consequence of the systematic reduction in public funds; on the other hand, they pursue the objective to increase its attendance. A common practice by theaters is to provide incentives to customers to discriminate among themselves according to their reservation price, offering a schedule of different prices corresponding to different seats in the venue. In this context, price and allocation of the theater seating area is decision variables that allow theater managers to manage their two conflicting goals to be pursued. In this paper, we introduce a multi-objective optimization model that jointly considers pricing and seat allocation. The framework proposed integrates a choice model estimated by multinomial logit model and the demand forecast, taking into account the impact of heterogeneity among customer categories in both choice and demand. The proposed model is validated with booking data referring to the Royal Danish theater during the period 2010–2015.

ANALISIS SEGMENTASI PELANGGAN MENGGUNAKAN KOMBINASI RFM MODEL DAN TEKNIK CLUSTERING

Intense competition in the business field motivates a small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to manage customer services to the maximal. Improve of customer royalty by grouping cunstomers into some of groups and determining appropriate and effective marketing strategies for each group. Customer segmentation can be performed by data mining approach with clustering method. The main purpose of this paper is customer segmentation and measure their loyalty to a SME’s product. Using CRISP-DM method which consist of six phases, namely business understanding, data understanding, data preparatuin, modeling, evaluation and deployment. The K-Means algorithm is used for cluster formation and RapidMiner as a tool used to evaluate the result of clusters. Cluster formation is based on RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) analysis. Davies Bouldin Index (DBI) is used to find the optimal number of clusters (k). The customers are divided into 3 clusters, total of customer in first cluster is 30 customers who entered in typical customer category, the second cluster there are 8 customer whho entered in superstar customer and 89 customers in third cluster is dormant cluster category.

Sustainable Information in Shoe Purchase Decisions: Relevance of Data Based on Source

The aim of this work was to analyse consumers’ attitudes to economic, environmental, and social information on shoe labels, in particular on sustainable consumption, and also to examine the importance of the source of the information. Three steps were followed to develop an appropriate method of extracting, analysing, and interpreting the information contained in the questionnaire used in the survey: an Exploratory Factorial Analysis (EFA) to evaluate the reliability and dimensionality of the questionnaire; a Cluster Analysis (CA) and an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the ability of the questionnaire to identify different customer categories and the main purchase characteristics included in the questionnaire to characterize each homogeneous group; and a tree classification method using the Chi-Squared Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) to characterize the hypothetical scenario of the purchase selection. The results show that consumers, especially those aged between 21 and 30, are concerned about elements related to economic, environmental, and social dimensions on shoe labels. The most important variable in the purchase process was the presence of Environmental Management Systems (e.g., ISO 14001, EMAS). These results could help to optimize the information on shoe labels and would add value by including variables other than environment and price.

Book and Geographical Shop to sale editions of the General Staff (at Military Printing House)

The article represents the history of creation and development of a typographical office and book and geographical shop to sale editions of the General Staff at the Military Printing House. It analyzes «Military Printing House Regulations» highly approved on December 30, 1860 and the «Military Printing House Regulations» put into operation by the order on the Defense Ministry No. 28 on February 10, 1895, concerning activity of the typographical office and Book and Geographical Shop to sale editions of General Staff at Printing House. The paper considers Rules of work of Book and Geographical Shop for the General Staff editions sale. It reveals features of books perchase in it by various categories of customers.

Dynamic Business Models: a Proposed Framework to Overcome the Death Valley

The ex ante definition of business model offers the possibility to create a static picture of “how” the company is able to generate value in a given moment. But is this business model able to generate value over time? The time factor of the value proposition life cycle is not usually taken into account. This paper, starting from the lean canvas model (Maurya 2012), proposes a framework able to consider the temporal factor and, coming from Rogers’s innovation diffusion theory (Die Diffusion von Innovationen in der Telekommunikation, 17, 25–38, Rogers 1995), to evolve the business model from a single picture to a set of pictures representing the many phases of the value proposition life cycle. A local context analysis was conducted, interviewing 10 CEOs of University of Salento start-ups, and the framework’s tool kit was developed: application methodology, questionnaire, and glossary. To validate the tools and methodology, a real business case was considered. Using the framework proposed in the business model definition would allow managers of start-ups to identify several marketing strategies, channels, and key metrics dedicated to each customer category.

HR business partner – the range of roles and services

The aim of the article is to present the possible roles and services which can be gained by organizations from the business offer performed by hr business partners. The history of the HRPB development concept is shortly described as well as their round of evolution during last two decades. The main theoretical models of HRBP and their implication for their possible range of hr and business services are discussed. In conclusion is stressed the need of widening HRBP services for the other categories of customers, including small companies and individual subjects

"The citizen is stepping into a new role"-Policy interpretations of patient and public involvement in Finland.

