Customer Need Research Articles

Incentives and risk-sharing in public procurement of innovations

Purpose Public procurement of innovations (PPIs) addresses a specified need of the public-sector customer or aims at fostering private firms’ innovativeness. In an operational sense, issues of information asymmetry and risk sharing between the public agency and the supplier are of paramount importance. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contract design issues of PPI. Design/methodology/approach Explicit and implicit contracting methods are reviewed, and a conceptual framework is proposed in which procurement characteristics are analyzed, focusing on the dimensions of the supplier’s sensitivity to the procurement risk and the power of implicit contracting methods. Findings Because of its complex nature, applying cost-plus contracts instead of more common fixed-price contracts is advisable in PPI. Originality/value Possible reasons for the more prominent role of contract design in the USA as opposed to the European Union procurement are discussed.

A Content Analysis on Quality for CAD Based Product Design: Developing a Framework for Malaysian Technical Teacher Training Institute

Product design is a complicated process and requires a systematic requirement and specification to produce sufficient quality to remain competitive. One of the most important components in the design process is Computer-Aided Design (CAD), which renders a detailed drawing in either two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional modeling (3D). This paper discusses the conception of quality design to produce a creative design product. This study employed a systematic review to produce a framework of quality product design based on Computer-Aided Design (CAD). Out of 210 papers that were identified, 102 were reviewed and also 12 other relevant articles, books, reports, and documents, hence a total of 114 papers were included in this review. The reviews revealed that there are main aspect drivers of the product design, design process, design quality, customer need on the product, product evaluation, and design concept of quality products. The study also showed that the initial stage of idea-generating is an essential phase to produce innovative, creative and quality product design. This framework is useful as a guide for teachers to standardize product design concept and to assist Malaysian design and technology trainee teachers in producing a quality product design. Finally, this research proposes a conceptual framework based on our propositions. The proposed quality product design framework is beneficial to be used as a guideline for the Malaysian Technical Teacher Training Institute and policy makers to enhance the skills in the development of a quality product.

SS23. Outcome of an Off-the-Shelf Device for Treating Juxtarenal Aneurysm: Lessons From the Ventana Trial

Treatment of juxtarenal and short-neck infrarenal aneurysms can be successfully performed with fenestrated endografts. Our objective in this report was to summarize an initial experience with an “off-the-shelf” fenestrated technology and to inform vascular specialists about the outcomes for these patients following a decision to halt enrollment in the trial related to concerns regarding endograft performance. There were 125 patients treated at 27 institutions as part of an initial feasibility and pivotal trial designed to assess the safety, feasibility, and performance of an endograft designed to treat juxtarenal and pararenal aneurysms without the need for patient-specific customization of the endograft. Patient anatomy was not amenable to therapy with standard infrarenal endografts and was assessed by a core laboratory and independent physician for appropriateness of application of this novel technology. Patients were assessed in the hospital and at 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months and annually thereafter with computed tomography and physical examination, with core laboratory evaluation of imaging studies for assessment of renal artery status, device integrity, endoleak, device migration, and aneurysm size and morphology. Early data with this graft revealed a high rate of technical success (98%) and low perioperative mortality (1%) and renal failure (4.8%). Procedural technical success was 97%. Mean follow-up is now 42.9 months for patients in pilot and feasibility trials outside the United States and 39.8 months for those patients enrolled in the pivotal trial in the United States. Whereas freedom from rupture has been high both outside the United States and in the United States, reintervention has been necessary for renal issues (29% in the United States, 21% outside the United States) and endoleak (9.2% in the United States, 25% outside the United States) at a rate higher than anticipated. Aneurysm-related death has occurred in three patients (2.4%) during follow-up. Off-the-shelf technology with early cannulation of the renal arteries and single-system deployment for delivery of aortic and branch devices allows simple, quick device deployment. However, long-term success of this type of device will require significant modifications to the system to allow reduced need for secondary intervention and improved long-term device performance.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives and its impact on social license: some empirical perspectives