Involving patients and the public in healthcare decision-making is on the policy agenda in several countries. The aim of our study was to describe and analyse the development of patient and public involvement from a policy perspective. We argue that the language of health policies can influence both the aims and the development of involvement methods. In this study health policy documents, which have guided the development of patient and public involvement in Finland have been analysed using methods of Membership Categorisation Analysis. This has enabled us to explore how health policy documents categorise patients and the wider public in relation to involvement and orientate the involvement activities in which people are able to participate. Different set of abilities, expectations, responsibilities and opportunities is attached to the categories of patient, risk group, service user, customer and expert. Health policy documents often equate involvement with choice making by service users and customers; or as involvement in service development by experts. In both of these cases, involvement is depicted as an individual activity that requires personal responsibility and specialist knowledge. Although involvement opportunities have overall increased, they are primarily available to people that are "participation ready" and able to adopt roles promoted in policies. Health policy documents produce one interpretation of involvement, nevertheless it is important that diverse groups of patients, the public and health professionals participate in the discussion and express their views, which may differ from those of policy makers.

The sales force sizing problem with multi-period workload assignments, and service time windows

This work introduces the sales force sizing problem with multi-period workload assignments, and service time windows. The motivation of the problem arises from a real life situation faced by a goods distribution company. The problem consists in determining the size of the sales force (i.e. the number of vendors to hire) and their daily schedules, within a planning horizon, to serve a set of customers in order to minimize the total nominal wage. There are different categories of customers and each customer has multiple time windows depending on the service day. Furthermore, the nominal wage of a hired vendor is determined by the most expensive category of the customers he serves. A mixed integer linear formulation and a heuristic are proposed for this problem. The performance of the heuristic algorithm is assessed over a set of instances adapted from literature. Computational results reveal the efficiency and scalability of the proposed procedure, providing a better tradeoff in terms of solution quality and running time than a commercial solver.

EVALUASI KEPUASAN PENGGUNA JASA LABORATORIUM KIMIA PT KRAKATAU STEEL (PERSERO) TBK TAHUN 2012-2013

One of the services contained in PT Krakatau Steel (Persero) Tbk is the chemical composition analysis services in the chemistry lab. Management system that will create a well-managed laboratoryperformance is optimal. Manage standard chemistry laboratory is SNI ISO/IEC 17025. Discussed in this standard laboratory management such as through customer feedback. Laboratory customers selected through stratified random sampling with customer categories as strata, like suppliers, derived from plant and internal processes are not routine. In the research lab result that the customer will be satisfied, including services rendered for Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) is greater than 70% with the overall characteristics of the respondents subscription in the laboratory was 11.6 years. Overall the indicators included in the priority importance performance analysis (IPA) and has a value kesenjangan beyond the maximum tolerance through kesenjangan analysis approach is the completeness of laboratory equipment (F) and speed of service (K).
 Keywords : customer satisfaction index (CSI), gap analysis, importance performance analysis (IPA)

Categorisation of electricity customers based upon their demand patterns

Historically, categorisation of customers has been made by fuse size, industry-code, type of residence, estimated annual consumption or actual consumption pattern. Through the hourly metering reform in Sweden, several calendar years of consumption data with hourly resolution are available, which enables new categorisation methods. Based on customers' hourly consumption, a data-driven methodology can be used to increase the knowledge about both individual customers and portfolios of customers. By doing so, assumptions in the prognosis-work can be avoided, retailers can develop deals tailored for individual customers and smart grid-components can more easily be identified. This study uses hourly metering data from approximately 150 000 customers to “cluster” these into categories. By calculating KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) from consumption profiles, customers can be grouped by how their KPI-values resemble each other using the method K-means. Nine KPI's are analysed to reflect several nuances in customers' consumptions, which enables a categorisation of customers with similar consumption patterns. The study shows that many customers in each segment resemble each other, but also that a significant share more distinctive traits. This substantiates a questioning of the methods used to define profiled customers today since these often assume a customer category to be homogenous.

Conceptual framework of Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) cost of service (COS) model

One of Malaysia Electricity Supply Industry (MESI) objectives is to ensure Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) economic viability based on a fair economic electricity pricing. In meeting such objective, a framework that investigates the effect of cost of service (COS) on revenue is in great need. This paper attempts to present a conceptual framework that illustrate the distribution of the COS among TNB’s various cost centres which are subsequently redistributed in varying quantities among all of its customer categories. A deep understanding on the concepts will ensure optimal allocation of COS elements between different sub activities of energy production processes can be achieved. However, this optimal allocation needs to be achieved with respect to the imposed TNB revenue constraint. Therefore, the methodology used for this conceptual approach is being modelled into four steps. Firstly, TNB revenue requirement is being examined to ensure the conceptual framework addressed the requirement properly. Secondly, the revenue requirement is unbundled between three major cost centres or business units consist of generation, transmission and distribution and the cost is classified based on demand, energy and customers related charges. Finally, the classified costs are being allocated to different customer categories i.e. Household, Commercial, and Industrial. In summary, this paper proposed a conceptual framework on the cost of specific services that TNB currently charging its customers and served as potential input into the process of developing revised electricity tariff rates. On that purpose, the finding of this COS study finds cost to serve customer varies with the voltage level that customer connected to, the timing and the magnitude of customer demand on the system. This COS conceptual framework could potentially be integrated into a particular tariff structure and serve as a useful tool for TNB.