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the driving forces of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence organizations’ “license to operate” using data from the Ghanaian business environment.Design/methodology/approachThis study used purposive sampling with a well-structured questionnaire as a data collection tool. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to study the driving forces of CSR initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence their social license.FindingsThe findings indicate that CSR initiatives are driven by the normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures. The regulative pressure has no significant effect on CSR initiatives. The authors found no difference between the services and the manufacturing sectors as far as the results are concerned using multi-grouping analysis.Research limitations/implicationsFrom the results, the importance of normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures as the driving forces of CSR are established. The finding indicates that CSR demands by suppliers, customers the extent to which organizations perceive their competitors have benefited from initiating CSR are benefiting, the willingness of investors to invest in companies whose CSR activities are best and the opinion on the extent to which the District Assembly and the Chief Executive in the district, the Chiefs, the Churches, the Opinion leaders have significant impact on CSR initiatives.Practical implicationsThe results indicate the need for suppliers and customers to continually demand from corporations to initiate CSR activities as organizations seem to respond to these pressures, and these initiatives are also likely to be mimicked by other organizations in the same industry to enable this drive the social responsibility agenda. Investors and community members are also encouraged to invest and accept, respectively, organizations with very good CSR records to send a signal to companies who see CSR as a cost instead of performance enhancement.Originality/valueThe work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area of CSR from a developing country’s environment. This is also one of the few works that investigate the driving forces of CSR and social license using the institutional theory based on data from the African business environment.

Kano Questionnaire for the assessment of product attributes of alternative power plants in Kuala sub-district.

Facing the challenge of increasing energy reserve, it is necessary to use other energy sources to replace the use of oil and fossil energy, which are clean, environmentally friendly and sustainable as long as the environmental condition of the geology and hydrology were maintained. Geographical, geological and natural conditions of Langkat regency have an enormous potential to be used as new energy sources, such as the sunlight, wind gusts, and river flow. This resources can be utilized as an electrical energy. This study is to propose an alternative energy-based on the power generation product. A questionnaire as a survey tool was used using Kano model to gain the information of customer need. As a result, according to the Kano analysis shows that the price attribute of the generator was in the attractive category. Meanwhile, the durability and ease of operation were included in the one dimensional, and aesthetic was the indifferent category.

THE EVALUATION OF THE BUSINESS PLAN OF UNIVERSITY ALUMNI USING CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT MINDSET CONCEPT

In the past, producers think only about the outcome of production, however, producers began to shift, as the need of customers must be in line with the purpose of the product or service that is produced. This phenomenon enables product and service suppliers to obtain new opportunities from the unfulfilled wants and needs of customers. One of the mindsets that can help excelling a business and controls business projects is continuous improvement mindset, which is a continuous revision of the operational activity of a business that can be implemented with the resources that the business owns. This study identified the effect of continuous improvement mindset on the business of alumni of University A located in Surabaya and University B located in Yogyakarta based on the teaching pattern that is received by the alumni. Data collection was done using interviews with alumni business. There is a similarity in continuous improvement mindset behavior between alumni of Universities A and B. Continuous improvement mindset is still implemented by both alumni from both universities. The research findings showed that the education in each study program and entrepreneurship teaching are interconnected. The control over alumni’s business project is positively impacting with the implementation of continuous improvement mindset. The implemented control can impact sales, operational system and the increase of customer service

The influence of customer characteristics on frontline employees’ customer need knowledge

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the influence of individual customer characteristics on frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer need knowledge (CNK), a construct that objectively measures FLEs’ ability to accurately identify a given customer’s hierarchy of needs.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses hierarchical data involving the customer and bank advisor levels in the banking sector of three European countries. The matched sample consisted of 1,166 customers and 332 employees. To account for the nested structure of the data, the study used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) using HLM software.FindingsThe results show that customers’ financial experience and risk aversion positively influence CNK and customer-perceived responsibility for the service outcome negatively impacts CNK. The results further show the impact of individual customer cultural values on CNK, which can be influenced by customer-oriented employee training. Cross-level interaction effects indicate that training measures can reverse negative influences of customers’ high power distance and uncertainty avoidance on CNK, whereas for customers characterized by high long-term orientations, training measures can backfire.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research on the antecedents of FLEs’ CNK by examining the currently overlooked influence of individual customer characteristics that are pertinent to the employee–customer interaction process. The study reveals customer characteristics as a new area of antecedents influencing FLEs’ accurate perceptions of customer needs.

Modelling Fault Detection Using SRGM in Agile Environment and Ranking of Models

Today's software applications deployed in an enterprise to cater to the complex business processes, integrate various business units and address requirements of a global customer base. The traditional methodology of software engineering succumbs to the changing need of customer and technology advancement. On the behest of the customer, a software system should be designed in a way that it goes in concert with the present user needs. Agile methodology targets complex systems with its iterative, incremental, and evolutionary approach. There are numerous factors attributing towards the successful implementation of agile methodology. This led to adopting an approach of agile based on ‘lean' principles over the traditional software development life cycle (SDLC) approach. Collaborative work is done with the project team on a priority list. The implementation is done through “SCRUM” an empirical framework for learning. It has multiple sprints which are deliverable products. This idea has substantially reduced the ‘time to market' as the customer can decide which features of the software they would like to be delivered on a priority basis. To model trends of fault detection in each sprint, a growth model of software reliability is used. This research article presents a framework to analyze and measure the cumulative errors in an Agile Testing Process, the authors have applied modeling on various SRGMs to prove acceptability in an agile development process and finally compares these models using the Mahalanobis Distance Formula for Model ranking. The Mahalanobis distance criteria is easy to compute and that can be utilized to get the ranks and select the best model in view of an arrangement of contributing criteria.

Integrated manufacturing system framework for sustainable maritime tourism

The opportunity to bring a new product in the market has been understood as the key value to win the global competition. To offer a different product, several steps should be taken such as identify the customer need or wants, analyze the product value, knowing the supply chain, producing the innovation and feel the market sustainability. These steps are taken as a part of value chain analysis.Water resource is limited for certain area especially in coastal line that we called maritime area. Fresh water are widely taken to support the production process to be the raw material or supporting production activities. The option of bringing fresh water from other area is the common and easiest way. This, however, should be accompanied with the alternative method such as the use of rain water preservation. Surabaya has a significant development for its infrastructure and willing to a city with sustainable maritime tourism. A sustainable life style would be strongly beneficiary for achieving best long term benefit.To integrate all the factors, the purpose of this research is about building a comprehensive strategy to perform necessary value chain analysis and to mandatory water management action as the community way of life. Thus, a sustainable maritime tourism concept can be designed based on choosing the right product, selecting the necessary process and designing the proper water management. An ultimate and sustainable method and design can be produced for the community.

Novel green supplier selection method by combining quality function deployment with partitioned Bonferroni mean operator in interval type-2 fuzzy environment

Green supplier selection (GSS) plays a significant role in promoting enterprise development. Quality function deployment (QFD) ensures that green supplier assessment criteria are in accordance with the characteristics that purchased products ought to possess. The partitioned Bonferroni mean (PBM) operator assumes that all criteria are partitioned into several clusters, where criteria in the same clusters are interrelated, while criteria in different clusters are irrelevant, and it can be used to deal with GSS problems in which all criteria are partitioned into several clusters. Furthermore, interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs) can efficiently express vagueness and imprecision, and possess powerful processing abilities. In this paper, we propose a novel GSS method by combining QFD with the PBM operator in the context of IT2FSs. Firstly, we present the interval type-2 fuzzy PBM (IT2FPBM) operator and interval type-2 fuzzy weighted PBM (IT2FWPBM) operator, and discuss several of their properties. Thereafter, we transform the preference values of the importance degrees of customer needs (CNs) into those of technical criteria (TC) through the relationships between CNs and TC, based on QFD. Moreover, the criteria are partitioned on the basis of the literature review on GSS criteria. Finally, a bike-share case is used to illustrate the applicability of the presented method, and various comparisons are used to display the superiority of the presented method.

The adaptation possibilities of sustainable production system best practices to the Hungarian rural environment : Case study of an energy production business model

The current paper describes a business model that contributes to people’s self-sufficiency in the field of energy production. The current society is in a position to depend on decision makers and companies in terms of used energy resources and their prices. Though renewable energies have become popular lately, many people face obstacles in order to employ them. The aim of the research is to introduce a business model which answers this customer need and could be interpreted to different economic circumstances. The presented business model has been elaborated according to the recent Dutch business environment as a green entrepreneurial start[1]up. This study deliberately avoids the detailed description of the business plan and rather highlights the core concept based on business modelling principles. This form of demonstration equips future entrepreneurs to adapt the model to certain conditions. The main message of this article is the matching pain-gain relations of certain social groups. On one hand, the local communities seeking to go energy independent. On the other hand, people who would like to conduct impact investment.

A framework with hybrid approach to analyse system requirements of smart PSS toward customer needs and co-creative value propositions

Smart product-service system (PSS) has been transcending scope of traditional PSS and can be characterized as value co-creation business strategy. This article aims to propose a framework with hybrid approach to capture and evaluate conceptual factors of smart PSS in fuzzy front end. According to service logic that is one of value co-creation paradigms, conceptual factors can be divided into customer needs (CNs) as customer problems to be solved, co-creative value propositions (CVPs) as mutual benefits and system requirements (SRs) as abstract solutions, which just match with three spheres of customer, joint and provider in service logic, respectively. Particularly, CVPs on smart PSS are captured from various interactions in its sequence diagram. As means-end chain theory, three types of conceptual factors for smart PSS are formed into multi-hierarchy network structure, and they are evaluated through a hybrid approach integrating fuzzy DEMATEL, modified-ANP and fuzzy TOPSIS. As a result, SRs prioritization is derived to give support to conceptual design of smart PSS. Sensitivity analysis also is conducted to test reliability of SRs prioritization. Finally, an illustrative case study of smart fridge-service system (SFSS) is demonstrated along this proposed methodological framework.

A case study of hotel frontline employees' customer need knowledge relating to value co-creation

Abstract Based on the value co-creation perspective, this research explores the antecedents of customer need knowledge from perspectives of employees and customers. Furthermore, the role of customer need knowledge in the value co-creation process is explored. Data from the five hotels include customers in different categories and frontline service employees doing different jobs. With support from the managers of five hotels, paired-questionnaire data (an employee with a customer) were collected. In the end, there were 342 usable matched customer-employee questionnaires. SEM shows accumulating customer need knowledge, CNK, was fostered by employee adaptability (EA) and customer participation (CP) and CNK caused employee relational value (ERV) and customer relational value (CRV). This research provides evidence a better service performance is the result of the interactions between employees and customers. However, consider the guidance that hotels should educate and motivate their frontline employees through job training and incentives so that employees can be and are willing to be more flexible in dealing with various situations. This study makes a theoretical contribution to the hospitality literature by providing findings on the antecedents of frontline employees' customer need knowledge in high-star rated hotels.

Customer involvement in big data analytics and its impact on B2B innovation

Extant literature assumes that customers mainly serve as passive data providers and that firms take responsibility for big data analytics. In line with a current trend in real-world practice, this research, based on the open innovation literature, challenges this assumption and argues that customers can have more engagement in big data analytics. The authors distinguish two constructs: Customer as Data Provider (CDP) and Customer as Data Analyst (CDA). The former is consistent with the mainstream view that customers serve as the data source. The latter, on the other hand, sheds light on an active role customers play in big data analytics – that is, customers participate in a co-creation process where they acquire, analyze and act on big data. Using survey data of 148 Business-to-Business (B2B) innovation projects, the authors find that both types of customer involvement facilitate B2B product innovation. Furthermore, the authors examine moderation effects of customer need tacitness and customer need diversity. Results show that customer need tacitness negatively moderates the relationship between CDP and new product performance while customer need diversity yields a positive moderation effect. Customer need tacitness is also found to positively moderate the relationship between CDA and new product performance.

Safety of Photovoltaic Installations and Analysis of the Costs of Using Photovoltaic Panels Producing Energy for the Needs of Customers in Central Poland

Abstract The article discusses the general problem of the use of renewable energy in Poland. The boundary conditions justifying the economic basis for the construction of photovoltaic power plants producing energy for the own needs of customers were determined. The research method uses a standard model of cash flows where revenues are avoided costs of purchase and distribution of energy due to the production of electricity from PV for own needs. The article also presents technical aspects related to the construction of photovoltaic micro-installations. Particular attention has been paid to the protection of photovoltaic installations, the hazards resulting from the operation of photovoltaic installations, and health and safety at work during design and implementation.

The mechanism and boundary conditions of the relationship between customer incivility and service quality

AbstractThis study addresses the causal linkage between customer incivility and service quality through the lens of self-determination theory, according to which need satisfaction as a potential mechanism mediates this relationship. Additionally, it examines the moderating role of surface acting in the relationship between customer incivility and need satisfaction. Dyadic questionnaires were collected from restaurant employees and their customers in Taiwan. A total of 190 employees and 645 customers participated in this study. Results found that need satisfaction mediates the negative relationship between customer incivility and service quality. Surface acting moderates the relationship between customer incivility and need satisfaction as well as the mediation effect of customer incivility on service quality through need satisfaction. Specifically, the indirect effect of need satisfaction on the relation between customer incivility and service quality creativity was more significantly negative at a high level of surface acting than the effect at a low level.

Instructors for on-the-job training of advanced paramedics - definition of competencies and development of a quality management tool for a "High Responsibility Organization".

Objective: The psychological demands placed upon the emergency medical services, assures them of their place amongst High Responsibility Organizations. A high pressure to act and an irreversibility of situations are integral features of their workplaces. After the emergency services’ job profiles were restructured in Germany, the practical stage of paramedic training is now undertaken in these conditions. That is, they are trained by a supervising instructor whilst caring for critically ill patients. This paper aims to describe the requisite skills for such an instructor, formulate the associated competences as learning objectives, and develop a quality-measuring instrument for the description of training situations.Methods: The compilation of a competence catalogue was done via a two-step process: following a Delphi survey with an expert panel of practical trainers and trainees, a large cohort of parameters were validated in terms of their relevance. Those factors that formed scales together were identified.Results: After validating the results of the Delphi analysis, six scales (composed of 25 items in toto) were defined. They included the areas of "Training during times of action", "Training during periods of calm", "Background and practical relevance", "Character and personality traits", "Pedagogical competencies" and "Organizational behaviour".Conclusion: For the first time, a competency catalogue has been developed for instructors working in the emergency medical services from German-speaking countries. The catalogue focuses upon clinical training during the acute care of critically ill patients. The scales and items can be used for training-the-trainers, and also quality monitoring. Further research needs to focus on the application of the catalogue in clinical practice and evaluate the need for situational customization.

Application of quality function deployment for the prioritization of National Board of Accreditation quality parameters

PurposeOwing to high competition in education sector, quality in education has become utmost important criteria to deliver better education service. For this purpose, it is required to monitor the quality of education. This paper aims to prioritize National Board of Accreditation (NBA) quality parameters in engineering education as per student’s needs using quality function deployment (QFD).Design/methodology/approachThis study is conducted among students of an institute of National importance in three stages. Stage 1 involves conducting interview with 23 students to find the student’s requirement from an institute. Further Stage 2 involves importance rating collection through questionnaire survey method. In this stage, 228 students have given a rating of each student’s requirement. Finally, Stage 3 involves establishing correlation between student’s requirement and NBA quality parameters that has been done by 20 academic experts and finally making a QFD matrix for ranking of each NBA quality parameter.FindingsThe result of the study first indicates that among all students’ requirements, job-oriented requirement is the most important need, and ergonomics-based requirement is the least important need of students. Further, to fulfill their needs, an institute has to focus on each NBA quality parameter. But among all NBA quality parameters, student’s performance is highly desirable quality parameter.Practical implicationsThis study will help top management of engineering institutions in making better policies and strategies for preparing their quality framework. These strategies will indirectly fulfill the customer needs that help in attracting more number of students toward those institutes.Originality/valueIn India, NBA is one of the leading bodies that monitor the quality of education. On the other hand, the institution has to satisfy the need of customer of education sector; therefore, prioritization of NBA quality parameter as per student’s need is one of the important needs that will help engineering institution to focus on a certain parameter to get a good quality certificate and also attract a number of meritorious students.

A new heuristic scheduling method for the make-pack-route problem in make-to-order supply chains

To cater to the growing personalized need of customers, increasingly more make-to-order distribution centers consider a two-phase production (i.e. raw material granulation and order packaging) process when making production and routing decisions, especially for time-sensitive commodities. In this article, we extend the production routing problem to the make-pack-route problem (MPRP) to devise production and routing schedules that allow for flexible order composition and ensure in-time delivery. To solve the MPRP, we propose an iterative sequential scheduling heuristic embedded with the local search, which sequentially solves the three corresponding scheduling problems and improves the overall schedule in an iterative manner. Our numerical studies verify that our method can solve practically meaningful instances (e.g. up to 200 orders and 30 items) in an acceptable time duration (i.e. 1 hour). Our studies show an average 11.6% reduction in the total processing cost compared to an ad hoc scheduling method commonly used in practice. Our studies also suggest that our solution method saves more costs with more orders, higher order variety and larger average commodity quantity and variety in each order.

Assessing the Impact of Service Level When Customer Needs Are Uncertain: An Empirical Investigation of Hospital Step-Down Units

Many service systems have servers with different capabilities and customers with varying needs. One common way this occurs is when servers are hierarchical in their skills or in the level of service they can provide. Much of the literature studying such systems relies on an understanding of the relative costs and benefits associated with serving different customer types by the different levels of service. In this work, we focus on estimating these costs and benefits in a complex healthcare setting where the major differentiation among server types is the intensity of service provided. Step-down units (SDUs) were initially introduced in hospitals to provide an intermediate level of care for semicritically ill patients who are not sick enough to require intensive care but not stable enough to be treated in the general medical/surgical ward. One complicating factor is that the needs of customers is sometimes uncertain—specifically, it is difficult to know a priori which level of care a particular patient needs. Using data from 10 hospitals from a single hospital network, we take a data-driven approach to classify patients based on severity and empirically estimate the clinical and operational outcomes associated with routing these patients to the SDU. Our findings suggest that an SDU may be a cost-effective way to treat patients when used for patients who are post-ICU (intensive care unit). However, the impact of SDU care is more nuanced for patients admitted from the emergency department and may result in increased mortality risk and hospital length of stay for patients who should be treated in the ICU. Our results imply that more study is needed when using SDU care this way. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.